If you are a beginner or a serious amateur, forums are a great place to learn more about photography, post images for peer reviews, and otherwise learn about different equipment options and suggestions from a world-wide community of photographers.

There are literally hundreds of forums available.  They range from association forums, like the PPA’s (Professional Photographers of America) online community to consumer labs, such as Mpix.com, which hosts forums for their users.  This article will explore some of the more popular forums out there, and more importantly, point you to places where you can find the right forum for your needs.

A brief history of forums.  Bulletin board systems have been around since the early days of the internet as a way of exchanging information.  They were called Usenet groups and there have always been an active photography area called alt.photography.  As the internet has progressed and moved to the web (it was once all text-only), the Usenet groups spawned into forums, and those forums have been able to add a lot more features than just words.  Most will let you post images online or put links in messages to your work or reference work.  They can be very dynamic and great places to research or learn about the latest trends in photography.

There is a general caveat about forums that all users should understand.  Forums are highly democratic and anyone can post with the appearance of authority.  Rarely if ever should you take one opinion on anything.  When the subject deals with facts, do yourself a favor and do a quick Google search to verify anything.  Otherwise, assume information is rumor. 

Digital Photography Review (http://www.dpreview.com/forums) is one of the largest forums for photographers out there, covering a huge inventory of topics.  How big is DPR?  Their topic on Canon digital SLRs runs to over 1 million messages.  All are searchable in their database, so it would be difficult to think that you couldn’t find something in DPR.  This is pretty much an equipment only discussion, as equipment is what DPR reviews and talks about.  It’s an excellent place to start learning about equipment, or posting your own situation and hearing from others.  Most of their reviews are quite qualified.

Another great site is Flickr’s forums (www.flickr.com/groups).  Flickr is an online photo sharing site, and can be accessed by signing up with Flickr or using a Yahoo password.  Unlike DPR which centers on equipment, Flickr tends to focus more on technique and style.  There are very active groups discussing everything from cross processing negatives to travel photography and digital imaging.  There are even topics such as ‘ugly postcards’ and other interesting oddities.  This is a good site to play more towards your creative side.

Another great site is PhotoSIG (www.photosig.com).  PhotoSIG has been around for a few years and has a very unique system for grading photographs.  You have the opportunity to post images online and have it reviewed by a wide range or peers.  This is really it’s primary purpose, to post and review photographs.  They are based on an honor system, and your abilities to upload images depends on a few things. One is by writing enough reviews of other photographer’s work.  The goal of the site is to have at least three meaningful reviews of every image posted (they even have a list of ‘neglected’ images to encourage the three reviews).  Another way is to buy a subscription.  There are also how-to articles written by other photographers and forums as well to discuss things in general.

Whether you are looking for technical advise, inspiration on a more artistic level, or direct feedback on images you’ve taken, there is a online photographic community waiting for you.  There are also forums and groups within a lot of other photographic sites.  These include associations, printing labs and especially photography publications.  Start with these three, though, and you’ll be very well on your way into the wider online photographic community.

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Terry Michael started working with a photojournalist while in high school, and over the years has worked for a variety of national media clients, including AOL and NBC. He currently operates a studio in New York that specializes in wedding and fine art photography. His work
has been shown in galleries throughout the northeast, and he has also been featured on the television series "Whose Wedding is it Anyway?" which airs on the Style Network.