The Photo Meme Hall of Shame

Who Do You Love?

2009-03-11T12:50:00.002+11:00

If Jafar Shameen knew the trouble we were going through to make this POST he'd love US.

The Nasty Little Secret of the Photo Meme Hall of Shame is that We Your Noisy AND ANONYMOUS Upstairs Neighbors, in our REAL lives as the heads of the Bill and Melinda Gates Charitable Foundations end up using more than one Google Account.

And apparently in Google's never ending miserable and puny attempts to bring down our massive monopolistic empire they have made it difficult for us to switch from one account to the next...

What what else can we do?

Use Hotmail? BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... yeah riiiiiight.

*ahem*

Where were we?

Yes.... Who Do You Love?

Jafar Shameen has sensed a weakness in the Force and has decided to shore it up with his new WEDNESDAY photomeme Who Do You Love?

We love the day, we love the title, we love his template, and dare we say, we love him.

Mostly because he consulted us early in his project in a way that warmed our cold little hearts and made us wish we actually had traffic to deliver to his little endeavor.

But also because we love that it makes us thing of the cool Bo Diddley song and shows us that the photomeme as we know it is not dead.

GO DO IT! WHO DO YOU LOVE?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! Two for Tuesday....

2009-02-26T04:48:00.007+11:00

That is us exhaling out all the air in the Photo Meme Hall of Shame that we have been holding since Tuesday Challenge went on hiatus.

It's STILL on but we have heard from a direct source that the issues REMAIN temporary adn as soon as things are back on track Tuesday Challenge will return.

The reasons we are letting out our breath is because there is a NEW Tuesday Photomeme.

Introducing TWO4TUESDAY

We don't know the lovely Chad Johnson but he seems sincere and has a very nice little photomeme up and running already. You can get in on the initial week until next Tuesday when it kicks off officially.

We also had the following notes tied to rocks and throw through our windows...

From the lovely Jeroen: "Come on. 3 months is silence?"

Dear Jeroen: Yes, we were holding our breath.

And from Mike: "It's a shame you guys don't have something better to do with your time. B ut whatever floats your boat."

Dear Mike: Tell us about it.

THIS JUST IN! Re: Tuesday Challenge

2008-10-08T01:48:00.002+11:00

When we awoke we found this tied to a rock and thrown through our window!

Hello folks

Firstly an Apology - I'm sorry that Tuesday Challenge has been off the radar for a while!Now an explanation - There has been an admin issue which popped up between myself and the server hosting company. Sadly, instead of talking to me about it and trying to sort out the problem, they just deleted the site from the server instead! This has made it a little harder to bring back to life and I've also been away on business which hasn't helped.BUT, We do hope to have Tuesday Challenge back up and running, maybe with a change to the theme system what I'd been considering for a while and possibly with a new look ( although don't hold me to that).But it WILL BE BACK, soon, ish!

Meanwhile, thank you to those that visit regularly and I hope you'll rejoin us again!

Chris / Bambography(50% of the Tuesday Challenge team)

All of this can only mean one thing. They've been drinking, were arrested in Malibu California for operating a motor vehicle whilst intoxicated, cell phone video recorded and making racist and anti-Semitic rants, and are now in Rehab but look forward to restarting Tuesday Challenge once they've dried out!

How do we know this? It is what happens to us when WE disappear for a while. Now we have to try to rehire 2 lap dancers for the Bretton Woods Photo Meme Summit and Yard Sale.

Mr. Steve Barru: Our Man in China!

2008-10-06T09:06:00.004+11:00

We have always enjoyed Steve Barru's photos of China when submitted to the Photo Memes but we knew nothing about him. He doesn't do self portraits, doesn't talk about himself much on his photoblog, it's nearly wordless (As so many SHOULD be).

When we inquired about a possible visit and tour of the Orients he pulled the oldest trick in the book AND USED OUR SECRET CODE INDICATING THE HE KNEW OUR REAL IDENTITIES AS THE HEADS OF THE BILL AND MELINDA GATES CHARITABLE FOUNDATION! Sneaky bugger. He maintains it was coincidence.

So, without further ado...

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I'm a guy. Not a boy or a woman or a man or a pit bull. I don't wear lipstick, except maybe at Halloween. I came to China in 1987 to study Chinese and have been here ever since. People often ask me why anyone in his right mind would stay in a place like this for so many years. It's a good question, the answer to which is embedded within the question (hint: in his right mind).

First, I studied Chinese, then I became a part time English teacher in order to have time to study some more. These days I am back to being an English teacher again. In between, I started and ran a consulting company which tried to help non-Chinese figure out things about China, ran an international chamber of commerce, was on the board of an international school, worked for some architects.

While I have lived comfortably here, it is safe to say none of these endeavors has made me well off or even close to it. I am teflon coated when it comes to money. Well, what is one with such a resume to do? In my case, I have set my sights on being a professional interviewee when I grow up (which is going to be no time soon). And, thus, here I am.

Do you know Kerrin? (Don't tell us who else you know, if you catch our drift)

I most certainly do not know Kerrin. Should I? Do you? I don't know Jon Stewart either, but I still think he is very funny.

What are you wearing?

Almost nothing. Sort of puke green boxers and a big black tee shirt (no text, pictures or message of any kind), which does a less than successful job of concealing my even bigger mid section.

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

You can see my photos on my website (http://stevebarru.com/) and that's about it. Please visit. Please. Did I remind you to please visit my website...?

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I like building plastic models of WWII weapons and equipment. A Chinese friend of mine recently expressed dismay that a going on 60 year old adult would enjoy doing such a thing. If you share his dismay, all I can do is refer you back to my remark about growing up in the first section of this interview.

After many years in China, laughing and/or weeping at the Commies and their despicable Party has also become something of a pastime. Given a chance, I will hold forth on almost any topic, whether I know anything or not. I'm not sure people who know me would refer to this as a hobby.

What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

I've been using Nikon cameras since day one. In fact I still have my first real camera, a Nikon F which I bought in 1968. I'm using a Nikon D200 these days with a Sigma 18-200mm lens, no stabilization. The Sigma was less than half the price of the Nikon 18-200 and I have no regrets that I saved the money. It's a terrific lens attached to a great camera.

Right now I'm waiting for Nikon to bring a mid range full sensor camera to market and go head to head with the Canon 5D. The D3 is too expensive and too heavy for an old fart like me.

What is the best photo that you missed?

When I first came to China I took thousands of photos, on film in those days. And then several years went by during which I took next to no pictures. Hard to say which of the missed shots would have been the best one, but I certainly regret my stupidity for putting the camera down.

Tell us your worst habit.

Never do today what can be put off until tomorrow. Need I say more?

Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from railroad tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.

I campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in Wisconsin in 1968. Later I was tear gassed during Viet Nam demonstrations in Washington DC. Does any of this count?

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

These days I am an English teacher. As gigs go, this is not a bad one - low stress, a reasonable amount of free time and some money on top of that. What would I do if I could? Travel to all of the places I want to go but have never had the time or money to visit. The list is very long. Although it doesn't count, I would take pictures in all of these places.

Do you wear glasses? If so, describe them, if not, why not? Don't you like glasses?

Anything less than 6 feet away is nothing but a blur, so you'd better believe I wear glasses. I'm not one of those people who has something against glasses. What I want to know is what all of those people wearing contacts have against glasses.

What, you want a description too? Well, they're cheap, my glasses that is. The kind of reading glasses you buy off the shelf in Target (I don't know about you, but I haven't set foot in a Walmart in years, the evil slime bags. Can I count this as heroic?)

What did you have for breakfast?

A bowl of warm tofu covered with a sort of pork gravy and pickled cabbage. I'm serious.

Tell us something else!

Not only are the Olympics over. Yes! Finally! But on September 20 all restrictions on driving in Beijing ended. So thousands of Chinese yuppies can once again hop in their cars at will and sit in traffic polluting the already abysmally polluted Beijing air. Hurrah!

Now FLEE Hall of Shamers and Agents of Change and bask in all that is Mr Steve Barru and his outsider/insider guide to all things China and Photobloggish. But don't forget to always use your Photo Meme Hall of Shame ISP Anonymizer and Juicer so that when he sees no addtional traffic, HE'LL KNOW IT'S YOU!

OH! THE HALL!

2008-10-06T08:35:00.005+11:00

We, your noisy upstairs neighbors, found ourselves one day with an exceedingly large amount of time which we were using for monitor the financial markets, the US Elections, learn new languages, clean the Loft of Love, do up our Christmas Cards, ring up old chums, volunteer to help dullards read, raise chickens, March for Tibet and we wondered why we had not been doing this all along.

Then in panic, it occured to us.

THE HALL! NO ONE HAS BEEN MINDING THE HALL!

We were recently in the Orient for the Olympics being shown around China and Outer Mongolia with your noisy upstairs neighbor's good friend Mr Steve Barru.

Then we turned up like bad pennies at Black Rock City for Burning Man and thought we'd try shaming 'art' installations.

Setting up a trampoline for every gold spray painted, dust covered topless tart to bounce around on in the desert wiond is not what we'd call 'art' though we do enjoy it tremoundously (sic).

Just as we were about the be chased out for trying to set the Burning Man on fire early so we could leave, we ran into your noisy upstairs neighbor's OTHER good friend, Mr Iron Flatline.

The World, She eez so big and so leetle at the same time.

So we've given up all the rest and show you you, this we found tied to a rock and thrown through our window...

Photo Friday- Extraordinary
Maile Lani http://emptycrowdedroom.com/empty/index.php?showimage=133 (Man with finger in air)

CharlesFuller http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlesfuller/2811937570/ (Man drinking orange juice in front of corn)

Blursurfing http://www.blursurfing.com/index.php?showimage=123 (girl with purse)

No Hitter! http://flickr.com/photos/stevemccoy/2859475839/in/set-72157607307657551/ (group hug)

Balloon Clown http://f128.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/balloon-animal-clown/ (err...Balloon clown)

That's all for the moment. Hey. Has Tuesday Challenge died again? - Agent T

Upon checking it does appear that Tuesday Challenge is on the fritz which means we'll have 2 fewer members at the upcoming Annual Bretton Woods Photomeme Moderator Summit. What does that mean to you? Nothing! To us? Two unclaimed lap dancers!

There is something difficult about Tuesdays. Maybe it's Monday. PhotoFrank from Photoschau and all points German used to own the day until he gave it up for other pursuits like a life and handed it off to a couple of Brits where it has sat until, seemingly, they gave up running a photomeme for a life, also. We hope this trend doesn't continue. Or maybe they are copying PhotoSharks who takes unexplained weeks off at a time only to come back like they weren't caught with their knickers down.

Much like us.

Well...except for the life part.

A Postcard from our Hols!

2008-07-22T10:56:00.002+10:00

This forwarded to us as it was tied to a rock and thrown through our windows and retied with twine and boxed and sent my Arvin to our summer home in Mumbai

"Look, I understand that English isn't the first language of many of the meme participants, but seriously, use a dictionary.

Here is Dictionary.com's definition of a condiment:"something used to give a special flavor to food, as mustard, ketchup, salt, or spices."

Here is the American Heritage dictionary's definition of a condiment:"A substance, such as a relish, vinegar, or spice, used to flavor or complement food."

Maybe some translation services inaccurately define a condiment as "food."

Maybe there's some obscure Brittanic definition of "condiment" that I'm not aware of.

But unless you're sprinkling coffee grounds on your food... or maybe putting cookies on your frankfurters... or best of all, flavoring your food with A WALL... I'm not getting it.

End rant."

We used to tease young Carlo Ferroni for getting all hot and bothered about people posting non-macros at Macroday, not because it was wrong, but because it was OUR job to get hot and bothered for posting inappropriately.

As we have gotten older (And by God have we gotten older) we get less fired up then we used to because (And by God BECAUSE) people are just stupid gits.

Or speak a language other than the one the photomeme rules are written in.

Macroday should be relatively straightforward but Shutterday with that wordy git Homer Laffoone is a nightmare. The downside to all this is that it explains why the most successful photomemes have one word or two themes and thus barely rise to the level of 'challenges'

Does anyone besides us NOT KNOW what's happened to Photosharks? We sorta liked it because it had that cool _/)_ fing thing or whateverit was. If anyone knows. Mail us!

Gits with Shows

2008-06-10T10:13:00.003+10:00

Found this morning on the Bare Mattress of Love was this tied to a rock and thrown threw the window:

Greetings MemeShame + MemeMonitor,

Once again I have three photos in the upcoming group show at The Center.

The opening is this Thursday, June 12th from 6pm to 8pm.

I hope to see you there! — Tom Giebel

As We See It
Fourth Annual Photography Exhibition
June 9 - August 21, 2008
Opening reception: Thursday, June 12, 2008, 6-8 pm at The Center, 208 West 13th Street (between 7th and 8th) in NYC.

View the Show Online

If any of you other gits have shows that you know we can't attend because of the disturbance we caused LAST time, mock us by sending an invitation like our friend, young Atomische.

And remember, if you click any links from here be sure to use your super secret IP Photo Meme Hall of Shame Anonymizer and Breath Deodorizer so that when people see no traffic and smell no foul breath - THEY WILL KNOW IT'S YOU!

The Good News and the Bad

2008-05-28T11:29:00.000+10:00

We have several items of Good News and a couple of Items of Bad.

Let us start with the Good so that the pain of the Bad lingers!

Good news: We are BACK! We know, we are here, then there, then back, then away, thenover, then under, roly poly, pell mell. But this time we have a good reason and it's NOT THAT YOU HAVE BEEN GOOD GITS AND NOT POSTED CRAP TO THE MEMES! it's that we have added to our little brood. Bindi and Bobcat have a new baby sibling in Thrash, the Iron Baby. She looks disturbingly like Arvin, our driver, in the right light, but who says you can't hire good help these days?

Next Good News: A YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHER has achieved his YOUNG LIFE'S DREAM! Young ***NOAH*** from Photo Tuesday has expressly set his life goal to be FIRST on Photo Friday. Not after the winnings, but in the postings. JUST LIKE MANY OF YOU GITS! Well he achieved it this week. And congrats go to him.

MORE GOOD NEWS: YOUNG NOAH IS GETTING HIS FIRST (named) SHAMING! The Young Daft Git posted a photo of a Fountain for the theme "Difficult Shot." Our difficulty was trying to guess his. Maybe he was being chased! Maybe he was holding his camera upside down while standing on his head! Who knows? Surely not us. And mostly because we are tired from getting up all hours of the night and feeding Thrash more iron. We questioned many other of the difficult shots but chose to let Young Noah have his moment in the spotlight as his own.

You thought we were done but we have YET ANOTHER NUGGET OF GOOD NEWS: The delightful Thursday Photo Meme, Photosharks, has returned from in inexplicable one month absence. Maybe they also had an Iron Baby but had the dignity not to trumpet it.

Now the Bad News: Moody Monday is looking for help. We couldn't help but wonder if Moody Monday was on it's last legs. Site Owner Greg Tee reports he is looking for assistance with CSS and HTML. If anyone reading this know how to help or even what CSS or HTML means, email Greg and make fun of him because he didn't know something. (A nugget of Good News, Greg Tee also reports that the Meme Moderation is going to be a BIT more on track with themes and winners actually being chosen and the like....time will tell!)

THE WORST NEWS EVER followed by a revelation of GOOD NEWS: Your noisy upstairs neighbors will not be going to THIS years Euro Photoblogger's Meetup in Barcelona BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR! We had to skip Europe owing very largeHotel damages because VERNON TRENT and IRONFLATLINE LIES AND WE DID *NOT* have any goats in our room and besides if we did, they were just there as Service Animals....YES!!! They were Seeing Eye Goats!

The last bit of good news? The Hotel has agreed to put all of last years damage charges on Vernon Trent's American Express Black Card. Funny, we didn't even KNOW he was American.

And lastly...Happy birthday, Mememonitor, from your Memeshame.

The Occasional Odd Crop

2008-04-17T01:45:00.004+10:00

Several weeks ago we were sprawled out on the Bare Mattress of Love and going through some interviews that were ready for publication when we noticed that nothing in The One Eyed Man's interview matched anything we knew about him.

"Canada?" we said in unison, "We thought he lived in San Diego." We read on, "One eyed? We thought he had TWO eyes but was odd!"

It then hit us that we had confused our GITS!

We figured out what had confused is is that both titles are 4 words, start with The and have capital "O"s in them. That is enough to throw anyone. We also confused the two with The Wizard of Oz, and The Story of O.

Fortunately for us, and you, both gits are highly talented and active gits and they interview quite nicely although we can't speak for how they might clean up.

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I'm a print journalist, one of many editors at the big newspaper in San Diego, California. I make my living mostly by reading the news, rather than writing it. I have a lovely wife, who is a journalist and a painter and is far more interesting than I am, and a fluffy, off-white dog who is almost too joyful.

I've shot photos on and off for decades but didn't get serious about it until a couple of years ago. Once I bought a digital camera and didn't have to spend money on film or processing any more, I was off to the races. After seeing a few interesting photoblogs, Chromasia and Daily Dose of Imagery chief among them, I thought, "Hey, I could do that." So I did.

Do you know Kerrin? Do you know The One Eyed Man we are always confusing you with? ARE you The One Eyed Man We Are Always Confusing You With?

I don't know Kerrin. I've seen that question in your other interviews and have always wondered, sometimes for as long as a couple of seconds, just who Kerrin is.

I have seen The One Eyed Man's fine photoblog and am delighted that anyone would confuse us. Although no one has ever seen us in the same room, I can assure you that we *are* two different people.

What are you wearing?

The same cargo pants and brown sport shirt I wear at least once a week. A pair of sneakers that have nearly outlived their usefulness.

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

My handle is MarkDM in several places, including Flickr and JPG magazine. My Flickr photostream now includes a couple of videos, so some members of the site no doubt think I'm a minion of the Evil One.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdm/
JPG: http://jpgmag.com/people/MarkDM/

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I dabble in Web design. I designed and maintain my wife's site, DaniDodge.com. It shows her paintings and some of the stories she wrote when she was a reporter, including a bunch from Iraq near the beginning of the war (I told you she was more interesting than I am).

The bathroom scale tells me that I spend less time than I should on my bicycle, a 20-year-old Cannondale, but I still like to think of myself as a cyclist. I have the ugly shoes and lycra shorts to prove it.

That's about it, unless quoting dialogue from "The West Wing" whenever possible is a hobby. (I'll do that one time later in this interview; see if you can spot it.)

What's the coolest thing you've found and kept?

When I was growing up, my mom had a tiny, plastic figure of a construction worker on her desk. I never knew where it came from. It's about an inch tall, and the little man is sitting down, breaking for lunch maybe. After Mom died in 1996, I was going through some of her stuff, and I stumbled across the little construction guy. Now I keep it at my desk.

What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

The only camera I own is a Canon PowerShot A620, and it's fantastic. It's a point-and-shoot that fits into my pocket, but you can manually set the shutter speed, aperture and focus. The viewscreen swivels, allowing me to shoot photos of people without being incredibly obvious about it, and to shoot from angles that would otherwise be impossible. Also, it shoots decent video.

What is the best photo that you missed?

Man, there have been so many. The one that leaps to mind right now is from a couple of days ago: a guy dressed like a Prohibition-era gangster (wide-pinstripe suit, white fedora) standing on a street corner in San Diego's hip Hillcrest area. Maybe he was an actor, maybe he was best man in a cool wedding, but that dude looked sharp. He also looked about 18, which added some incongruity to the sight.

Tell us your worst habit.

No, I don't think I will. I'd hate to bore you. (Too late, I know.)

Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from railroad tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.

Never have. Bad timing, I guess. And all of my press clippings - from my T-ball exploits in Hastings, Nebraska, in 1970 - are lost to the ages, I'm afraid.

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

Professional travel writing would be fun. Covering New York City as a travel journalist would be fantastic.

Do you wear glasses? If so, describe them, if not, why not? Don't you like glasses?

I've worn glasses since fifth grade. (Actual quote from a friend on the first day I wore my hornrims to school: "They don't look too bad. Just ... terrible.") My current frames are oval, beat-up metal and about eight years old. The lenses are about five years old; the UV coating is pretty much shot.

What did you have for breakfast?

Trader Joe's vanilla-flavored cereal and orange juice. The orange juice wasn't vanilla flavored, just the cereal.

Anything else we should know?

If you do a Google search for "odd photo blogs," my photoblog comes in at Number 5. I'll always be proud of that.

His Blog and tagline:

The Occasional Odd Crop (http://dodgemedlin.blogspot.com): Photos of whatever catches my eye

Atomische is prounounced /Atomische/

2008-04-07T12:18:00.002+10:00

We recently sent out another interview request of a photoblogger who we used to like and damned if when we hit the little SEND button, that we didn't notice THEN that we had just emailed under our TRUE identities....aHA! You thought we would fall for that!? We will NEVER give out our true identities purposely but we WILL give you a hint that we are the joint heads of the Bill and Melinda Gates Charitable Foundations.

Anyway, after explaining to Tom Giebel of Atomische, and bribing him and then flashing him with one of those cool things we got from Tommy Lee Jones that erases your memory, we preceeded to interview one of our favorite photobloggers.

The First Interview of the Photomeme.net era.

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I am Tom, a 44-year old Brooklyn-ite from Wisconsin. During my first career (Librarian) I developed an obsessive compulsion to collect, document and catalog just about everything. But now I wander the neighborhoods of New York, camera in hand, collecting nothing but images. This photography-as-therapy not only helps me satisfy the need to make order from chaos, but also provides much-needed exercise and fresh air.

How do you say your name? Mememonitor says it's pronounced Uh-tom-i-shuh, Memeshame says it's pronounced Soo-zun.

Mememonitor is correct! I get asked about the name a lot, and now it can be told: I chose a random, exotic-sounding non-English word that started with 'A' in order to appear higher in alphabetical lists. Also it had my name in it. And the domain name was available.

Do you know Kerrin? How about neene? Are you her noisy next door neighbour?

Neene has left some lovely comments on my photoblog, but alas we've never met. I don't know Kerrin either.

What are you wearing?

Boxers AND briefs.

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

There aren't enough days in the year to post everything on my daily blog, so overflow gets uploaded to Flickr, Picasa and elsewhere on the net. I have some photos on Wikipedia (search for "hog oiler") and sometimes get featured on blogs like Gothamist. I'm currently putting together some images for a group show here in NYC.

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

Travel, nature hikes, science fiction, electronic music.

Coke or Pepsi, McDonalds or Burger King, chromasia or Durham Township?

Neither, neither, chromasia!

What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

My first SLR was the Canon AE-1. I learned f-stops and ASA with that camera, and have stuck with Canon ever since. Recently, after getting stuck chatting with someone on the street about the merits of Canon vs. Nikon, I blacked-out the logos on my camera with electrical tape. Within minutes of emerging from the subway with my newly generified equipment, I was snagged by an excited fellow who thought he'd spotted some obscure Russian brand he'd been searching for. Go figure.

What is the best photo that you missed?

Many times I pass up interesting shots of people out of fear of getting beaten. At a construction site recently I saw a several cement-trucks, waiting in line to pour their loads. I could clearly see one of the drivers intensely studying a magazine which, curiously enough, he was holding up sideways.

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

Some day I hope to create and run my own photomeme site. Everyone will be welcome to contribute, the memes will always be unique and inspiring, and the photographers will never just be looking to generate page views.

Do you wear glasses? If so, describe them, if not, why not? Don't you like glasses?

At the moment I'm wearing some rather expensive and powerful German spectacles, which I need to see the computer screen. They aren't compatible with my camera though (I tend to mash the viewfinder right up against my eye socket) so I wear contact lenses when shooting.

What did you have for breakfast? A palmful of almonds, a glass of juice, and 10 cups of coffee.

Anything else?

No, but I'll probably have an early lunch.

So flee, Agents, and check out young Tom's site and remember to always use your Photo Meme Hall of Shame Internet Anon-e-mizers and cloaking devices so that when he sees no increase in traffic, HE'LL KNOW IT'S YOU!

Introducing......

2008-04-06T14:14:00.002+10:00

PHOTOMEME.NET Your one-stop photomeme shop, brought to you by your noisy upstairs neighbours, Memes Monitor and Shame, Esqs.

That would be us.

"Why?" You ask? Well, we made so damned much money with our PLEASE HELP/SEND MONEY link that we suddenly needed to spend it so we hired an OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive website developer and CRAZY expensive and unstable host.

That and we could never spell http://photomeme-blogspot.com no http://photo.meme.shame.com no http://photomeme-shame.blogspot.com no http://photo-meme-shame.blogspot.com YES

How any of you ever did it we have no idea and we're certain ONLY because it was the lengths that some go to when trying to hunt down prey... but whatever works.

AND...

Now don't go all sniffly and soft, daft gits, but one of the things we really enjoy about the Photo Meme Hall of Shame is the Interviews. We like you, we REALLY REALLY like you (Some of you anyway) and we ENJOY doing these daft little interviews. But more than once we have arranged an interview to have the interviewee say to us "WTF did you say the name of the wesbite was? HALL OF SHAME? FU Monkey Ass!!" You might think this an original or unique turn of phrase, but let us assure you, we hear it several times per day from disparate sources. YES! WE SHARE YOUR SHOCK!

In addition to Shaming, we also like praising and know we can do it with the same sort of glowing contempt you are used to us using to scorn. Praise and scorn are really so close. They might not be identical twins but they are certainly fraternal. So we will be highlighting a...brace yourselves daft gits...PHOTOBLOG THAT WE LIKE! We will try to do this weekly, there is no complicated algorithm, and it may only tajes us 3 or 4 weeks before we are tapped out, but we shall endeavour for you. Our beloved daft gits.

AND THAT IS NOT ALL! For 2 payments of 19.99... No, no...I am confused again and doing our late night infomercial. This is Photomeme.net. THAT IS NOT ALL! We will also be highlighting our favorite photo of the week which has been submitted to a photomeme.

So what is in this for you, now that you know what's in it for us?

There is, heaven help us, a forum. A place where if you are brave, and cunning, and shrewed, and wise, and merciful, and a git, you may, without intrusion or screening or editorializing from we, your noisy upstairs neighbours, again, heaven help us, post anything you like.

So go...take a look around. See if it works. See if you like it. If you do, then...good. If not....FU Monkey Ass!

This Hall of Shame will always exist in its present form, rest assured, but if we can roll it nicely into Photomeme.net and be a LITTLE more than just other peanuts in the gallery, than so be it.

This is like deja-vu all over again - Yogi Berra

2008-03-24T11:01:00.002+11:00

More repeating themes!!

Furniture: Next week's Thursday Challenge and THIS week's PhotoSharks (Which appears to be back)

Odd Toys/Toys: Shutterday, then the recovering Lensday.

Memeshame out.

Dun dun dun dun dun DUN

2008-03-17T00:45:00.005+11:00

Can't we, your noisy upstairs neighbors, take a few weeks off to campaign in absentia for our favorite US Presidential Candidates?

We have been supporting nominee Barack Obama for one reason and one reason only. On his website, you can agree to make telephone calls and sign up and he (Yeah, HE) gives you a list of phone numbers in whatever US State they are harrassing the voters of at the moment and they give you a script...

"Hullo, we are your noisy upstairs neighbours, is (insert the name of your noisy downstairs neighbour here) at home we'd like to discuss why we are supporting blah blah blah..."

So we Skype them with the best of intentions but our calls usually end up something like this...

"DO YOU HAVE PRINCE ALBERT IN THE CAN?" or
"IS YOUR REFRIGERATOR RUNNING?"

*click*

Followed by squeals and giggles as we roll around on the Bare Mattress of Love and get our headset cords wrapped around our foolish necks.

But on to all matters photomeme:

Photosharks

Agent Whatever (their name, not our dismissive title) threw note tied to a rock through our window that said (paraphrasing only as we took out the rocks and notes earlier this morning) "WTF is up with Photosharks?"

WTF indeed! We came up with several proposals the winning of which was 'Photosharks was run by the recently deceased stars of Jaws, Roy Scheider, who wanted to do something different in his retirement.'

More likely they, like us, are devoting all their time to make prank calls on behalf of Barack Obama.

If it is a difficulty of any other reason, may we take this time to offer THE PHOTOMEME HALL OF SHAME BABYSITTING SERVICE in which WE, you noisy upstairs neighbours, will take the keys of your photomemes and after a few minutes of training will get it ticking like a clock once again. We have offered this service in the past and found, to our dismay, that once you get the keys THE DAFT GITS NEVER COME BACK FOR THEM! But if that is the case Moderators of Photosharks, just throw a rock through our window and let us know what we can do to help.

SPEAKING OF HELP!!!!

The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words and over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives so

((171,476/2)+1)x((171,476-1)/4)= 3,675,523,756 noun phrases.

THIS IS NOT EVEN COUNTING VERB or ADVERBS!

Why are photomemes repeating themes so often?

Eyes: Shutterday, Tuesday Challenge
Old: Shutterday, Lensday*
Game: Photosharks, Thursday Challenge
Nudity/Naked: Shutterday, Moody Monday

We can understand repeating a theme, actually. It's good for the environment by requiring photographers to go outside exhaling all that carbon dioxide and wasting battery power which would need to be recharged off the electrical grid and put there by a dirty coal fired power stations in Poland and the next thing you know they are growing grapes in Germany.

But space them at least TWO weeks apart.

LENSDAY

If you have ever submitted a photo to Lensday, feel free to do it again because they have lost everything.

The good people at Lensday were apparently changing servers or something and lost their archives so now they are back, tabula rasa, all blank slatish as it were. For those of you who like to list your photomeme victories on your photoblogs, NOW is the time to stack the Lensday column.

HELP THE PHOTOMEME HALL OF SHAME!

You think it's cheap being your noisy upstairs neighbors? Please consider making a donation to pay for all our legal fees, Agent fees, web devlopment, electricity, snacks, headset cords, new windows, Bare Mattress of Love Covers and all other expenses related to keeping you daft gits honest.

CLICK HERE TO HELP

THIS JUST IN!

2008-02-18T14:37:00.003+11:00

Dateline VFXY!

Former Photoblogs.org gamer and VFXY founder Lev Kolobov announces new feature!

http://photos.vfxy.com/themes/

VFXY Weekly Themes is a new feature designed to collect and syndicate community-based themed postings. Themes will be as versatile, poetic, and fun as possible, and will range in matter from the simplistic to relatively complicated. In fact, if you have theme ideas, send them in using the contact page. The Weekly Themes will be announced every Friday at 12:00 a.m. EST by e-mail.

Post a URL from your current blog that matches that theme and your high resolution image will be syndicated in the same way that photoblogs are currently presented on VFXY. All postings, amateur and professional, will be accepted as long as they are appropriate for the theme. In addition, your photoblog must be linked properly or your photo will be removed by an administrator. In the future, we will implement voting and other features. If you have suggestions, ideas, or upgrades, please post them to the VFXY Google Group. Most of all, we want you to know that this is about fun, community, and great photography.

We can't wait to see what you share!

And, as always, neither can WE!

Where We Have Been. (Rhymes with bean.)

2008-02-18T01:53:00.004+11:00

This morning I lay watching the sun in mememonitor's hair as she layed sprawled half on the Bare Mattress of Love and half on the Floor of Love, lazily planning another day of working the phones with calls to the United States of America in support of the Presidential Campaign of Mike Huckabee since we can't vote, being BOTH foreign and felons (We don't know any of his policies but Creationists make us giggle, the daft gits.) when she awoke and said "What about the Photo Meme Hall of Shame?"

"What Photo Meme Hall of Shame?" I replied.

Then I saw stars.

OOOoooooh! THAT Photo Meme Hall of Shame!

Well....2 things happened actually, that caused me some temporary blindness. Those were Shutterday: Nudity and Moody Monday: Naked.

We BEG the other photomemes, do not follow suit. We (Ok, I) SCOURED those photomemes looking for good nudity. There was none to be had. There were either nudity PUNS or bad nudity. If I want to see bad nudity I'll install a full legnth mirror on the Ceiling Of Love, thank you very much. You can't swing a cat round these damned internets or flickr without seeing GOOD nudity. Photomemes should stick with what they are best at, skies and cats.

On the BRIGHT side, we noticed today that the lovely Xerraire has one upped us in the Interview column by making hers a podcast. And it is GOOD! We'd totally copy her idea and make it our own if we had the faintest idea how. Until then (and it will be a long 'until then') we encourage you to go listen to the sexual tension crackling out of your speakers or those daft ears buds when you hear Xerriare and gumnut discuss photography at Unqie Exposures (link on the sidebar). We've been looping it in the Flat of Love all morning.

Additionally, we found this note tied to a rock and thrown through a window from Agent J under the Kitchen Table of Love this morning:

it's only been 20 minutes and already there enough contenders for an infinite number of shames for these weeks photofriday.
my particular fav is:
http://iphotos.aminus3.com/image/2007-12-09.html

love agent j

So, as you can see, all is well here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame and now that our candidtate is nearly eliminated (We don't quite understand how or why, or more importantly, how he was even in contention anyway) we will be watching YOU the daft gits who are not quite so daft gitty as be running for one of the most important political positions on Earth, while still taking fables at face value. AND NO MORE NUDITY! Or you will be GROUNDED young gits!

I have looked out from the mountaintop and SEEN the Shame

2008-02-05T13:11:00.000+11:00

Actually, this is sort of standing on the Mountain of Shame.

We come to you this week from the warm friendly confines of Thursday Challenge. Dale Hudjik's nice cozy photomeme an Island of Calmness and Serentiy the night before the Hell that is Photo Friday breaks out.

And what do we find?

A level of Shameless Self Promotion that would make you horse racers of PhotoFriday and double posters weep for your Mommies!

I speak of course of the HELLISH posting by the Web Wonder at www.feverishthoughts.com

Now Tricia, who ALSO posts from another blog for a total of 4 posts this week, puts you Happy Little Postmonkeys to shame because either because she never found the reason to learn the word SINGLE as in 'post a single entry' and has gotten this far in life without knowing it (She mocks you wordsmiths for knowing words that limit your shamless self promotion) AND...

Because she is doing it and has ADVERTISING on her photoblog for you to all click on.

Woe to you fools who participate in the photomemes for the fun of it. You are truly silly in her eyes.

WeeklyShut

2008-01-07T12:57:00.000+11:00

Good Evening Mr and Mrs Photoblogs and All The Ships at Sea!

This just in over the Agent Frequencies of Top Secret Photo Meme Hall of Shame Shortwave Radio Emergency Network, Ltd!

So, it's now Weekly Shut. Brandon has closed shop after some noob was caught cheating, followed by a lot of pomposity by former members. The same people who couldn't bother to post anymore certainly bothered to post why the don't bother to post anymore... and thus adding more weirdness, snarkiness and self-righteousness to an environment they deem too weird, snarky and self-righteous. Instead of gratitude for a cool effort put forth by BS, or making an effort to help keep it cool, everyone was always quick to point out what they DIDN'T think was cool.

Oh well, on to Vazaar, where everyone can take extra time to tell each other how talented they are, without the brutal, judgmental, pitiless octagon of photography that Weekly Shot was.

Creme de Meme

And...

Happy New Year Noisy Upstairs Neighbors!

You were right about the “wheels coming off at WS”. Unfortunately it has been like a slowly-dying beloved pet, and last week began to steeply deteriorate. So it looks like Brandon Stone is going to “ put it down” so to speak. It is unfortunate really, since originally, this was probably the best of all the “meme” sites. I have been a critic of some aspects of WS in the past, mainly the ratings quotas….which I think are mainly what caused the decline to begin with since they changed ratings/comments from being interest-based to being requirement-based. But it was an ambitious project that allowed for the sharing of some truly exceptional images, and also for many people, including me, to get some great feedback.

Anyway, I attached a PDF of a post from Brandon Stone to the WS Google group, in case you aren’t already members of it ;) (Oh, we ARE)

Take care,

Agent G

Below is an excerpt from letter from Brandon Stone posted on the WeeklyShot Group explaining his reasoning.

After our little New Year's ordeal was over and I had gotten my family back home and comfortable, I decided to check my email to see what was going on in the world of The Internets. After sifting through several-hundred new emails I noticed a recent thread in this group talking about (among other things) the continued downward spiral of WeeklyShot. It seems like we're having a lot of those discussions lately.

Since New Year's is fresh in my mind, I inevitably started thinking about where WeeklyShot has been and what the future could bring. I started flipping through the older themes and reacquainted myself with a lot of top-notch imagery and interesting conversations from the past. Our first theme happened almost 2 years ago and in that time I've gotten to know a countless number of amazing people through this site. I'm sure many of you have your fair share of good memories and new friends as well.

Despite all the positive things that have happened on WeeklyShot over its lifetime, I've become increasingly dismayed about the direction of the discussions here. I've often wondered if I've been too tolerant of some of the petty and unproductive elements that have popped up here and there. Or maybe my original premise for this site was flawed from the beginning. In any event, I think it's clear that WS isn't as fruitful as it once was and it will take a considerable amount of effort to turn things around... At this point it's time for me to make a difficult decision.

Keeping in mind my many responsibilities in the coming year, I feel that it's time for me to bid a fond farewell to WeeklyShot.

We had a great time while it lasted and I appreciate the enthusiasm and talent that you have brought to this project. I consider you my friends and I hope we can stay in touch in the future. Building websites like WS has brought me a lot of satisfaction over the years, so I know I'll continue to work on projects like this. I've definitely learned many lessons along the way, and I'm excited to try out some new ideas in other places.

If you have any questions about this decision or if you'd like to talk about the details of how we should shut down WeeklyShot, let's talk about that in this thread. I would like to leave the site up as an homage to all the interesting things that have happened here, and I think we can figure out some good ways to do that.

In any event, if you'd ever like to get in touch with me or just say "hi", feel free to use my contact form at BrandonStone.com

So there you have it. Now, a comment from We, your noisy upstairs neighbors, (and former WeeklyShot participants. Shhh!)

If every photomeme closed where there was cheating, shameless self promotion, rise and decline in quality of images, off topic posts, whining and dismay of partipants, rise and fall in participation, there'd be NARY A ONE LEFT! AND MORE IMPORTANTLY NO PHOTO MEME HALL OF SHAME!!

The weak link in all of this? WeeklyShot's weakness which led to it's downfall? Letting you DAFT GITS TALK TO EACH OTHER! Did Brandon not know that they debeak chickens in chicken houses because they will peck each other to death??

THAT dear Photo Meme Hall of Shame Reader and Past, Present, or Future Shamee is why we are here, doing this for you, so that you may be safe. Daft gits.

NOW GO AND BEHAVE!

Shutterday: Bad Party

2008-01-07T12:48:00.000+11:00

This just in from Creme de Meme who honors us with reports both large and small. We are posting this small before moving on to the large! UP NEXT!

A big Whiskey Tango Foxtrott to some of the action currently being voted on over at Shutterday:

We lead off with photo_man, who provides us with some windy goodness in response to Bad Party:http://campman.blogspot.com/2007/08/blog-post_14.html

Straight out of Flickr, f1rwb DClik gives us some Modern Dance - possibly an interpretation of a Bad Party through the medium of Mime:http://www.flickr.com/photos/f1rwb/2114074925/

thingseen apparently goes with a political riff on Bad Party:http://thingseen.my-expressions.com/archives/9088_1687835003/261643

cheneel goes with a Sudoku-like puzzle of birds... all I can say is I hope she's not wearing a dry-clean-only dark jacket under that party...http://photos.cheneel.com/index.php?showimage=16

However... big props to Mostly Sunny for pushing the Photoblog envelope. I knew it when I saw it...http://www.slutbunwalla.com/index.php?showimage=523

Memes out!

We Don't Always Do What We Do Because You Do What We Do So Well.

2008-01-04T11:15:00.000+11:00

We had barely unpacked our steamer trunks from our trip aboard the steamer Cassieopiea when we fired up the laptop of love to see what had been happening and to be honest it was quite a snoozer. We could find very little to shame!

The folks at Shutterday had dropped the ball again with such an awkwardly worded challenge involving other photographers that almost half their participants failed for a second time to post correctly. Note to Homer Laffoone: Do not use a paragrah when a word will suffice

We noticed that young Noah of Photo Sunday had achieved his (short) life goal of being first in Photo Friday. Not in the results, mind you, but having learned from all of us, first in posting

And then we noticed the wheels coming off at Weekly Shot. We've written about Weekly Shot before and LOVE IT. It's got some of photoblogdoms best photographers and that certainly police their own. As can be seen below. We strongly suggest following the link, but in case something like this isn't allowed to stay, we chose to cut and paste the comments for your enjoyment.

http://www.weeklyshot.org/theme/four/featured/47/

Featured in Four (Response #47)
Featured 1 Day Ago by pointnshoot - - 28 comments
Photo © pointnshootUnauthorized reproduction not permitted.

User Comments

flipthom: I was wondering if someone would do this. Love the color. Might just be my monitor but it hurts my eyes to look at it. Not a bad thing at all. If I've misspelled anything in my comment, it's because I'm typing with my head turned sideways. :)

flipthom: Ah yes pointnshoot, congrats on your feature.

Nick : Neat! Four bolts.

Flatline Over-saturated, over-sharpened, and there's sensor dirt visible in various locations. This is not a great shot.

Beamer Nice idea, well captured. The red feels over processed. Don't see the need...?

Bogart Excellent. Eye-catching.

stolenlife I dont understand how/why this featured. But, the weeklyshot moves in mysterious ways.. Congratulations

Ana beyond it's bright colours and relevance, this shot doesn't hold a lot of interest for me.yes, it's featured, but seemingly this received a rush of ratings...while most other shots around it have 9 or 10.*shrug*

pete its all a mystery. i have to agree with Ana/Stolen/flat.... its very bright, and the sensor dust is annoying. if you found the time to do the saturation and sharpening, surely a little cloning as in order!!

Montage This is the only shot this week that I haven't commented on. Shame the comment has to be joining the chorus of wondering why/how this was featured so fast.

shipmate no mystery. know people who rate. They rate fairly.

pointnshoot oops I was logged in with my roomate's username.

pete your roommate who hasnt commented in 315 days?

pete or Bogart... who has only posted 1 image in a year, and has only ever commented on this one photo of yours? dude... grow up. why are you 'cheating' on a friendly photo site. what on earth are you trying to gain from this? your fame and fortune?

Flatline LOL!

flipthom Shipmate? Dude...c'mon. If you're going to cheat (and you shouldn't), at least come up with a better name. And if it really is your roommate, tell him that captains rank higher than shipmates.
In all seriousness though, your stuff is good. You have plenty of features. Why cheat?

Beamer So looks like we may now know some of the source of the many who speed rate and never comment. Must be a bitch to have to wade thru 13x4=52 ratings just so you can rate your own pic 4 times, huh "shipmate". Big OOPS!! Let's see how this works, you are a member and you can invite 3 others. So you end up with 4 accounts. 4 ratings of 25 points will sway a lot your way I would guess...?? But hey, innocent till...

pursang Sad and very unfortunate for this venue.

Beamer Very true Mark, very bad timing...

stolenlife Hey pointnshoot, are you going to come clean? I think we'd all respect you more if you did

TammyLynn His other photo he posted on this topic has a star as well. It's an interesting shot I'll agree, but it's not remarkable, it's just a snap. There are several remarkable shots in this subject and they don't have stars yet. Makes you wonder.

gorin-images THIS is exactly why I no longer waste my time on WeeklyShot anymore. It is really unfortunate that what was once one of the best concepts in photo memes has slowly sunk down to this level. Oh, and Happy New Year everyone ;)

phototext Well, my apologies if I am wrong but this looks like pointnshoot has been cheating.
How very pathetic and to make matters worse you where stupid enough to get caught using your "flatmates" login. This is a snapshot, nothing more, and a pretty poor one at that. You have dust on the sensor, the composition is poor and the over saturated colours do nothing to make it a quality image. Brings in to question all his/ her other featured images. If cheating is the only way you can get featured perhaps it's time you took up another hobby.

Ana @gorin-images. I understand where you are coming from, and I agree with you,but another reason it has sunk down, is because some really great photographers have given up on it.

TMaher This shot suxs ass.. Ooh wait - Am I another one his personalities? I haven't posted in a long time either.. haha Yeah, I remember it well. I posted one image for the 'Texture' shot and half the dopes said my image did not meet the topic.. I say dopes because they clearly don't understand what the word texture means.. As if, people think it only means coarse and not smooth.. fools.. FYI - I came to find out the guy who invited me here was doing the same thing this guy is. I only found out when I saw one his images posted by another user then the username who invited me posted to the image voting it up and praising it.. another loser.

pete while im not exactly sure what all of your post was about, it is a shame this has happened.
and while i wasnt around for the texture theme, the problem with photography is that appreciation and understanding is the job of the viewer, and if they dont understand what you are trying to show, well, then, you didnt show is clearly enough.

pointnshoot Honesty. I'm sorry you all think this way. This is my favortie site on the internet and I would not jeopordize my membership. What you r accusing me of is not true. I am sorry I made a mistake by writng my comment under my roomates log in. I just did not look, as I am mostly the person logged in However, the comments collectively looks like I am guilty. Too bad.I have one log-in. Other members have given me positive results and I thank you for you comments. I write the above with sincere honesty.

Oh it's going to be a grand 2008! Happy New Year, Daft Gits!

Love always,

Your Noisy Upstairs Neighbors.

Mr John Marquess of Mr John Marquess's Photoblog.

2007-12-03T16:40:00.000+11:00

Many photomemes, like PhotoFriday, are horse races. One of those perennial horses is John Marquess. We'd go on and on about who he is but that's what the bloody interview is for, you daft gits!

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I am John Marquess. I am originally from Belfast but moved to Brisbane, Australia in February 2007. I got into photography in December 2005 when I first bought a Canon EOS 350D. I dropped out of a computer course in 2001 and took with me some web design skills. After I took a few photos that people liked I got into blogging and set up photoblog.

Do you know Kerrin?

Nope. Did a google search and found http://www.kerrin.com/ at the top of the list. I don't know him either.

What are you wearing?

Shorts, thongs and an Adidas tee shirt. It is the middle of summer down here after all.

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

Apart from the only one that I ever gave away that hangs on my dad's wall in Ireland you can see my barbed wire photo on the cover of a Book. http://www.wordybug.com/Juby I sold the copyright for A$750. No other side projects as yet but I am considering setting up a staff for Christmas at the local service station

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I enjoy inflicting death and cooking upon fish. I love fishing but don't get the chance to go out much

What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

Canon EOS 350D, 100mm macro 28-135mm USM and the standard issue 18-55mm. I like canon but have not had much of an opportunity to use anything else beyond an automated passport photo booth.

What is a favorite toy you had as a child? (we aren't interested current toys)

A scalextric 400 racing car set. I wish I still had it. I broke it when I gave up on the cars and sent metal ball bearing on the track at full throttle. I nearly burnt the house down.

What is the best photo that you missed?

On my way to Oz I stopped in Singapore. A new restaurant was being opened. The theme was very pretty Asian girls in pink and black french maid outfits. They were being filmed for a promotional TV piece the evening that I passed. The lighting was excellent for the TV camera and they were frolicking wildly. I was gutted. recently I also missed an opportunity when about 200 kids on trick bikes cycled past me on the footpath. Again, gutted. Never go anywhere without a camera.

Tell us your worst habit.

Talking to myself. I have got tho the stage where I do not even realise it.

Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from railroad tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.)

I once heroically accepted a donated kidney and had it transplanted into me - does that could. It was quite sore. I also ring and warn the occupant whenever I burn down buildings. I am a good sort.

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

I would like to be a professional fishing guide.

Do you wear glasses? If so, describe them, if not, why not? Don't you like glasses?

I am short sighted. My glasses have a nasty yellow colouration in the left eye lens that annoys me. I am too cheap to buy new ones so I wear contact lenses.

What did you have for breakfast?

2 caramel tim-tams and a cup of tea.

Anything Else?

Keep on shaming - They deserve it.

Now FLY, OUR LITTLE RIVER PIXIES OF Photo Meme Hall of Shamedom, and go see his Photoblog but remember to wear your Photo Meme Hall of Shame Cloaking Device and Voice Changer so that when he sees no traffic coming from the Photo Meme Hall of Shame - He'll know it's YOU!

So Much Shaming, So Little Time.

2007-12-01T16:49:00.000+11:00

Last week's unusual Shutterday theme called "It's Not About You" was an attempt to get other photographers to look at other photoblogs and link an image from another photographer.

From the theme description: This theme is totally different from what you traffic craving,attention seeking, power hungry, money grubbing, narcissists USUALLY DO.

Your challenge is to selflessly highlight your fellow traffic craving, attention seeking, power hungry, money grubbing, narcissists.

Choose an image you found once when you accidentally strayed from your own photoblog (completely unaware that there were others), and gave grudging admiration to (knowing full well that if you had the same lightingcamerasubjectatmosphereicconditionseyeandluck that you, too, could have taken that photo)

It was either poorly explained, ill advised, difficult to understand, unexpected, or unwelcome because nearly a quarter of the entries did not fit the criteria.

Below are the Shutterday Rebels

Rebel Streetshooter

FromBelgiumwithLove

Deja

DutchPhotoDay

Clik and Clak

barbara

Hess

travelinma

tetsu

Eyevision

ISO1975

:photoschau

Uh!Log

photo_man

Partialsight

Welcome to My World

Daily Photo Evolution

R A Y F L A N A

Photo Friday: Shameless Self Promotion

2007-12-01T02:34:00.000+11:00

PhotoFriday was not more than a a few minutes old in the Dead of the Night when we got a note tied to a rock and tossed through our window:

Today's LeggNett entry for photofriday "Dead of Night" gives this description under his entry:

"If you are on Facebook (or willing to sign up) and would like to add me as a friend, please do so. Just do a lookup for "Rich Legg". I shouldn't be too hard to find, I'm the one with the camera. p.s. Obviously today's image has nothing to do with this post."

I would suggest that he should has added: Obviously today's image has nothing to do with this topic either!

Any thoughts?

Agent M

Too many to mention, Agent M.

While you are adding Mr Legg why not add your noisy upstairs neighbors to gtalk, AIM, Myspace, Skype, ICQ, twitter, and Facebook? Because the blog and email isn't enough!

Update: Mr Legg's Response: ah c'mon... you could at least include a link within your witty commentary: leggnet.com

See why we like him?

Lost in Translation?

2007-11-25T15:38:00.001+11:00

This morning as we were louging around on the Bare Mattress of Love and enjoying our Sunday Frozen Waffles we got this missive tied to a rock and thrown through our windows.

Dear Memes,

Take a look at Macroday: Anything but a Bug and Shutterday: It's Not About You and see what you think. Is this mischief or malice? Or just a language issue for theme descriptions that are too wordy? - Agent I

Dear Agent I,

We may have thought so until we went to the Euroblogger Meetup but we found these backstabbing Eurobloggers have JUST PERFECTLY FINE ENGLISH WHEN they are assuring you that they WILL NOT NOTIFY HOTEL SECURITY THAT YOU HAVE A FULL GROWN NUBIAN GOAT IN YOUR ROOM! But then they go and do JUST THE opposite! Up is down! Nein is Oui! In is Out! No Goat is Goat!

So it is with great pleasure we accept your notification of SHAMING UNTO THEE

Let us begin with Macroday: Anything But a Bug. Just don't post a bug. How hard is that?

Just don't glance at the title, see the word Bug and think AHA! I HAVE A BUG! These are the type of people Nigerians pray to find! (Greetings and God Bless and please accept this offer of 10 BILLION DOLLARS)

Those who were a bit buggy at Macroday: Lightsights, Adrian Hancu, and Journal Extime.

We'll do Shutterday after the theme closes. it looks like it's going to be a long week over there.

Macroday Smackroday!

2007-11-18T18:05:00.000+11:00

We have been begging Carlo Ferroni, owner of Macroday, to moderate his photomeme a little less ruthlessly. "Why?" you ask. Because it leaves us nothing to SHAME.

For other shamings we have to rely on our interpretation of the thing we call art, which as many of you who have been shamed know, we know very little.

If a given theme is, say, opulent, you can post anything and we don't know. Even if it doesn't fit the theme, maybe it's satire. Or maybe you've been drinking.

But if a theme is "Blue" and you post "Red". WE KNOW! And so you your fellow participants who mock you behind your back. Not us! We do it off to the side from behind a curtain! We are no braver than they!

Which brings us to Macroday. Either something is a macro or it isn't. An angel dancing on the head of a pin? Macro. A sty on the eye of a fly? Macro. A mouse in a bowl of grain? Hmmmm....ok, maybe, maybe not. Some Abstraction? Who knows?

A Bridge? NO, YOU DAFT GIT!

So we will use the criteria that Carlo referred us to at Wikipedia. Basically when a regular sized print is made the image is life size or larger than the subject.

For MACRODAY: CLOCK

In the category of NOT A MACRO
Claus Peterson (Unless he has teeny tiny hands)
*MERDI* (Unless that can go on a chain and into a pocket)

In the category of Maybe We Just Don't Get It?
Uh!Log (Are those those dandelion things?)

*update*
We Googled dandelion clock and sure enough the dandelion 'things' are dandelion clocks. Not only should Uh!Log's photo not be shamed, it should have WON! :)

Xerraire!

2007-11-13T09:21:00.000+11:00

In the photomeme community there are 2 types of folks. Your photomeme moderators and your photomeme participants. We understand that some photomeme moderators claim to have photoblogs but for the most part, we've never seen them. But in general, photographers know their lot in life. Xerraire is a rare exception. She's Bi-Photomeme. She dances back and forth participating freely in nearly every meme and then hosts her own very nice particpatory Saturday meme.

She recently came to our attention and took her shaming like a good sport making us like her even more.

We pleaded with her for an interview which she accepted with grace and dignity. So much so that she didn't bother answering our daft questions about what she was wearing, leaving it to our rich imaginations.

We now present: Xerraire.

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I am Barbara from Maryland, USA. I am a recently divorced mom who has home schooled all three of her children. I try hard to earn a living from home to support them and still continue to teach them. Sometimes we struggle, but there is a lot of love in our home.

I was asked and have somewhat reluctantly accepted to do this interview. I’ve been interviewed before, but this one seems different somehow.

How is Xerraire pronounced? 'X-rayer'? 'Zee-rayer'? Or the more commonly accepted 'Char-uhlz'? And what does it mean?

Xerraire is a Catalán word meaning talkative. I lived in the Barcelona, Spain area for about a year and I learned a little of the Catalán language. While back in the U.S., I looked for a chat nickname that might attract people from that area as I grew to love it so much. This one worked like a charm. The “X” takes on an SH sound. Phonetically I suppose you could pronounce it Shuh-RYE-Ruh. I returned to Barcelona with dozens of new friends made on the net, chronicled here: http://www.xerraire.com/spain

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects? How did you happen to start Unique Exposures? What the hell else is going on over there?

On the net I have several side projects. I do web & graphic design from my home for various clients.

I have a personal site at http://www.xerraire.com that also contains my portfolio. In 1999 I joined with partners to start MXskinz.com which was meant to be a wallpaper and skins application site. That propelled me into the skins community, who are amazing people to know. However while working on that, I met a few who were photographers disenchanted with the places on the net to upload their photos. They wanted a smaller more intimate site that was exclusively for photography and a place that they wouldn’t get lost in the crowd. So, I created www.UniqueExposures.com

It started out only as a photo-sharing gallery, then by request, I added a forum. I love my members there, however, it’s a little too intimate, and so I am always looking for new members to feel free to join. I can’t say when I started it that I knew what I was doing. I dove in feet first and am learning as I go. Later, when a few photo-memes died out, I thought to add The Weekend Photo Challenge to UniqueExposures. As I am learning as I go, there are a few features my meme doesn’t have, but I would at least like to think it’s a friendly meme where others feel comfortable joining in, if nothing else.

About the same time, I began http://www.SkinsGallery.com . It was to make my life easier as MXskinz was totally html, and I needed something more modern, where people could upload their own skins and wallpapers. Now it has expanded to include MySpace Layouts.

I have many, many interests, so I began a blog to help me keep my thoughts straight, and it has become almost like therapy. I enjoy it, and the topics range from very personal to things I am curious about. http://www.xerraireart.com/blog

The blog is on a fairly new site that continues to grow, my art site, where I post my watercolors, my personal photography gallery, my photo blog, and newly added, a lyrics site: http://www.xerraireart.com Another item of interest on my art site is the Terragens I create. Terragen is a fascinating landscape rendering program that I am crazy about, but don’t get enough time to learn more. I have sold a few Terragens, and that was rewarding that others like them as well.

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I like to go hiking/sight-seeing and I love all kinds of music. Both my children would say are ‘an infliction on them.” My music/mp3 collection » http://www.xerraire.com/music/mp3z.htm

What gives with gumnut?

I don’t know what gives. He is more a mystery to me each day. We do have a blog we do together when the spirit moves him or me: http://johndolphin.net/bozandoz

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

I majored in school to teach Spanish, hence the living in Spain, but somehow that didn’t materialize. I suppose I would be teaching, and since I have an interest in languages, I perhaps would be learning more.

Anything else?

Thanks very much for noticing me out of a huge crowd of talented photographers.

Obvious By Any Other Name Is Just as Obvious

2007-11-09T13:54:00.000+11:00

Once when our friend Media Mogul Ted Turner was asked what name he thought should be given to his movie about dinosaurs he replied 'Dinosaurs'. An assistant suggested that maybe another name would be better since that was so plain and obvious. Ted said to the assistant "I once started a cable news network, wanna guess what I called it?"

Well today, tied to a rock and tossed through the window we got this note from Agent N

I don't know if you've ever pointed this out, it's not a specific entry, but there are way too many people who title their photomeme submissions the same word as the meme. For instance, on Photo Friday when the theme is "Silence" there are people who title their link"silence" or when the theme is "strength" they title their link"strength." Could they possibly get less creative?

Why yes, Agent N, they can. In fact, when we named our photo meme hall of shame? Can you guess what we named it?

But for those of you who name your babies, Baby and your dogs, Dog, we present our favorite example of a title working in tandem with an image to create the art we name: Art.

Enough With the Fornicating Bugs!

2007-10-29T11:32:00.000+11:00

We KNOW Macroday is hard!

We KNOW your image will be deleted if it's not a macro!

We KNOW images of various bugs mating makes you giggle!

We got this from Agent 99: "omg, it's "connection" at macroday and those damn insects are at it again!"

PLEASE PEOPLE! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Go see the shame for yourselves. Too many to list here.

Macroday

This Week's Lazy Git Award...

2007-10-21T13:17:00.000+10:00

goes to jkirlin (prolific AND repetetive) for his entry of the same images to SeeItSunday: Sky and Unique Exposures: Travel.

Such huge blogs, so little effort!

Update: The lazy git reports with pride that he also submitted it to Lensday: Blue, Thursday Challenge: Scary, and PhotoSharks: Angle.

Whatfor Art Thou Lensday?

2007-10-11T03:43:00.001+10:00

This from a much longer letter tied to a rock and thrown through the window.

Some not so interesting stats info for you:

I've just checked and having entered Lensday this morning, I've had two visits from there, that's one more than from Pxite!

Why bother? - Agent Orange

Why indeed?

Simply because a meme does not have a winner which requires voting and viewing other entries, you can be SPORTING DAFT GITS and at least LOOK!

This is T U R N O R A M A

2007-09-27T10:49:00.000+10:00

One of the photographers we enjoy looking at on the laptop spread out on the Bare Mattress of Love is a person we like him because he has our temperment. We had been begging him for an interview and he would throw massive rocks with notes tied to them through the Broken Windows of Love telling us what corner of the world he happened to be in and why he couldn't do it. Did he need his notes from HOME??

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I’m Bill Duffy – a 53 year-old geographer/cartographer/photographer who lives in Maine and travels frequently throughout the northeast US for my job. I have a degree in art (printmaking) and a masters degree in science (marine geology) Most of the things I do are just as clearly interrelated as my education.

I’ve taken photos since my art school days, lugging around various SLRs, and point and shoots over the years. I bought my first digital camera about five years ago and started posting photos on the Internet not long after that. I’m not sure why I do it. You all seem very nice and I want to show you my photographs.

Do you know Kerrin?

No, but I know Kirlin, a fellow Mainer.

What are you wearing?

Hiking shorts, sweaty t-shirt, wool socks. And you?

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

Well, I still have some photos online at my original site www.turnorama.org including a set of slides I scanned from a hiking trip back in 1974. I’ve also recently been resurrecting my Blogger page as well (http://turnorama.blogspot.com) where there’s a bit more of a story to go with the photos. I’ve had photos in a couple of exhibits and am planning to have a show in a local gallery sometime next year. I’ll invite you all to the opening.

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I hike and canoe. Almost every winter, I spend a week in Baxter State Park with friends doing a cross-country ski trip through the Park. We stay in wood-heated cabins, so it’s not as brutal as it sounds, though some times there’s so much snow it’s tough to get from one cabin to the next.

What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

I haul around a Canon 5D with an assortment of lens, tripods and other geegaws. I tend to buy the best I can afford, since I often shoot in lousy conditions a long way from a camera store (that’s pretty much anywhere in Maine). My Canons have worked well for me, though I’m not fanatical about them.

What is the best photo that you missed?

Well there’ve been so many it’s hard to say. Recently, I was at a gas station in New York and there were these three motorcyclists in front of me zipping up their leather jackets, putting on their fingerless gloves, adjusting their bandana skullcaps and getting ready to leave after filling up. Just then, an ice cream truck pulled up. They ran over and bought fudgesicles. When they came back to their bikes, I told them they weren’t exactly reinforcing their image. They laughed (sort of) and I wanted to ask them if I could take their picture, but I thought I might be pushing my luck.

Tell us your worst habit.

Looking to my right while sitting here at my desk I see a stack of DVDs (backups of photos) five small notebooks strewn across a stack of postcards, instruction manuals and bank receipts, three harmonicas, a jar full of paintbrushes, two packages of Pec-Pads ( those are lens cleaning tissues! Nothing else.), a bottle of rubber cement, a set of headphones, stamps, paper clips, two lens, one extension tube, various pens and pencils and a stapler.

To my left is a stack of receipts, a circle template, 4 USB memory sticks, an electric bill, two small maps, a 20 page list of trees in my city, a spare laptop battery, a pair of 3-D glasses (the ones with one red and one blue lens) a box of Kleenex, another lens, a calculator, a stack of blank DVDs and a framed photo of my late, great dog, Nellie.

So, basically, I’m a slob.

Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from railroad tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.)

Well, what is really heroic is that I’m on my city’s conservation commission and volunteer a lot of time making maps for various natural resource protection organizations. But your question prompts the response that last fall, I helped search for three old guys who had become lost in the woods (they spent the night and walked out on their own in the morning). I should add that I was involved in their getting lost in the first place…its a long story.

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

Living in Newfoundland, probably. I’ve done a lot of different things over the years: worked in a fur coat vault and a donut factory, painted houses, built boats, made artificial legs, did land surveying, went to the bottom of the Gulf of Maine in a research submarine, and ran sonar equipment in the Sea of Galilee. I’m pretty satisfied with what I do now. I’m self-employed and have freedom to do what I like, for the most part.

Do you wear glasses? If so, describe them, if not, why not? Don't you like glasses?

I wear a pair of cheap reading glasses when, well, reading. I lose them constantly and they’re always in my way when I’m shooting. I use them to look at the little LCD panel on the top of the camera and the preview screen on the back. Then I forget I’m wearing them and mash them into my face when I try to look through the viewfinder.

What did you have for breakfast?

An omelet made with chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms, green peppers and tomatoes.

Anything else?

I think that about does it. Thanks for the opportunity!

Thursday Challenge: Reflection

2007-09-27T10:31:00.000+10:00

We are seeing double at Thursday Challenge this week but it's not a reflection. It's a double post!

AND A DOUBLE POST IN CAPITAL LETTERS!!!

AT WATER'S END and REFLECTED YOUTH both submissions from A Brighter Blind Side.

Go look but make sure you use your Photo Meme Hall of Shame Voice Changers and Cloaking Devices so that you don't show up in their stats!

Found by Agent L

*UPDATE* THE DAFT GIT HAS POSTED THREE TIMES! The 3rd time using his name!

Mohammed Adenwala

*Further Update* HIN, The lovely Hin, has posted twice. Using 2 different cameras on 2 different blogs doesn't cut it. At least use 2 different identities. That's what we do.

Moody Monday: Fragrant

2007-09-26T10:13:00.000+10:00

Dear Hall of Shame,

I have been remiss in my agently duties of late and can only apologise. I hope I can make up with the following shames spotted on Moody Monday. The theme was 'fragrant' and looking at the entries, I was grateful not to be standing upwind of some of these folks for whom 'fragrant' is….

…a leaf on a rock
…a heap of prawns
…a pile of onions
…a phallic fungus

Please find also enclosed the small gift of a new pool-boy for you and the missus. He's paid up til next spring and answers to the name of 'Florian'. Enjoy.

Yours utterly faithfully,

Agent Orange

Photo Photo Friday Friday: Beach Beach

2007-09-22T03:42:00.000+10:00

Daft Daft git git warning warning! We We have have a double double submitter submitter!

http://www.photofriday.com/visit.php?id=119372
http://www.photofriday.com/visit.php?id=119375

Puja, you daft git! They weren't even far apart!

We understand that flickr is different from a photoblog. But YOU are the same!

Besides, you have to know that EVERY entry will be looked at for a theme like 'Beach'

Calling All Agents Re: PhotoFriday: Fantasy

2007-09-14T15:25:00.000+10:00

Stand down! We are not going to shame this week's entries to PhotoFriday: Fantasy because 1) It's too easy. and 2) We wouldn't know where to begin.

We're back from Berlin and we would APPRECIATE it if our PHOTOBLOGGING BRETHREN did not answer inquiries from the Ellington Hotel in regards to damages/losses and where we might be found. All we will say in our defense is, "We don't know anything about anything and it must have been that way since LONG before we checked in."

We would offer up a full report but now that we are demanding discretion from our LOYAL PHOTOBLOGGING BRETHREN WHO CERTAINLY WOULD NEVER GIVE UP THEIR NOISY UPSTAIRS NEIGHBOURS we also must be discreet. (IronFlatine and Vernon Trent be forewarned, once we find we are cleared of all charges and safely able to travel back to Germany, all bets are off!)

For those of you who were unable to attend and do NOT have the Ellington Hotel hounding you for FALSE AND LIBELOUS CHARGES (Attention Ellington Hotel: WE DON'T EVEN HAVE A GOAT! IT WASN'T OURS! WE DID NOT BRING ONE WITH US, AND WOULDN'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO GET ONE. ALTHOUGH WE UNDERSTAND ONE MAY BE ORDERED FROM THE FRONT DESK! Daft gits!) you can see photos of the meetup here.

But don't try looking for Your Noisy Upstairs Neighbors because 1) We have an exclusive publishing contract with National Geographic and as such may not appear in other periodicals. 2) We are terribly camera shy. 3) We barely left the room. Except to feed the goat.

NOT THE ONE YOU ARE REFERRING TO ELLINGTON HOTEL! A TOTALLY DIFFERENT GOAT!

LIVE SHAMING FROM THE 2007 Europe Photobloggers Meetup In Sunny Berlin, Germany - Pearl of the Orient!

2007-09-08T08:13:00.000+10:00

...Actually from the Alley behind the Ellington Hotel because for some reason the Wi-Fi doesn't work in our 2007 Europe Photobloggers Meetup Room D'Amour.

After an excruciating flight via Singapore and Istanbul we arrived safely in Berlin where Arvin met us to assist with our steamer trunks (3 full and 1 empty for our swag). He fired up the Stutz Bearcat and spun wildly out of Berlin Brandenburg. We initially suspected after making our way nearly cross the globe we were hopelessly lost until we shouted in unison:

"Stop, Arvin! It's the 2007 Europe Photoblog Meetup at the Ellington Hotel!" We waited for hours for IronFlatline to come assist us with the steamer trunks but he never showed so poor exhausted Arvin had to do it alone.

We have one thing to say now that we are settled in.

YOU ARE VERY VERY BAD DAFT GITS!!!! We can't go to Berlin ONCE without having you all going roly poly pell mell and posting anything you damned well please to any damned meme! Did you think we'd not SEE?

We were not even at the DESK when we heard our names called out in the lobby by the Telegram Dwarf "Right Honourable Memes, Monitor and Shame, Esq?? Telegram for Your Noisy Upstairs Neighbors." We tore it out of his tiny hand and hushed him up with some Italian Lira we've been storing in the steamer trunks since the 50s.

It read as follows:

Colors are always fun themes over at Photo Friday: STOP

Let's see -- Red and Blue make Purple, but individually, are not Purple. STOP

Red:
http://www.pixelposing.com/index.php?showimage=268
http://fallout.tfm.ro/index.php?showimage=201

Blue:
http://kabulaev.com/index.php?showimage=11
http://www.theothermartintaylor.com/moveabletype/archives/photo/000620.html
http://barefooteveryday.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/water-lily/ STOP

I tried to be generous about drawing the line between Pink and Purple, but these were simply over the line:
Pink:
http://www.snowscan.dk/index.php?showimage=481&category=10
http://www.briterwebdesign.com/photoblog/12may07/brelly.html
http://johnkeyes.com/archives/2007/04/revolution.php
http://cwzhen.blogspot.com/2007/09/photo-friday-purple.html
http://www.effectandaffect.es/index.php?showimage=9 STOP

Quick on the draw at #17, 'THE LOVE PURPLE' comes with an image which is full of heart, but, as far as I can tell, contains NO purple. Aqua? check -- Red? check -- Yellow? check -- Purple? negative
http://ricoh-grd.blogspot.com/2007/07/le-tag-de-lamour.html STOP

Lots of others with nearly indistinguishable or absolutely zero purple:
http://www.johnsimpson.ca/index.php/image/beachblankenberge.jpg/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlesfuller/694150061/
http://bennettdan.blogspot.com/2007/09/violencia.html
http://www.islandpassions.nl/fotos-online/fotos-online/?p=145#respond
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dharmatwit/218197248/in/set-72157594245834441/
http://www.softservegirl.com/photofriday/2007/09.07.07.html
http://www.photo.pasarprod.com/index.php?showimage=2
http://flightygirl.blogspot.com/2007/09/photo-friday-purple.html
http://grapf.de/2007/09/07/sunset-throwing/ STOP

On the other hand, here's another image that contains not only no purple, but no color whatsoever, I actually kind of like this one for the theme:
http://fischimglas.de/index.php?showimage=492 STOP

Two other black and white images that are much less effective for the theme:
http://www.pochimabuoni.ilcannocchiale.it/post/1605993.html
http://www.robinart.com/thoughts/index.php?/weblog/photo_friday_purple/ STOP

Purple, yes, but 'beachnut' (#9) links to a page that kills Photo Friday's Link Viewer, and must be shamed for it.
Ditto for 'Slipbox' (#111), only less success with the Purple thing -- plus the image disappears shortly after it loads -- probably for the best. STOP

Love

--Agents S

Our advice upon reading this? MONITOR CALIBRATION, GITS! Or short of that, MORE BETA CAROTENE IN YOUR DIET or TRY THIS!

Receiving telegrams from Agents via a dwarf makes us so nostalgic for the Cold War that it makes us nearly want to cry.

We are off to collect our swag and to hunt down Vernon Trent since he never thanked us for plugging his little book and shooting him to the top of the Amazon.com booklist.

BEHAVE, YOU DAFT GITS, UNTIL WE GET BACK! Don't make us come back early!

Moderator Interview: Homer Laffoone of Shutterday

2007-08-22T11:44:00.001+10:00

We now offer up to you, a second in our series of interviews of the People behind the Curtains.

1. Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I am the face of a loose confederation of like minded photographers/photobloggers who felt a terrible hole in the weekend with the apparent demise of Nariman's iGizmo/Pxite. At the time we weren't aware of Xerraire's very fine Saturday meme 'Unique Exposures' and in a fit of drunken revelry sat back and decided that perhaps we could create a photomeme that not only challenged but INSPIRED other photographers. We've since given up on that because people don't want to take photos to post, they only want to post what they have or better yet, link to something already on their photoblogs.

We've also learned the best and worst parts of running a photomeme and that is dreaming up some theme that We ourselves have no photos of nor can we imagine what might be posted and seeing such brilliant submissions (Shutterdayers by their very nature are more brilliant than most.) The worst part, which isn't even really that bad but just educational is the lack of feedback that photographers give other photographers either through votes or comments. We've seen this with our Weekly Shot entries and it gets discussed ad nauseum in the newsgroups. We find this to be completely different from our experiences with flickr which is much more interactive.

2. Who writes Shutterday? Who chooses the theme?

One of us just does it. Usually completely without consulting the others. When I say loose confederation I mean very loose.

4. What is with the music lyric?

That was a mistake and never intended to be part of Shutterday. I, Homer K Laffoone, am no torch singer, but do sometimes find inspiration when listening to some music or other and by way of not seeming completely nuts, I had listed the line from the song on a couple of themes, and a bad habit once started is hard to break. Hopefully it'll break soon because it's a complete nuisance and unless anyone knows the song in question, it's quite lame to see it sitting there.

5. Where did you get the name Homer K Laffoone?

We decided we needed a really good name because Homer is more a part of them photomeme than say Carlo Ferroni, Dale Hudjik, or even Marc and Nick are of theirs (In fact, most of the other moderators decently keep themselves out of the limelight, for reasons which we are slowly learning), and found this one that no one was using and then had to add the K after I got embroiled in the Anna Nicole Smith saga.

6. Do you know Kerrin?

Yes we do. Although we don't know if she knows it or not.

7. What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

Canon and Panasonic as you can tell by our BLATANT advertising. We can't disclose our earnings but let's just say it's a VERY VERY good deal for Canon and Panasonic. We are constantly trying and failing to get some swag out of them.

8. What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

We make calls asking shopkeepers if they have Prince Albert in the Can.

9. Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

I'm ashamed to say I use flickr exclusively, but post to many groups. Side projects? No, have you seen my name elsewhere?

10. Do you wear glasses? If so, describe them, if not, why not? Don't you like glasses?

I have a pair of rimless glasses that I wear very low down on my nose so I can look over them disapprovingly. I can't actually SEE anything disapprovingly, but I can stare at the blur in it's general direction.

11. What are you wearing?

A look of contempt.

12: Anything else you'd like to add?

Thanks for keeping us honest. It's easy to fall into the complacency of just listing a different color every week. Although I would like to mention the thing you complain about with photomemes repeating themes. We photomeme moderators only get together one a year in some neutral city like Rome or Buenos Aires but it's usually such a bacchanalian orgy that we can barely remember what was discussed. There are, in many ways, a finite number of themes WHICH PHOTOGRAPHERS WILL PARTICIPATE IN and sometimes they are just similar if not exact. So if something repeats something just take something else and post it. It's supposed to be a challenge!

Live Shaming - Photo Friday: Oddity

2007-08-10T15:21:00.000+10:00

We only have three shamees for this week's Photo Friday theme of Oddity, because we only looked at the first 30 and for us, that was enough.

The first is our good friend, the Young Noah. Noah is 15 or so and has delightfully started a little Sunday Photo Meme which we admire. Then he comment spammed us which, we don't admire but understand. Then he claimed as a goal to be first on Photo Friday. Which we also understand. However...and listen closely, Young Noah: DO NOT BE A DAFT GIT AND POST JUST ANYTHING TO BE FIRST! You are young and it is understandable. We are old and really have no excuse and some daft gits continue anyway. And they get pulled to the proverbial woodshed as you do now. BAD, YOUNG NOAH, BAD!

Next up: Shafina. We like Shafina but feel we had to shame her for posting a cat. She IS CLEARLY TAUNTING US BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THE CATS ARE MORE COMMON AND LESS ODD THAN....ummm...other odd things. Granted the cat was on a boat, but still. Now had the cat been in the water, very odd. And weighted down? So much the better.

AND lastly...odd....our 3rd shamee is gone.

AN ODDITY REDEEMED!!!!

It creeps us out a little when Photo Friday is actually moderated. By whom? And who are they? What do they want??

GITS WITH BOOKS

2007-08-06T00:53:00.000+10:00

Today we start a new feature at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame.

But first some lessons.

Lesson the First: Shameless Self Promotion by posting your irrelevant crap to photomemes = Bad

Lesson the Second: Shameless Self Promotion by posting your irrelevent crap to A BOOK FOR DAFTER GITS THAN YOU TO BUY = EXCELLENT!

It answers the question once posed by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce shortly after he took the World's first photograph in 1826 and been asked by every photographer since: 'Sacre blue, I have zee gigabytes and gigabytes of zee jpgs on zee external hard drives but if no one sees them, however shall I work my way into zee pants of zee viewers?'

Rest assured, if you deny thinking this we know you a lying git as well as daft git. EVERYTHING is about getting into 'zee pants', yours or someone else's and either figuratively or literally.

So now that we have the lessons and motivations out of the way we proudly announce:

THE SECTION OF THE PHOTOMEME HALL OF SHAME FOR GITS WITH BOOKS!

We'll list you here and on the sidebar for now until we move into our new secret digs. (SHHH, gits!) If you want your listing or link changed let us know. If you do NOT want to be listed let us know but THAT IS NO WAY TO SHAMELESSLY SELF PROMOTE YOURSELF AND WE HOPE EVEN YOUR GRANDMAMA DOESN'T BUY ONE!

Gits with Books:

Your Waitress
The One Eyed Man
*Fuzzy Points*
Vernon Trent
Rich Legg
Mark Kitaoka

More to come. If you have a book or know any other daft gits with books let us know.

Mr. The One Eyed Man

2007-08-03T00:51:00.000+10:00

We were in the middle of wrapping our shirts in brown paper and tying them with string in preperation for our trip to the Europhotobloggers meetup in Berlin when comes crashing through the Broken Window of Love a missive tied to a rock.

"MORE PAPER AND STRING!" we cried in unison and dug out one more shirt for us to share.

Our new shirt wrapper turned out to be a note from a one Mr. The One Eyed Man (aka John Simpson.ca). Frequent photomeme particpants will know him as a very early participant in most memes and the one we most frequently confuse with Mr. The Occasional Odd Crop. (It's the whole Four Word, Starting with 'The', and then has some O's in the name thing.)

And why was he writing us? Well for the sake of discretion let's just say HE IS THE MOST SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTER IN THE HISTORY OF SNAKE OIL SALESMEN and we respect that. So along with some other business, we corralled him into one of our now famous Photo Meme Hall of Shame Interviews.

Oddly enough, it came seconds after we asked him to be interviewed.

1. Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

To answer part two first...because I have no shame when it comes to blatant self promotion, and...you can never have enough creative people in your lives. I'm a photographer, called John Simpson, always have been and continue to be so far. At various times in my working career I have been a cook, a farm laborer, a reporter, a parent of two delightful daughters, photographer, editor, Raconteur and Bon Vivant ...but mostly photographer. It is a brilliant way to earn a living.

2. Are you the one eyed man or is he your subject. If it is you, why do youhave one eye? If the other is glass, when you get a new one, may we have the old? Or, disappointingly as we have wondered in the past, are you the one eyed man who would be King in the Kingdom of the Blind?

I am the one-eyed man, in the sense that I really am monocular. The other eye is mine, not glass, and no you can't have it, I'm quite attached to it. I first heard the quote about the one eyed man in a Tom Waits song, who is a flat out brilliant lyricist, but later discovered Desiderus Erasmus, the originator of the quote. Look him up...interesting man.I believe that I can do better than to be the brightest of the dim!

3. Do you know Kerrin?

No. Should I?

(We hate to interrupt this interview but we feel the need to clarify the whole Kerrin issue and will again in a later post. Kerrin is, if you will, your public defender. If you are arrested in most civilized countries and can not afford or do not want to get an attorney of your own you, will get a court appointed attorney. Or if you try to have a marriage annulled in the Catholic Church, you used to have a deal with a person called 'The Defender of the Bond' who tried to throw a wrench in the works by saying that you marriage WAS good and valid. That is who Kerrin is here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame. We shame, she emails us and defends you all. Neene sometimes has that role if we don't UNDERSTAND the art, but it's Kerrin who calls us meanies. We love her. As should you. Now back to our regularly scheduled interview)

4. What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

I have always believed in buying the best equipment I could afford to do the job. I had some start up money, so was able to buy cameras by Nikon, Hasselblad, and later Pentax 645's and lighting from Balcar.

5. What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

Mountain biking and squash, would be better at the squash thing if I had a second eye.That, and pouring tea, tend to miss the cup, no depth perception.

6. Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

I don't have a commercial site any more. I prefer to show real portfolios. My book "The one eyed man" is my side project. I have always said I should do a book, and finally did it. Quite gratifying really.

7. What is the best photo that you missed?

There are so many.... must remind myself to carry a camera more. Have a file in my head called "photos I wish I had taken".

8. Tell us your worst habit.

Worst is such a negative descriptor..I enjoy really good coffee daily, and a cigar on occasion, though its not the same here as on a beach in the tropics under a shady palm tree.

9. Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someonefrom a burning building or untied them from railroad tracks, foughtinjustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.)

I volunteer my time and work to a couple of worthy causes in my city. Sadly no jumping over burning buildings..I have limited powers but I use them for good.

10. If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

That would have to be Buddhist Monk. Not ready for that yet, can't manage the renunciation of sex.

11. What are you wearing?

Thanks for asking! Big cargo shorts (brown,the new black) black t-shirt...(black,the old black) and brown Doc Marten's with slouchy socks.

And for those of you with scorecards keeping track, the most true statement in this whole interview?

We suspect his very first answer to the second part of our question The First.

Now go see his site in the unlikely event that you haven't already. AND REMEMEBER USE YOUR PHOTO MEME HALL OF SHAME CLOAKING DEVICE AND VOICE CHANGER so that he doesn't get billed for his massive server crippling traffic and when he checks his Visit Counter and sees no one has come from here, HE'LL KNOW IT'S YOU!

"Arvin, Bring Round the Car!"

2007-07-27T13:13:00.000+10:00

We need to get the steamer trunks packed! The Voigtlanders loaded with film! Bindi and Bobcat off to the kennel!

We are headed to Berlin for the 1st annual European Photoblogger's Meetup!

Our goal? To leave with our heads and identities intact and a big fat unpaid bar tab!

We will not be live shaming this event but we WILL have a full report at it's conclusion.

(Or as full as our alcohol muddled memories allow.)

Like Drinking From A Firehose

2007-07-18T14:36:00.000+10:00

Often when we are interviewed by the International Press (Perhaps you saw us on Larry King on CNN whilst we were in country or our joint interviews on the BBC Newshour and Al Jazeera) and asked why we only shame photomemes.

The answer is the same as to the question: "Why do you hate George Bush and cat photos?"

"Because it's so easy." (Ok, we have to work on hating cat photos, but it's worth it in the end.)

Then the inevitable question arises 'Whither flickr'?

We Memes have hearts. Think us not completely heartless. We heart you. We do not however heart flickr. We don't shame flickr because it is not worthy of our shame, but rather, because we don't know where to begin. We can walk on the backs of fishes packed into the barrell of stupidity that is flickr and not get our hooves wet.

From those daft groups, to those HATEFUL HATEFUL HATEFUL silly awards that daft gits give other daft gits in the daft git comment section where they used to leave daft git comments like 'I like your daft git photo because I'm a daft git, too' now they leave AWARDS with little .gif (.gif sort of brings to mind daft git? Coincidence? We think not.) things that make us SPIT. The entire endeavor is one big daftgitorium!

FLICKR PEOPLE ARE DAFT GITS AND NOW GET IN LINE AND COME GET YOUR MANTLES OF SHAME! WE ARE ONLY DOING THIS ONCE!

What prompts this you ask?

We got a comment that we elevated to Post Status from a one Mr Matthew Robertson who we like and has yet to attain Agent Status (Email us your self chosen designation) that shows us the best and most honest flickr group EVER! See below. (You've already seen above, daft git.)

Matthew Robertson has left a new comment on your post "Updates Three":

Your pic has won the Flikr [sic] Self-Pleasuring Award.
Please add your photo to the Flikr [sic] Self-Pleasuring Award Winner pool and tag with "Self Pleasure".

Seriously: http://www.flickr.com/groups/396439@N21/

We are self pleasuring ourselves at the thought of this wonderfully honest and wholesome group.

Now we must, in all fairness and honest self disclosure, answer the following question:

Q. "Do you Memes have a flickr account?"

A. "Of course! What do you take us for? Luddites?"

Updates Three

2007-07-16T05:48:00.001+10:00

Subject The First

SeeItSunday: Sun or as we like to call Barb/Xerraire: SeeYouTWICESunday for posting two images to the same theme. Now granted one could argue that one person can have two different photoblogs from which to submit BUT BY THE SAKE TOKEN THE DAFT GITS COULD HAVE 500!!!

From Barb's Photoblog: http://xerraireart.com/blogx/?p=29
From Xerraire: http://xerraireart.com/Photos/details.php?image_id=12

Now we can sometimes forgive multiple entries if they are far apart on the list because one might forget while fighting the War on Terror and recycling to help return the Earth back to another ice age (We are pro-global warming, we want to grow grapes) that they have ALREADY submitted to a photomemes.

OR sometimes you submit a photo of a cat and in your great shame you promptly submit a photo of something other than a cat. That's ok, too, because as we would like to point out to some Meme Moderators, YOU DON'T ANSWER YOUR DAFT GIT MAIL in a timely fashion. Marc and Nick at PhotoFriday are inexplicable exceptions, they don't speak but they WILL do your emailed bidding within minutes. We have no idea how.

Anyway, we don't feel this is the case here so we take Xerraire to our little Woodshed of Shame for a good switchin' (Oo..that just gave us a little jolt. Sorry, gumnut.)

Subject The Second

AND WHILE WE ARE IN THE WOODSHED we would like to summon a sprightly young photo meme moderator who has started a Sunday photomeme which was are NOT going to link to at this time BECAUSE THE LITTEL DAFT GIT is promoting it with COMMENT SPAM WE ARE THE COMMENT SPAMMERS HERE THANK YOU VE....Oh ...I mean....COMMENT SPAM IS WRONG AND ANNOYING.

That is almost like being those daft gits on flickr who leaves comments like "Hi, I'm John Flickr, and this is my website and I noticed the PHOTO OF YOUR CAT which is so unlike every other cat photo I have ever seen that I want you to join and submit it to our group "=^..^= PEOPLE WHO TAKE PHOTOS OF CATS BECAUSE THEY THINK THEIR CAT PHOTO DOESN'T LOOK LIKE EVERY OTHER DAFT GIT CAT PHOTO >^..^< -meow!" You know what I mean.
(Sorry, Bizzlepix)

SO new Sunday meme moderator, cut it out and we'll list you with the other scoundrels who enjoy making photographers jump through their hoops.

Subject The Third

If you have ever wanted to meet and punch the lights out of The Right Honourable Memes, Monitor and Shame you will have your chance.

Live Shaming - Photo Friday: Busy

2007-07-07T07:57:00.000+10:00

When it's summertime and the livin is easy, we Memes, prop up the Broken Window of Love with a stick we found on the street. So Agents S had no difficult tossing this massive note tied to a rock and thrown through our window. (Note to selves: Order screen repair kit from Home Shopping Channel as soon as the Eve Arden Cosmetics Show is over)

Now...from Agents S

First, I'm disappointed that the new theme 'Busy' is so similar to a theme just a few weeks ago -- 'Active'

But we press on:

I started at #1 and didn't have to look long before I was befuddled by 3amfromkyoto's entry (#2), which is a lovely photo, but appears to be a woman sitting perfectly still: http://www.3amfromkyoto.com/index.php?showimage=396

Bees -- Bees -- Bees (read Cliche -- Cliche -- Cliche):
http://wetsox.org/noah/photofriday/070507.htm
http://melange1.blogspot.com/2007/07/he-who-is-not-busy-buzzing.html
http://curieuzeneuzemosterdpot.web-log.nl/curieuzeneuzemosterdpot/2007/07/busy.html

#14 -- 'jamie in alaska' and 'hands' both need to get 'busy' changing their permissions on Flickr so that their submissions to photomemes aren't marked private.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamieq/543267804/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wilkoa/389269138/

...respectively.

#135 -- tag, you're it (I suspect this is not their real name) -- just plain awful photography (if you'll allow me to be so bold) -- I see 'Busy,' but I also see the other 6 dwarfs: Noisy, Blurry, Flashy, Pinky, Blinky and Underexposed.
http://groovyholly.blogspot.com/2007/07/photo-friday-challenge-busy.html

#22 -- edrick02 -- no idea: (moon, leaves, feathers, water, none of which looks busy to me)
http://edrick02.multiply.com/photos/photo/39/20

#37 -- *bildersite* -- I'm not sure what is 'busy' in this image, the vacant railroad tracks, the lazing pigeons on the rail, the pigeons sitting on the grass -- oh, perhaps it's the five (5) automobiles in the upper left? Beats me!
http://www.aschatz.com/fotos/index.php?showimage=171

Still Life doesn't scream - "Busy" to me -- but apparently it does to:
#32 --archiprezmosis -- http://archiprezmosis.com/index.php?showimage=26

All the best,
--Agents S

Agents S! You are our long lost American Cousin/Cousines! Please call us when you are in country so long as you don't need money!

Retro Shame: Moody Monday - Horny

2007-07-01T00:55:00.000+10:00

This just in from Crème de Meme

Moody Monday: Horny seemed like an inspired Theme... but it turns out you need to enjoy cattle or antlers!

But some are worthy of an extra-bolded WTF.

For instance:Adrian Hancu is at the Wailing Wall... I believe. http://www.hancu.com/index.php?showimage=264

Levitation seems petrified
http://movie.leova.com/index.php?showimage=454

I don't even want to begin wondering what LA Bombilla understood the theme to be: http://labombilla.blogia.com/2006/040601-agujero-negro.php

But a special WTF is reserved for Damion Garot, who seems to be a leg man... http://www.damiengarot.com/blog/index.php?showimage=267

As an aside, while submissions seemed to center around something with horns or something you wanted to have sex with, Xerriare's lovely entry falls squarely into BOTH categories.

In Regards to Agent names: We were going to designate all Shamers as Agents X, but some of you seem to want to strike out and carve your own niche so we are implementing SHAME NAMES.

See you on the sidebar.

Live Shame - PhotoFriday: Gray!

2007-06-30T07:49:00.001+10:00

THIS JUST IN!

When we saw the them was 'gray' we thought to ourselves, "Dear God, it's over. Entropy has prevailed."

We couldn't bear to look through our tears at the entries and frankly, we didn't care to, especially given the frequency of randy themes on other memes. Our fear was that participants would combine racy and gray and take upskirt shots at the local retirement village.

This we found tied to a rock and thrown through our window:

It appears that virtually any black and white photo is worthy of submission for this week's theme!

Even Sepia tones work:
#191 -- gerryfoto -- http://www.gerryfoto.de/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/2007/01/rotoruasw-800.jpg

Guys in Grey jackets:
#51 -- formerlytriphop -- http://orbitalbox.my-expressions.com/archives/6983_1524662581/201743

Selective color (spit):
#107 -- red and gray -- http://www.kabulaev.com/index.php?showimage=60

Cat?
#133 -- pet campbell -- http://www.petsgardenblog.com/2007/06/29/photo-fridaygrey/

Little to no actual gray
#118 -- the pearl -- http://www.gofish.org.uk/photoblog/?date=1182898800

High contrast black and white??
#27 -- Flatline - Grey -- http://flatline.my-expressions.com/archives/5933_1999453276/136343

Just a random sampling...

Best,

The New Agents known as S

Wherein Lies Our Shame?

2007-06-21T14:16:00.001+10:00

When we created this Photo Meme Hall of Shame it followed a discussion we had on the Bare Mattress of Love concerning the posting of images to PhotoFriday in a frantic jockeying for position. Our mission was clear and our scope was narrow.

DO NOT POST PHOTOS THAT DO NOT APPLY TO THE THEMES YOU DAFT GITS!!!

Since we have brought to light this little habit, with few notable exceptions this rule now seems to be followed (more or less).

Through the work of our many street agents (X, 99, and many others) and even some DAFT GITS WHO USED THEIR OWN NAMES we have found that the scope of shaming needs to be widened to address other aspects of participation in the photo memes.

Some of these come the memes themselves include repeating each others themes, (DO YOU NOT LOOK AT OTHER MEMES, YOU SELF CENTERED BUNCH OF PHOTO MEME MODERATORS???), allowing rampant vote fraud and thrusting into Victory those with the itchiest mouse fingers, Strict rules meant to increase participation which only leads to photographer abuse.

And then those participants who abuse the system by submitting the same images over and over (Oh how have grown to loathe the Bride with the frosting on her face), those who attach signs and symbols to their names at Photo Friday to be noticed (most recent abuser __________ms (no link granted)).

So we need your help. We want to know. What bugs you the most?

As always we have mutiple means of submission. You may either email/tie to a rock and throw through our window with a vote or an explanation you'd like to have posted anonymously. Or you may comment as such.

We will keep a tally here and post future comments.

The Biggest Pain in the Arse Is:

PhotoMeme Category
Multiple memes using the same theme: 74
Daft rules we can barely understand: 0
Inconsistent changeover times: 0
Rampant vote fraud/friends always winning: 1
Horrible photos inexplicably always winning: 16
Other: 0

Photographer Category
Posting irrelvent images just to be first: 124
Recycling images multiple times/multiple memes: 67
Abusing entry names using symbols or 'nudity' when there is none. (memeshame's most hated abuse): 1
Winning FAR too often (nudgenudge): 2
Other: 0

Tune in frequently for results. Feel free to forward this link to all of your friends/Romans/countrymen or bring it up around your watercooler at work (or unemployment office if times are tough)

Also, should we create a banner or button indicating one has been shamed? Much like our real time items in our online store. (Attention Shoppers! The first shipments of EVERYTHING has sold out except for the dog jackets! We are simply backordered a few weeks. Please, no more calls!)

Or perhaps have an annual glitzy dinner when we present our 'Shamies'?

A Gold Star On Your Forehead.

2007-06-19T14:21:00.000+10:00

We Memes have a simple system we use to determine our collective wants and needs, sort of like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and we are showing it to you only to illustrate a point.

1. Wearing out the Bare Mattress of Love

2. Meeting YOUR needs

3. Shaming you DAFT GITS back into shape.

4. All else.

It's VERY simple. Why do we bring this up at this juncture?

Because in an EARLIER post where we sort of poked a little fun at The Group Photoblog Project Formerly Known as a PhotoMeme and Photoblogs.org Hall of Fame member WeeklyShot we made reference to the special algorithm (We can't stop saying Al Gore Rhythm).

Here at the Photomeme Hall of Shame we have always sortof chuckled up our sleeves at the special algorithm because we have a very simple one.

In order to be listed in our Hall one ONLY NEED BE A DAFT GIT! (and catch our eye or better yet, be ratted out by a Secret Agent who poses as your FRIEND.)

It's easy.

So when we referenced the algorithm and said that we knew what was in it thanks to an agent provocatuer in the TRUEST sense of the word they said they could HANDLE THE TRUTH and wanted to know what it was.

We have it narrowed down to 2 possibilities and they are as follows:

Possibility The First: You take chromasia times a daily dose of imagery divided by skinnybuzzard, then you deduct some points for Blogger or WordPress and more than one image per page. If you use My Expressions or any other of the photoblogging services which do not allow bloggers you get a 15% increase, unless you are Satan's Laundromat. Once you have determined that value there is a small adjustment made for Canon over Nikon. If you use Olympus or Sony, you simply don't add the adjustment. Photographers using point and shoots of any manufacturer that used to sell film like Kodak and Fuji have to subtract 10 percent from their total but users of point and shoots manufactured by companies which also manufacture DSLRs get a 5% increase providing they also carry the DSLR otherwise they have to deduct 5%. Photographers still shooting film receive 7% bonuses for the following cameras: Holga, Diana, Lomo. Medium format film cameras earn you a bonus of 14% while Canon, Minolta, and Nikon SLR cost you 3% towards your final total. If you can submit a sworn affidavit stating that you are using a film SLR after using and building a substantial digital library using a DSLR, the penalty will be removed. Scanning film images or slides will not affect the rating and the adjustments are the same as applicable to the above description of cameras. Photoblogs which play music are disqualified from the Photoblogs.org Hall of Fame unless we like the music, then you simply lose a small adjustment of your final score. Sound effects are excluded. Showing EXIF data earns you a 2% bonus, knowing what the EXIF data means earns you a 12 % bonus (Please submit proof in writing) Participation in the photomemes, with the exception of Weekly Shots does not affect your score but participation in photobloggers.org, a wholly owned subsidiary of photoblogs.org will grant you a 9 percent adjustment of your score prior to the application of the camera information. Participation in Vazaar and microstocks does not affect your score. Participation in flickr is at your own risk, not recommended but will not affect your score negatively unless you belong to 10 or more groups and then you lose .5% per group until your score reaches zero or you run out of groups. Site traffic does not affect your chances or getting into the photoblogs.org Hall of Fame but traffic WILL increase your numbers of bookmarks and appearence on the HOT LIST (A completely different algorithm althogether). Lurking in the newsgroups will not negatively affect your final Hall of Fame score but active participation can earn you up to 20 points. Relevancy will not be taken into account nor will correctness of information provided. 1 point is deducted for not using spell check. Photoblogs which have pop up ads are disqualified from the Photoblogs.org Hall of Fame. Photoblogs with extensive advertising are disqualified from the Photoblogs.org Hall of Fame.

OR

Possibility the Second: You just list a photoblog you like. When questioned, claim existence of complex algorithm.

We also submit for your approval the following letter from a Mr Robert Jones to the Photoblogs.org group re: The Hall of Fame

Hi Guys

I was very pleased to notice my old photoblog called 'Imitationeye' has recently got into the photoblogs hall of fame.

Imitationeye was only running for a couple of months and I closed it down in February this year. So apologies to the people who have clicked the link recently...(there are even a couple of new bookmarks!!)

Of course its a complement and I am grateful, but it does leave me wondering about 'hall of fame'.

What I mean is, shouldn't it be a bit more exclusive?? I mostly agree with the first 10 or so nominations, but after that the quality seems at bit ermm..variable?? And there's still some brilliant photoblogs that aren't yet included...eg Alkos, Shotage, Appareil etc...

Surely photoblogs.org must be scraping the bottom of the barrel if I'm in!

All the best!

Rob

Again, our mission here isn't to bring additional attention to the Photoblogs.org Hall of Fame (Did we mention the Photoblog.org Hall of Fame) but merely because we thought it cute that it contains WeeklyShots which we had never thought of as a Photoblog.

Disclaimer: We actually like the Photoblogs.org Hall of Fame very much as we do all of Mr Stone's projects which we feel truly does bring the entire online photographic community to a higher level.

Calling All Agents Provocateur!

2007-06-19T07:25:00.000+10:00

We recently had some Agents check in by tossing their rocks through our windows bringing some attention to some memes themes and a correction we feel the need to make, thusly we begin with the correction:

From a rock with the subject line 'I'd like to inform you'

Dear Photo Meme Hall Of Shame,

Shame on you! You have incorrectly linked my wonderfully evocative and hellish photo, with, one belonging, I believe, to Genre Cookshop: entry date June 6th, in your own entry:

Retro Shaming June 11th:

Hell is indeed a thing of ones own making.

Some fine examples:
-Being 2 back from the light (Oh, how hellish when the car in front stops on yellow! We agree!).

Whew, I think that's clear. If not, please forgive me--I'll take a picture and try to communicate that way. :oP

Yours in pixels,
PJ Taylor
Mostly Sunny *

That would clear things up if we ever went back to check anything. 'Move on!' we always say. 'Sally forth!' 'Never look back lest ye be turned into a pillar of salt!','Don't let the door hitcher ass on the way out.' We have a million of them. Did we ever mention the 7th Earl of Memeshame?
Consider Mostly Sunny's shaming to be unshamed or reshamed up shame placed where shame is due or whatever. SHAME ON!

Next order of business....

THIS JUST IN FROM AGENT XTROARDINAIRE (Husband of the VERRRRRRY lovely Mrs Agent Xtroardinaire)

From a rock with the subject line: MEME SHOWDOWN

Moody Monday and Photo Friday have both chosen ACTIVE as the theme of the week.

It's eeeeeeeeerie......

It's eeeeerie indeed!

*UPDATE* Although we like to have a titter here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame, it came to our attention that no action was taken on correcting the error pointed out by PJ Taylor. When efforting a little project like this and having our (and hopefully your) fun, we must still be VERY diligent in meeting the expectation of respect for agents, shamees, and visitors the The Photo Meme Hall of Shame. We apologize to Ms Taylor and hope that Genrecookshop gets the shame coming to him/her. Sincerely - The Eds.

Macroday- The Discovery Channel photomeme

2007-06-18T20:51:00.000+10:00

Photomeming has always been a family affair round here but lately we've been shielding the innocent eyes of Bindi and Bob-Cat from what has become in recent weeks a rather cheeky Macroday. We have no idea what's going on over there but it has been a slow build-up, with might-be-completely-wide-eyed-and-innocent themes such as 'hole' and 'rubber' being followed up with the more in-yer-face 'body part'. Last week was 'bottom' (we've had to listen to Bob-Cat repeating 'bottom- submit yours' ever since) and this week? Well, this week they have 'sex' (as a theme, that is)! Now, we're no prudes and the bare mattress of love isn't called 'the bare mattress of laying around staring at the ceiling' for a good reason but Bindi and Bob-Cat are at a very impressionable age and we would rather not have them associating *ahem* 'getting it on' with copulating cockroaches, bonking beetles and..umm.. flies.

Has Macroday set up shop on the Reeperbahn, we wonder? Is this an attempt to tap into a whole new photomeme audience. Is Macroday perhaps vanguard of a new wave? Moody Monday was 'loved up' last week, for instance, and 'active' this week. Memeshame tells me he has money on it being 'horny' next (or maybe he paid money for it to be 'horny' next, I'm not altogether sure). Watch this space.

Blaaah is back.

2007-06-18T20:12:00.000+10:00

Remember this? http://photo-meme-shame.blogspot.com/2007/04/hall-of-shame-blahhh-theme-protest.html Why not? It should be engraved on your consciousness, popping up both at times convenient and inauspicious.

What is it with photomeme owners and colours? We had white last week for SeeItSunday, Red (the second, no less) for Macroday a few weeks back and now two photomemes are offering the punters 'blue' this week. Our beloved Dale Hudjik got in there first by announcing it a week in advance but Unique Exposures, by virtue of presenting earlier in the week, has already grabbed the attention of a few potential Thursday Challenge participants.

(I injected as much excitement as possible into the previous sentence. It wasn't easy.)

I think what we'll do is shame any of you who submit the same 'blue' photo for both photomemes. That's your challenge.

The Group Photoblog Hall of Shame

2007-06-18T12:56:00.000+10:00

Weekly Shots, in a continuing effort to find and redefine itself (and perhaps it's inner child), has christened itself to be a Group Photoblog.

Now much like Kindergarten, everything we ever needed to know about Photoblogging we learned at Photoblogs.org. And a Photoblog is a collection if images by a photographer posted chronologically. And then you have group photoblogs, like the good folks over at WebPix. And then you have your photomemes like the good folks over at, well, the photomemes.

This from the photoblogs.org own wiki as to what a photoblog IS...

A photoblog, therefore, is a form of weblog (blog). Whereas a typical blog uses text as its primary form of communication, in a photoblog the emphasis is photographs. Some blogs also contain pictures; some photoblogs also contain text. When is a blog a photoblog? When the emphasis is the photography and the images are not just used to illustrate the text.

Like more common text-based blogs, photoblogs usually have one author, but some have two or many more authors. Like text-based blogs, entries are usually posted to the photoblog by the author on a regular basis. The resulting posts are usually time stamped and listed in chronological order with the most recent photo (or photos) shown first and on the main page of the photoblog. Older entries are accessed via links that allow a visitor to navigate forward and back, chronologically through a photoblog's images.

Typically, some kind archive is available, often divided by month or category. Most photoblogs also allow visitors to leave comments that are associated with a particular entry. These comments allow a photoblog to establish a community of visitors. Comments usually link back to the commenter's site. This further permits the creation of a loose community with authors and visitors able to access, share and communicate through each others sites.
The dynamic nature of blogs and photoblogs compared to static sites means that blogs require some form of content management system (CMS) rather than being built by hand. These content management systems usually provide the photoblog's authors with a web service that allows the creation and management of posts and the uploading of images. The CMS delivers webpages based on the data entered by the photoblog author. Access to photoblogs is usually unrestricted and available to anyone with internet access and a browser.

Ok, students, listen up. Blogger, which is quite bloglike and may contain photos is scorned as 'not a photoblog'. However, according to this definition, FLICKR may be considered a photoblog.

So children, if YOU are a member of flickr, you are a member of perhaps the greatest group photoblog EVER!

However, it's unlikely you will see yourself in the Photoblogs.org Hall of Fame anytime soon.

But back to Weekly Shots...

Not only is it a photoblog. It's a HOT photoblog. According to Photoblogs.org of which Weekly Shot is like...a cousin. AND it is in the HALL OF FAME!

Flickr? No.
Any other Photomeme? No.
Any other group photoblog? We don't know! What do we look like, know-it-alls?

But Weekly Shot is.

But ONLY because of a complex algorithm. Very complex. We'd explain it to you, but you wouldn't understand. So let's just say it's a algorithm and complex. And made up of MANY factors.

We can't tell you all, but we can tell you two.

1. Being a photoblog.

and now

2. Shameless self promotion.

Live Shaming

2007-06-15T15:13:00.000+10:00

This week's award for the worst posting, nearly fitting into a category of their own of "Dirty Tricks, Scoundrels and Cheeders" goes to Shutters who...

THIS JUST IN!

Shutters, who held the 1st place position by submitting a terrible photo of a lame bridge later to be replaced with some football players, was DELETED and forced to resubmit to a more appropriate 14th place.

Kudos go out to Marc and Nick for moderating their fine photomeme.

Retro Shaming

2007-06-14T12:39:00.000+10:00

Back in the early 1950s when we created the Photo Meme Hall of Shame Agent Program, the world was a simpler place. Black/White, Good/Bad, Kukla/Fran/Ollie. People knew where they stood, they were either against something or for something.

Today, the lines are blurred. We try to set points from which there can be no ambiguity. We Memes, operate not only from the Bare Mattress of Love, but from a rock solid foundation of what is Shameful and what is not. For instance...

Shameful: jkirlin, name changing/posting ANYTHING to be early/then we find not even posting HIMSELF all the time. (and shamed he is and he takes it relatively well. Permission of shamee granted for this ahead of time)

Not Shameful: neene, we just don't understand sometimes but always find her and her images to be lovely and sincere.

But then...

Shameful/Not Shameful: Our good friend Rich Legg is deserving of Shaming in the jkirlin vein. His images are GREAT but his captions and comments make us CRINGE sometimes. However, he is ALWAYS a complete gentleman when he SHOULD be mailing us pipe bombs from his shack in Montana (Or Utah, wherever). (As an aside, Mr Legg also runs his own something or other on his flickr site for his contacts of which there are thousands. Look for more information on that here in a future post)

See the lines blurring?

Recently we received the following transmission on the Photo Meme Hall of Shame Shortwave Radio/Teletype/Telex Machine from one of our agents in the field:

Begin Transmission

Greetings.

Agent X back from... well, doing actual work.

Now that the Money Challenge is closed for submission, but open for voting, let's take a closer look:

mooch does not know bling from tree deco:http://www.moochuk.com/index.php?showimage=621

Steve Barru found some rather half-hearted sale digging... but it's losely related to money, I guess. Not exactly Filene's on President's Day though: http://stevebarru.com/photoblog/index.php?showimage=241

neene... randomly associates a brand new shoe and an empty digestif bottle with poverty (one must assume - no explanation was required)http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/06/money.html

The one-eyed man and the latentsifier both clobber us with the subtle Oil = Money. http://www.johnsimpson.ca/index.php/image/norsea.jpg/

http://www.wilsonhurst.com/irontone/?p=1046 ...whereby the latentsifier sees and raises the one-eyed man by throwing an anncillary jab at the mighty grain industry.

Bizzlepix shows us an unloved piano, and a man with new gloves...but a really cool transition animation of a Krazy Kitty between pages! Worth surfing the blog just for that, as well as his lovely photography! http://photos.bizzlepix.com/index.php?showimage=92

Daily Photo Evolution shows us that without deliveries, shoes never wear out, and everyone stays poor - a rather youthful view of globalization... http://why.aminus3.com/image/2007-01-13.html

Powerbreak shows us a popular flag and a phone company office building: http://www.flickr.com/photos/szczesny/533070338/

The Telex also included the following caveat:

You should adjust my comments to be less snippy if you want to use them and think it warrants fine-tuning.

Just consider this an effort to help out the Cause. (Note - writ large)

End transmission

We Memes stood slack jawed with the curled themal paper in our hands unsure as to how to proceed. We stood there shoving it back and forth at each other like it was a hot potato.

This Agent X is the least snippiest of the dozens of agents and the most knowledgable of the field of Money. We Memes know nothing of money, having so much of it so easily and using so little. We clicked each of the links and, to be quite honest, did not understand either the submission, or the agents report.

As such, we will accept any or all reports of shaming to be valid, but also any or all defenses to be valid.

If you are reading this because you are newly Shamed, please see the previous post for our challenge letter template.

Retro Shaming

2007-06-11T11:44:00.000+10:00

"Every man must live in a Hell of his own making" - The 7th Earl of Memeshame (1741)

Quite the toastmaster was the 7th Earl of Memeshame. We have hundreds of his old sayings and sea ditties which he left to us on DVD before his untimely passing at the hands of a jealous husband in 1768 at the age of 91.

He used to give out his wit an wisdom freely. A little too freely if you ask us. "Go to Hell"? That was his. Completely uncopyrighted and dumped right into the damned public domain. He's been left out of nighttime blessings ever since.

Hell has come a long way since his day as seen in this week's Moody Monday theme of Hellish.

Hell is indeed a thing of ones own making.

Some fine examples:

A car without AC;
Starting blogging;
Just having washed your car;
Posting incorrectly;
A lovely skylight;
White clothing (between Labor and Memorial day in the US, uncertain about China)
Watching card playing on the telly;
Whitewater;
Air Canada?;
A peat bog;
Second thoughts;
A bit of ick;
Being 2 back from the light (Oh, how hellish when the car in front stops on yellow!! We agree!);
Mass transportation;
Parked heavy equipment.

Given the high number of new shamees this week we are including the following template of our typical mail to assist with your response.

Dear (expletive deleted)

I am _(Your name)_ and I participated in _(Photo Meme)_ on __(Date)__and you 2 (expletives deleted) decided to (expletive deleted) list my (expletive deleted) submission to that (expletive deleted) photo meme. Who the (expletive deleted) appointed you (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted) to be the (expletive deleted) arbiter of what the (expletive deleted) is a (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted) valid submission to a (expletive deleted) photo (expletive deleted) contest? Who the (expletive deleted) do you (expletive deleted) think you (expletive deleted) are?

Love,

__(Your name here)__

Then what happens is that we try to talk you down off the ledge and offer you a place on our little list of photographer that we like because we DO like you. After all we are...

Your noisy upstairs neighbours,

The Right Honourable Memes, Monitor and Shame Esq. (et al)

P.S. (If that fails, we simply blame 'al' of (et al) fame and agree with you completely.

Live Shaming

2007-06-09T03:23:00.000+10:00

This just in.

"Hey Shames. You need to shame that jkirlin for posting a decidely non-pure thing to Photo Friday. Don't even link to him here. I suspect he's just attention seeking. Thanks. P.S. I'd like to be referred to as 'Agent Orange' "

Sorry Agent Orange but it's our policy to link to even the worst offenders ( and can there be many worse than our dear Mr Kirlin?)

And enough with the chameleon names. We still know who you are.

Full Moon Thursdays?

2007-06-08T10:31:00.000+10:00

First we find that Dale Hudjik is not only voting for his own personal favorites at Thursday Challenge but he is ALSO letting you vote on whether or not *HE* should continue to vote.

We love Dale.

We think he's a bit Looney, but we love him.

Thursday Challenge is one of our favorite photomemes because it's so Democratic. There are no stars, there are no winners, there are no good or bad photographers. There are participants. And Participate they do at a tune of around 150 per week.

Dale accepts no advertising dollars, has no links to his own photoblog (Did you know he was a photographer?). He is the last of the Photographic Non-Whores. For now. We shall see where this little 'personal' favorites thing leads. We suspect to offers that will SHOCK, SHOCK WE SAY, Mr Dale Hudjik and make him wonder what sort of world of debauchery, money, sex, corruption, and unlimited power he has been dabbling in.

Which bring us to us and a letter we received tied to a rock and thrown through the window:

From Agent O:

Hi folks, You're my only port of call, so to speak ;) Are you able to tell me what's going on with the PhotoSharks site today (Thursday 7 June)? Each time I've hit the site, I'm asked for a user name and password. What gives? Please don't tell me that they've suddenly become a gated community - please say it ain't so ;) Ciao,

Dear Agent O,

Not only is PhotoSharks now a gated community, but we, your noisy upstairs neighbors, Memes Monitor and Shame, Esquire, (et al) are its gate keepers. For your user name and password please email us a check for 100 of your local currency units. Not the LITTLE units, but the ones we can actually BUY something with. Then 100 of them.

Now that we think of it, email us the check and rather than send you a user name and password which could be tortured out of you by other far less generous or gullible Photo Sharks we will simply 'make it work' for you. BUT NOT UNTIL WE ARE EMAILED A CHECK! For faster service, please feel free to email us cash.

Peace and love to all of you from all of us here at YOUR port of call: The Photo Meme Hall of Shame

(Now open 24 hours)

THIS JUST IN! Photo Sharks is running again. Don't forget to email us your payments. You are welcome!

The Future of Photomeming

2007-05-26T01:33:00.000+10:00

This is not a shaming, repeat, NOT A SHAMING. But we know some of you love virtually lifting the net curtains on the windows chez Meme and living our lovely lives vicariously (I don’t know if I’ve ever used so many v’s in one sentence. Oh. There’re another two right there) through the intimate glimpses we provide here on Hall (Hey! There were REQUESTS. Seriously.) So, here, reproduced faithfully, is our over-breakfast conversation from Friday. You know you want to be us.

MS: Where are all the anchovies?
MM: You finished them off last night with the rice-pudding that Bob-Cat refused to eat.
MS: I thought they were skinny dates. So what’s Photo Friday?
MM: ‘futuristic’
MS: ¡Ay, caramba! Lessee! What we got? The one eyed man: In the future jacks will be really, really big. Leggnet: In the future all carousels will be really, really fast
MM: jkirlin: In the future there will be tall buildings made of concrete. Neverhappen: In the future there will be a curious yet pleasing mix of architectural styles
MS: HKDigit: In the future, hedgehogs will be bioluminescent. Detour: In the future, asking your Magic Eight Ball will become a lot more complicated
MM: Steve Barru: Rubber band balls will be the shopping malls of the future. Levitation: In the future, the ban on smoking in public places will be lifted
MS: torekimi: In the future, robots will be frustrated by the lack of nose to pick with their one finger
MM: OK, this is just getting stupid now.
MS: Feed me.

You aren’t ready to witness the rest of our morning.
So, in the interests of audience participation, we ask you to go visit Photo Friday, have a look around, come back here and comment with your interpretation of this week’s entries.

Banana of the Future

2007-05-25T23:51:00.001+10:00

Hello Photo Fridayers *waving*

Mr Iron Western Flatline

2007-05-22T10:54:00.000+10:00

We, your noisy upstairs neighbours, like some of you better than others and most of you better than none, and one day as we were lying about on the Bare Mattress of Love chins in hand lazing around the Laptop of Love we decided that we liked IronFlatline and WesternFlatline equally.

Who ARE they, we pondered. Maybe they are cousins?? So we did a little hand over hand Googling (Which is really better with two) and sure enough he/she/it was the same person!

Imagine our joy to find that we didn't REALLY like two people the same but really liked the same person twice! That will save on the Photo Meme Hall of Shame Christmas Card List.

So we decided to subject him to the Photo Meme Hall of Shame Interview and never got around to asking him his name. HE IS STILL A MYSTERY TO US. But one we are both now much more smitten with. (Ok, mememonitor a bit more than memeshame)

So get ready to like him if you just met him and better if you didn't.

1. Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I go by the name of The Iron Flatline. It's a variation of a Gibson character called The Dixie Flatline, but with cooking skills. I do this because this creative outlet represents the fingers I crossed while entering into the Faustian bargain that enables my lifestyle.

2. How many Flatlines are there? have you changed your name? Why? Did you get married?

Well, The Western Flatline is my site. There's K The Uploader, Tiny Chef, and Lil' Flatline, none of whom contribute, but all of whom are featured regularly. Being a Flatline is both things, a religion and a culture. It's possible to be a Flatline without believing in blog, and just taking part in the holidays. What's important is calling your mother regularly.

3. Do you know Kerrin?

No, I do not - though at closer inspection of her blog I realize that she is a parent of multiple boys, a fate we share. Is she hot?

4. What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

I buy extremely fancy gear. I learn through elimination, and by having the best cameras I know a bad picture couldn't possibly be an equipment issue - the problem must be somewhere behind the viewfinder. I have a Leica M8 with various fast lenses, and a little Leica D-Lux 3 that has manual settings and captures raw files. The best camera is useless if it's laying at home, and the D-Lux is small enough that it is always with me, especially when flying. I also have a Canon 5D with lots of heavy 'L' glass, but it's getting very little use.

5. What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I'm a pretty good cook, and for years my "nom-de-guerre" online used to be The Iron Chef. Then the show came to the US, and suddenly it was a popular name. It was often taken whenever I joined a forum or community, and I was tired of thinking up new names. I used to play a lot of online video games, esp. CS and UT.

6. Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

I do most of the artwork in my house, and have a lot of images (esp. abstracts) that I've printed very large and display at home. Other than that it's really only my blog. I pimp it mercilessly by submitting entries to various photo-memes, but I still can't drive any traffic to it. Part of the problem is apparently that my site doesn't work well in Internet Explorer. A friend of mine built it, but he's moved and has found a paying gig.

7. What is the best photo that you missed?

There's probably a shot every hour that I wish I could capture as I'm seeing it right then and there.

8. Tell us your worst habit.

Good God, where to start... I eat too much, I eat too fast, I eat things that don't go well together and then I wonder why I feel queasy and gain weight. I argue online with people that I don't know about topics I don't really care about. I pick my nose, I make fun of vegetarians, and I am too understanding of the other side.

9. Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from railroad tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.)

Yes, I have.

10. If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

I dunno, photography is the only real thing I know. I don't actually have any tangible meaningful skills, which is why I'm a business man. It's not like I'm a doctor, carpenter, or musician. Maybe I'll be a Rabbi later in life, but I'll have to patch up my relationship with the Big Guy first.

11. What are you wearing?

A dark-grey Zegna suit, a hand-made shirt and shoes, and a tie that I like less than when I bought it. I'm sitting on a plane on my way to London for a meeting, hence the grown-up outfit.

12. Have you no shame, Sir?

No, because The Iron Flatline is a construct. When we put on our glittering ballroom gowns, we can all be drag-princesses for a night.

Live Shame

2007-05-19T22:33:00.001+10:00

Sighted at Shutterday: Europe

Rich Legg

However, we will defend our friend Rich Legg, who is nice, by saying the post DID mention something about a South Sea paradise. And we praise him for his restraint for not posting his self portrait for Moody Monday: Rich

Live Shame

2007-05-19T08:22:00.002+10:00

Submitted by an Agent X from Photo Friday: Large

jkirlin
SF
Martin Taylor

MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN!

2007-05-19T07:57:00.001+10:00

Sirs,

I tried. I really tried.

But when the mighty Photo Friday unleashes a topic as loosely defined as last week's Amber, apparently anything goes.

Shameful submissions were found. Many. Oh so very many... but it's clear that any color between canary yellow and maroon constitutes Amber. Maybe it's a question of screen calibration, or maybe the public school system's art program has let us down once again.

But regardless, apparently any monochromatic image that isn't blue (I even found a lime green) will have to be acceptable. ...and let's not even talk about girls called Amber. At least they're all pretty, which helps when slogging one's way through 402 submissions.

Thus I declare failure, and retreat. I must rest. This the new topic is Big... I am bracing for the storm! Hold fast.

Agent X (An altogether different Agent X as previous)

Retro Shame

2007-05-18T17:29:00.000+10:00

This just in from ...erm...Agent X:

You could find a full week's worth of "Hall Of Shame" content at PhotoFriday any given week. This week's "Amber" challenge is no exception. Please have a look at these shame-worthy entries:

Ce que je vois, ce que je sens ("artiste photo")
I guess her name must be "Amber" right?

stevendavid.eu ("AMBER_BRIDGE")
Simply putting the name of the theme in your link title does not a relevant submission make....as this clearly demonstrates.

jeremycharles ("~AMBER ALERT~")
Simply putting the name of the theme in your link title does not a relevant submission make....as this ALSO clearly demonstrates.

Scarlett ("Scarlett")
That is a cute puppy. We'll have to take Scarlett's word for it that its name is "Amber".

still life ("still life")
This is so far from being relevant that I am not able to think up a snarky comment to make about it.

Five totally non-relevant entries out of my first twenty five random link visits. That is 20% folks, and I suspect this ratio would hold.....or get worse....if I checked all the submissions. But who has the time?

Sadly, Agent X, we often do.

Good work, Agent X.

Live Shame

2007-05-18T11:54:00.001+10:00

This sent in by Agent X

We love PhotoFrank and he apparently loves us.

This posted for Shutterday: Strangers

Send your live and retro shaming to photomemeshame@gmail.com

CALLING ALL AGENTS X!

2007-05-17T09:35:00.000+10:00

WE SEND THIS MESSAGE TO YOU FROM THE PORTABLE BARE MATTRESS OF LOVE ABOARD THE STEAMER THE EMPRESS OF INDIA EN ROUTE TO DAR ES SALAAM VIA LISBON STOP

WE TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO INTRODUCE TO YOU MINOR CHANGES AT THE PHOTO MEME HALL OF SHAME STOP

OUR INTRODUCTIONS ARE THREEFOLD STOP

1 LIVE SHAMING IS THE ACCEPTANCE OF EMAILS SIMPLY IDENTIFYING A POST WHICH YOU FEEL VIOLATES THE LETTER AND SPIRIT OF A CURRENT MEME RULE AND/OR THEME AND SHALL BE POSTED IMMEDIATLY UNDER YOU SECRET DESIGNATION (SEE BELOW) OR YOUR OWN NAME IF YOU ARE A DAFT GIT STOP

2 RETRO SHAMING IS THE ACCEPTANCE OF EMAILS OF GROUPS OF VIOLATIONS AND MAY OR MAY NOT REFLECT A CURRENT MEME OR THEME BUT JUST SOMETHING STILL STUCK IN YOUR CRAW OR THAT YOU MAY WANT TO EMBELLISH UPON (SEE OTHER SHAMING POSTS FOR EXAMPLES) YOU MAY POST VIA YOUR SECRET DESIGNATION (SEE BELOW) OR YOU OWN NAME IF YOU ARE A DAFT GIT STOP

3 ALL SHAMERS AND PARTICIPANTS WILL RECEIVE THE SECRET DESIGNATION OF AGENT X UNLESS THEY USE THEIR OWN NAME AND ARE DAFT GITS STOP

SHAMEES SHALL BE NAMED AS ALWAYS STOP

STAY TUNED TO THIS WEBSITE OR 21850 ON THE 13M SHORTWAVE BAND FROM 2300 to 000 GMT ON THE PHOTO MEME HALL OF SHAME RADIO HOUR FEATURING THAT OLD TIMEY MUSIC FOR MORE INFORMATION STOP

NOTE TO BINDI AND BOBCAT THE CAN OPENER IS IN THE MIDDLE DRAWER STOP

Feeling all warm and gooey about you all.

2007-05-17T00:12:00.000+10:00

You know what we love, dear Shamers?

We love that you're all coming together to make friends, bitch about the memes, exchange phone numbers, arrange dinner rendez-vous (don't pretend you're not) and all here on the Hall of Shame.

We've got Mr Gorin Images and Flatline slapping each other on the back, Laanba and jkirlin setting up fanclubs and huddling, we've got Neene and msdedi on speed-dial, and Kerrin's talking to, well, everybody who doesn't know her.

Ooooh. We're getting goosebumps. Keep it up and go spread the word.

Our Shamers Hard at Work Again.

2007-05-14T22:02:00.000+10:00

"Pssssssssst...Hall of Shame. Moody Monday 'rich'. Check these out.

an easter egg by Atomische

a Flintstone house by the Occasional Odd Crop

a bell pepper (!!!) by Uh!Log, which is not even remotely relevant, but rather a long exposure trial.... this MUST be called to the mat!

A train shot by someone called 'I use two forks!'"

as received at Hall of Shame HQ by semaphor in the early hours of Mothers' Day morning.

As I lay in bed scoffing the chocs Bindi and Bob-Cat presented me (your card got lost in the post, did it, Fuzzy Points?), Shame dug out a couple of other Moody Monday questionables to add to the diligent work above:
Hey Red posted a photo of a ‘Welcome to Ontario’ sign (Are you Canadians holding out on us? Are we on the cusp of the Great Ontarian Gold Rush of 2007?)
Fischimglas posted a macro of a cactus (A Fisch im Glas in worth two in the Sahara?)

So, Shamers. A new week, new themes. Get your shamings in to us pronto. Look how much fun it is.

Mr. Justin Jarret JARRETT Gorin of Gorin-Images

2007-05-10T04:44:00.000+10:00

Very few people openly admit being supporters of the Photo Meme Hall of Shame. Hell, WE don't even admit it, but one member of this tiny cabal of people braver than we, is Jarrett Gorin. He was an early supporter and continues to offer helpful suggestions and sometimes even steer this ship. One of his helpful suggestion was that if we are going to link to him, we could at LEAST spell his name correctly. We are efforting that. It's NOT easy.

His photos and text figure prominently in the photoblogging community and he graces us here, in our little forum The ~~People's Court~~ Photo Meme Hall of Shame. After reading his interview, go to his photoblog using your Official Photo Meme Hall of Shame IP Anonymizers and when he doesn't see the traffic, he'll know it's you.

1. Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

Who Am I: A 35 year old (36 this June) real estate developer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. Husband to the beautiful and intelligent Nichol, stepfather of 8.5 year old Spencer, and father of 3.5 year old Tristan. I started to do photography as part of my work, which involves presentations to Planning Commissions, Architectural Review Boards, etc. While shooting photographs to use in PowerPoint presentations, I realized that photography was fun in-and-of-itself. So I decided to take some adult-education classes on foundational photographic techniques in order to do a better job shooting photos for work, and to learn for my own entertainment. One day my boss gave me the paperback book "The Art of Seeing" from the Kodak Workshop Series. He had found it while cleaning out his garage the past weekend. This book, from the early 1990's shows many examples of photographs created from ordinary scenes and subjects, and attempts to teach you to "see" the world differently. I thought this was extremely cool, and I started to look at things differently as well, and then I began to photograph them. That is how I started to do "artistic" photography.

Why Am I Doing This To You: I started a photoblog in the fall of 2005 to display my non-work photographic efforts and get feedback. The guy who helped me set up my photoblog, Greg Lawler (author of the Zinkwazi photoblog), participated in a small, mostly local theme challenge here in the Santa Barbara area, and invited me to participate. That was the first time I ever heard of a meme. After a few weeks, I discovered other memes, so I began entering some of those too. Occasionally, a very interesting theme would inspire me to go out and make an image that I otherwise would never have thought about. Mostly, I entered memes because it was a good way to get exposure to a wide audience. So I guess the main reason why I originally entered, and continue to enter memes is shameless self-promotion.

2. What did you have for breakfast?

A bowl of Cheerios. Some blackberries. Then, a little later, a twenty ounce drip coffee at Starbucks.

3. Do you know Kerrin?

No.

4. What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

I have done all of my "serious" photographic work with Nikon digital SLRs. I love their durability and ease-of-use in the field. Right now I use a Nikon D2X. Before that, I used a D2H. Most of the time I shoot with the 17-55mm f/2.8 DX Nikkor lens. I also use the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR Nikkor a lot. I'd estimate about 85% of my images were made with one of these two lenses. They are heavy, but that is because they are full of very nice Nikon glass which produces fantastic, beautifully saturated, and contrasty images. I have also been using the 60mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens (they call their "Macro" lenses "Micro") a lot the past few months. It is a great lens, and also relatively inexpensive.

5. What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I am a "closet" computer nerd, and I guess I spend enough time messing around with computer systems (i.e. "improving" them) that this could be referred to as a "hobby". The computer I am using right now is one that I built from scratch.

6. Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

Several of my photos have been added to "the Collection" at FILE (www.filemagazine.com). I have had a bunch of images featured on WeeklyShot. I was also recently invited to contribute to ONEXPOSURE (www.onexposure.net) a very slick web project by some guys in Sweden. For the most part, my images on display at these sites are the same images that are on my photoblog. You should check them out anyway though (the sites, not just my images) because you will discover some excellent photographers who you may have never seen or heard of before, especially at FILE.

I also have a public display of ten prints hanging from May 7th through June 25th at Starbucks on the corner of State Street and De La Guerra in downtown Santa Barbara. They get about 600 visitors a day on weekdays and 800-1000 visitors a day on weekends, so I am pretty excited to have the opportunity to exhibit at this location.

I don't have any side projects.

7. What is the best photo that you missed?

A bunch of backlit human figures (they were farm workers) standing in the middle of a sea of pure green row crops. The crops were running perpendicular to my line of sight, so you could only see the top 2/3rds of each person, and the people were silhouetted perfectly and casting shadows onto the green field in front of them, with a huge green expanse extending behind them and on both sides too. I was viewing this from on top of a freeway overpass adjacent to the field at an elevation of about 45 feet above it. With my telephoto lens, I would have been able to capture the silhouetted figures and their shadows with a huge green color-field all the way around them within the frame. I didn't take the shot, because I was driving on the freeway when I saw it. I had my camera gear with me, but I had to get home, and I thought to myself "It's OK, they will be out here again so you will have another chance". Well, they haven't been....at least not set up for an epic shot like that. So the moral of this story is if you have a) a few minutes to spare; b) your photographic equipment; and, c) a place to pull over, then STOP and TAKE THE SHOT.

8. Tell us your worst habit.

Habits that don't affect anyone else by definition are not as bad as the ones that do. In that category, it would have to be my habit with the laundry. I frequently leave my clothes from the previous day either carefully draped over the end post at the foot of the bed, or carefully draped over the edge of the hamper, instead of IN the hamper. This seems like a minor infraction to me, but it clearly irritates the crap out of my lovely wife. Yet I still continue to do it. It would be so easy to simply put the previously worn clothes IN the hamper. Many days, I make a conscious effort to fight this habit, and I correctly execute clothing-into-hamper placement. But inevitably, one or two days a week, I will enter my bedroom and find it to be in good order, with the exception of my clothes placed conspicuously in the middle of the floor, or other times, lovingly deposited into my sink in the bathroom. Either case serves as potent reminder to me that this habit is causing my wife unnecessary grief.

9. Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from raiload tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.)

I haven't donated any organs or anything like that. I still need all of mine.

I "rescued" a lost dog about a week ago. I took Emma, our yellow Labrador retriever out for a final walk for the day at around 1:00 AM and encountered a small, friendly dog walking around unattended in the community orchard behind our house. It had a collar on, but it was too dark to read it. So I picked up the dog and carried him (the gender became evident when I picked him up) back to our house. When I got home, I learned that the tag on this dog's collar was just a registration tag and didn't have his owner's number on it. While I was upstairs attempting to reach someone relevant using the phone number on the registration tag, this friendly dog decided to take a piss in at least two separate locations on the Persian rug in our family room. Ten minutes later, I found his owners way down the street looking for him, and I reunited them. I then went home and attempted to clean up the piss before going to sleep. Does that count as a good deed?

10. If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

I would most likely be an attorney, probably specializing in environmental or land-use law. Or possibly an I.T. professional. Or, the other thing I have always wanted to do is pilot private or commercial jets.

11. What are you wearing?

It is 12:40 A.M. I am wearing cotton pajama pants with a drawstring waist, and an old, very comfortable T-shirt.

Thank you, Mr Gorin-Images.

And now, to paraphrase Mr Gorin Images, we'll stop with the touchy feely interview crap (for a couple of days, anyway) and get back to our original mission: SHAMING YOU DAFT GITS because you are ALL DAFT GITS!

Whither WeeklyShot?

2007-05-04T11:16:00.000+10:00

When we here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame hold our staff meetings, heads in hands, lounging on the Bare Mattress of Love, we like to check on the general health of the various Photo Memes.

We like to check the new memes like Unique Exposures and Shutterday and measure their little growth spurts by marking with a pencil where the top of their pointed little heads come up on the Woodwork Surrounding the Door to the Room Which Holds The Bare Mattress of Love.

Then we hold our hands to the foreheads of other Memes that appear to be ill and make little concerned pouty lip faces and say 'cluck cluck' as we did for many months at Pxite, Macroday, a few of the Passing Tuesday Meme and now, sadly, Weekly Shot.

We once held up Weekly Shot as what a photomeme should be, a vibrant conversation on the high art of photography by the best of its practitioners, additionally, we compared it to the Lord of the Flies and a sort of Darwinism at work.

It looks now as though the Superorganism is collapsing under the weight of the egos involved.

We ask this of Weekly Shot participants (LIKE YOU, KING DOUGLAS, WHO HAS MIRRORED US OR SOMETHING FOR REASONS WE DO NOT YET UNDERSTAND or perhaps Mr Gorin Images who has overtaken ...neene... as over 1/4 of all our visitors or maybe even Mr Iron/Western Flatline who we thought was several people and as it turns out, is just one very nice one. (Although a buttinski! (Look for his upcoming interview when we get around to doing it.))) Whew...that was so many paratheticals, that I give up and create a new paragraph.

So if you are a Weekly Shot participant, past or present, and you feel like anonymously sharing with the vast right wing conspiratorial readership of the Photo Meme Hall of Shame, nearly all of which has been mentioned in this post, feel free to either email us and we will use the Photo Meme Hall of Shame Voice Changer to protect your identities, or if you are braver than WE are, you may leave said news in the comment section. Either way, we look forward to hearing from you. And if not, that's ok, too, for our aim with all this was really just to create a post where we could make a title containing the word 'whither'.

ths s msdedi

2007-04-20T03:10:00.000+10:00

Several years ago in a small coffee shop outside of Las Vegas, we Memes encountered a nattering woman holding up a napkin holder to her face as if taking photos of other customers. We had forgotten about it until recently when found ourselves face to monitor with the photoblogger known as msdedi. It may or may not have been her, but we suspect they are sisters in spirit.

msdedi is one of the nicest, rule abiding photo meme participants that we see. She has had the misfortune of exchanging emails with us from time to time about all things photomeme and we are sure must have, at some point, regretted the whole mess. But she has always allowed us to make things right and earned our respect ~~WHICH NONE OF YOU SOTS HAVE~~ as have many of you.

We now give you, msdedi

1. Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I’m a 50+ yr old female, married, w/2 sons, 1 pet, and an obsession with functional anatomy/kinesiology/biomechanics as it applies to corrective exercise and people….. Why? For the fun, uh, ahem, uh…..discipline of course.

2. What did you have for breakfast?

Coffee, egg, fruit

3. Do you know Kerrin?

Who saw her/him last?
What is your connection to the said above…
When will you reveal this information?
Where is the mysterious Kerrin…
Why are you doing this to me?

4. What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

Rebel XTi, assorted lenses, Canon G5, G2

5. What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

http://msdedi.typepad.com/reflex_photos/2007/04/growing_moonvin.html#comments

http://msdedi.typepad.com/reflex_photos/2006/08/training_explos.html#comments

http://msdedi.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/eyes.jpg

http://msdedi.typepad.com/reflex_photos/2007/01/nightmare_or_dr.html#comments

http://msdedi.typepad.com/photos/teaching/mvc005f.html

6. Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

In the technical manuals of certain machine guns and handguns, a few billboards for exercise facilities, various brochures, newsletters and teaching documents for said facilities and at msdedi.typepad.com

7. What is the best photo that you missed?

Too many to count

8. Is is miss dedi, missus dedi, mz dedi and what is a dedi?

A Dedi is a nickname given by siblings, an ms is an appendage given by a husband to enable the then computer illiterate wife to have a mailbox on said computer.

9. Tell us your worst habit.

Reading trashy novels

10. If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

Raising and training service dogs

11. What are you wearing?

Black….. of course

The Hall of Shame Blahhh-Theme-Protest

2007-04-12T00:34:00.000+10:00

We have turned a blind eye for long enough (and Memeshame has just opened his). We’ve been a little loathe to bite the hands that have given us so much entertainment over the last months but at this juncture, having just awoken to the unworthy offering of ‘spring’ from the Lensday people, we’re getting the banners out and calling the photomeme moderators to task for what has been a particularly drab few months of unimaginative…dare I even call them such?...”challenges”. We lay before you, the punters, the ignominious evidence:

Lensday, April 11 - Spring
Thursday Challenge, March 29 - Spring
Tuesday Challenge, March 27 - Spring
Macroday, March 25 – Green
Thursday Challenge, March 22- Green
Lensday, Feb 14- Green
Lensday, March 14- Green
Lensday, March 21- Yellow
Unique Exposures, April 7- Yellow

*Yawwwwn*
Kudos to Moody Monday, Photo Sharks and Photo Friday for granting us a bit of variety. And a nod in the direction of that new little upstart, Shutterday, for a cheeky attempt at subversion (which failed miserably since at least a third of participants posted contrary to Homer Laffoone’s instructions).

We Memes pride ourselves on the service we provide to the community so, ever helpful, we are hereby providing the photo meme bosses free of charge with a list of original and challenging themes to choose from. It will save them the bother of thinking and will no doubt get you participants’ juices flowing.

(Note to photo meme moderators: if you would like to use one of the suggestions below, mail us so we can take it of the list. First come, first served. All decisions made at Hall’s discretion. No correspondence may be entered into, etc.)

“Repetitive”
“Bland”
“deja-vu”
“collusion”
“sheep”
“photo”

Memeshame suggests…
“underwear”
“underwear while still being worn”
“lingerie”
“see-through”
or any combination of the above

Why the Boomtown Rats Might Have Had a Thing Against Mondays. Revealed.

2007-04-06T21:08:00.000+10:00

If there was ever a reason for Memeshame to roll off the mattress of a Monday morning, it would be to give the entries for Moody Monday’s recent theme of ‘indecent’ a thorough and repetitive perusal. As per my duty as his long-suffering common-law wife, I had to slap him around the head a few times to redirect his attention to the job at hand, i.e. the smoke-signals we saw on the horizon a few days back and which we interpreted as ‘Check out these entries on Moody Monday. They need shaming, pronto’. Of course, we did read in the paper yesterday that the hog-skinning factory over in Squatville burned down during the night so the smoke-signals may also have been ‘Get the fire brigade quick!’ or even just, ‘squeeeeeeaaaaaaaallllll’. In any case, better to be safe than miss a potential shaming and having checked back through a few themes, we found the following:

For the ‘celebratory’ theme, Eyevision shows us how he celebrates with a trip to the mobile horse gynecologist. We will be refusing all birthday party invites from him in the future (but we’ll send flowers ‘cause we’re thoughful.)
A few non permanent links, notably by Noseum and Mary Commentary got on our wick a bit but we were refreshed by Mick Mather’s ever valiant offering of his art to a photomeme. It saves us having to take the kids out to the Guggenheim.

Moving on to the theme of ‘gluttonous’, we found entrants whose idea of a good glut were newspapers (One-eyed Man), Jesus (Photogeneric), a cow, uncooked, we hasten to add (Pontos Devistas ) , fire (gcdc ), a boob on a frame, which at a guess has never experienced gluttony in its entire life (Saophoto ), and lettuce (Aphrauxdite). Again, we’ll have to reconsider dinner invites from all of the above but we’ll send you all some Death By Chocolate cake because we’re nice (and know indulgence when we see it).

Edit by Memeshame: Pssssssst. Saophoto, mate. Send all dinner invites care of me. The wife need never know.

jkirlin of The Thing of the Moment

2007-03-30T12:08:00.000+10:00

jkirlin was initially a mystery to us. We couldn't decide if he took photos to collect nice images or to set up punchlines. The world doesn't have many funny great photographers, and perhaps still doesn't but he is, as self described, prolific AND we have found, relatively nice (unless you make the mistake of being rude to him and hurting his feeling at the local photo shop, apparently) and harmless which we treasure here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame. We were also unsure for a long time as to what the 'j' was for, we later learned it's 'Jeff', we are still uncertain as to what the 'kirlin' is for.

1. Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I'm a rapidly approaching middle age, doughy, myopic, speech pathologist in Maine who has a camera. And that is why I do it to you.

2. What did you have for breakfast?

2 Bacon egg and cheese biscuits and a small diet coke, no ice. Never ice and always consumed in the car.

3. Do you know Kerrin?

Why? What has she told you? Do I get to tell my side of the story?

4. What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

I have a Canon Rebel XTi and a few different low end lenses that I like to lug around in this big bag because I think it looks cool but I still love point and shoots. I've a Canon Powershot S2 and a Panasonic FX01. I've also got a Holga which I'm still not using properly and a vintage Kodak Brownie 2 that I put some film though. I started taking photos with digitals but now find myself interested in film as in 'THAT" is how they used to do it??

5. What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I have a friend who forces me to do outside/active type things and I fight her every step of the way. I kayak, ski, and other things here and there. But now when I do them, they are just for the photo op.

6. Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

I have some on permanent display at Mount Desert Island Hospital behind the registration desk only because I was carrying them out after a temporary display and I saw they were repainting the wall so I asked Joe, the office manager if he wanted them and to spare me any embarrassment just took them and hung them up. So if one were to fall and twist an ankle while vacationing at Acadia National Park, you can see them as you register.

Or here...

http://jkirlin.blogspot.com/2004/12/new-icon.html
http://jkirlin.blogspot.com/2006/08/coming-rain.html
http://jkirlin.blogspot.com/2006/05/no-parking-in-alley.html
http://jkirlin.blogspot.com/2005/06/wasp-on-windowsill.html
http://jkirlin.blogspot.com/2005/01/kayaks.html

7. What is the best photo that you missed?

I once saw 15 or 20 of clowns on break either before or after their act and they were standing outside the auditorium in a big group just milling around, smoking, and checking their watches and things. By the time I got over the shock and turned around there were gone. So you just have to imagine it. Now imagine a really great photo of it. That's it.

8. Tell us your worst habit.

I'm a nail biter. All of my other habits are virtuous and wholesome.

9. Why do you call it that?

The Thing of the Moment refers to the act of picking up a camera, taking a photo, sticking it on the Internet and bugging people to look at it. The Thing of the Moment NEVER EVER refers to the subject EVER. It's why you never see a post called The Blue Thing of the Moment, The Person of the Moment, etc...Other Things of the Moment have been sailing, collecting EB White 1st editions, learning magic tricks, playing the harmonica, etc....When a friend of mine saw an increasing interest in taking photos she said 'Oh, this the thing of the moment now?' And it was.

10. If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

I certainly wouldn't be a photographer anyway. Ummm..I think a toll taker would be a cool job. It's a state gig. You are inside, yet still outdoors or vice versa. I would take great pride in my job. I would love it so much I'd weep every day.

11. What are you wearing.

My usual smoking jacket, pipe, slippers, ascot and lapdog.

12. Anything else you'd like to add?

The Sincerest Form of Flattery...

2007-03-20T20:05:00.000+11:00

...it may be but we felt we just had to do something about those rip-off Hall of Shame goods you've all been buying in Chinatown. Not that we were against someone making a buck or two- we got a thrill out of seeing the Hall of Shame name on some of those more enterprising products- but we're tired fielding the letters of complaint when someone's t-shirt shrinks in the wash, when the handle falls off somebody's mug, when somebody sees the line where they joined Memeshame's head onto Angelina Jolie's body for the swimsuit calender. Therefore, and without further ado, we decided to open the official Hall of Shame Merchandise Store- your one-stop shame-shop, if you will. Check it out. If there's something you're after that you can't find among our extensive array of fine goods, do let us know and we'll see if we can arrange it.
Shameshop

Back in the Shamer Again

2007-03-12T10:15:00.003+11:00

There was a buzz of excitement chez Meme on Friday this week when, at long last, one of the weekly photomemes pulled their thumbs out of their asses and choose a theme that was worthy of being called a challenge. Photo Friday gave us 'addiction' and immediately we dug our old shaming hats out of the cupboard ('MM' on mine, 'D' on Memeshame's). We don them now as, with pleasure, we bring you the first good, get-yer-teeth-into shaming we've had in yonks! Go put the kettle on, make yourself a nice cup of cocoa (slip a shot of something naughty into it while nobody's looking), sit back and enjoy the feeling that comes with knowing you haven't been shamed…this time.

Photo Friday －addiction

So, you understand that these aren't the only questionable posts to Photo Friday but the task of monitoring all 2403 entries is one that would eat into the time we schedule every week for our own addictions. If you strongly feel that we have neglected to bring before you a submission that deserves to be on its knees begging for mercy, then do feel free to contact us (Monday to Friday, 9am-2pm, 4pm-7:30 or until 'Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator' comes on).

We've divided the shames into three sections:

Section 1- Wha'?

A) We cheerfully draw Ms Mandy Hall's attention to Xerraire's entry for 'Addiction'… a bird. See, Mandy? You could have been in there. You snooze, you lose, honeybun.

B) In an obviously feverish bid to secure pole-position, The One-eyed Man submitted a wall full of tatty posters. Let's hope the other eye is addicted to something more normal…porn or contact lenses, for example.

C) Check out Suto Zsolt's submission. This guy (or girl) has guts (or something).

D) Unhinging your lower jaw is one of our favourite tricks but there are easier ways of satiating your addiction to fruit, which is what we assume to be 3amFromKyoto's point.

E) In his frantic efforts to post early, jkirlin's sneaker Christmas wreath leaves us wondering: Is he addicted to shoes, Christmas, organizing objects into geometric patterns or the traffic one gets when posting early? We hope this brings him more traffic if that's the case. He clearly must need it.

Section2- If this is the alternative, I will never nag Memeshame about his butter-and-Absinthe addiction again

a) Friend of Hall of Shame, Dream Awakener seems to be addicted to blurry men on bikes. Or maybe the blurry man is addicted to cycling past shops. In either case, I don't think I have to worry about Memeshame taking up this habit.

b) Fnk Photoblog confesses an addiction for a smiling sphere of red rubber. Unusual, but to each their own.

c) Is Atomische suggesting that there are people out there addicted to vasectomy reversal? Is it just reversal?

d) First we had GDimension's (decidedly non-festive) fighting ponies and now we have Taro's boxing kangaroos. I can understand how the sight might stir your loins for the time it takes to press the shutter-button but there are really people who can't get enough?

e) Unfortunately, Memeshame probably WILL end up sitting beside SmilingSunflower in the Healthy Butts Anonymous meetings.

Section C- You clever little devils

This section is for submissions for which we have a sneaking admiration. That's all down to the submitter's sheer cheek at entering something they knew was shame-worthy but decided to go ahead anyway, attempting half-heartedly to justify it with a title that includes the word 'addict'. Ahhh, we do love you.

a) Witness the genius of Life's Too Short as he posts a picture of autumn foliage to 'addiction' and calls himself a 'colour addict'. *sigh*

b) Behold Andrask's master-mindedness of titling a crown of thorns 'pain- the ultimate addiction' *melt*

c) Gasp at the utter inspiration behind Ricoh GR Digital's posting of a hand on a glass door and dubbing it 'sex addiction'. Double points for actually posting to Photo Friday under that title and thus guaranteeing yourself double the traffic, Master Ricoh *fainting clean away*

So there we have it. We look forward to next week's Photo Friday theme, 'confessional'. It can only get juicier.

Mr Frozen Moments Speaks AGAIN

2007-02-23T16:12:00.000+11:00

Once whilst we had a line of communication open with Mr Frozen Moment we put forth unto him a few questions before we were talked down by Mr IronFlatline who put everything in perspective for us.

Behold the following responses to our queries and better know what goes on inside the head of Mr Frozen Moments

What do you think of your many many photo contest wins?

"for me it doesn't matter, if i win one or tousand contests, because thereare no prices or something like this. and so it's only a funny amusement forme."

What would you say to those participants who think that you wins represents a flaw in the voting system rather than to your skills as a photographer?

"hmm i don't know what to say. on the one hand i know, that tastes aredifferent and one like these image and another dislike it. but on the otherhand sometimes there are grudgers.so what do you think?"

Do you encourage your viewers to vote for you and if so, do you think other photographers should consider doing this?

"i thing with links to the contests, you encourage your viewers to vote foryou and it's okay. everybody have the possibillity to encourage others.that's the real life, people affect others and the others affect othersagain.regards"

--Thomas Müller [zweistrom.net]
fotografisches Tagebuch: http://taikrixel.net

Much to our chagrin he DOES take lovely photos. Go look!

...neene...

2007-02-19T12:44:00.000+11:00

We here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame love ...neene...
And always shall.
We don't know her from a hole in the ground, however
And never will.

The one thing we can say that we HAVE learned about ...neene... is that beyond being a very regular photo meme participant, she is also a very loyal Photo Meme Hall of Shame visitor. We are thinking of blocking her for her own good. She apparently loves a good shaming. Or fears it.

...neene... is funny because in casual conversation the window to her soul will suddenly fly open but if you ask her a simple direct question she will ignore it so completely you'll wonder if you even asked it and like a fool you'll ask again and then KNOW.

Without further ado, we present the Photo Meme Hall of Shame Interview of ...neene...

1. Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-1.html

2. What did you have for breakfast?

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-2.html

3. Do you know Kerrin?

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-3.html

4. What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-4.html

5. What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-5.html

6. Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-6.html

7. What is the best photo that you missed?

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-7.html

8. Tell us your worst habit.

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-8.html

9. If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-9.html

10. What are you wearing?

http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/02/hallofshame-10.html

And that, Photo Meme Hall of Shame visitors, is the one we call ...neene...

New and Newish Weekend Memes and other Such Business as to Which We Need to Tend.

2007-02-16T04:03:00.000+11:00

Just when we get one window fixed, a stone come a-flying but at least this time we needn't fear it...yet.

Dear Memes,

Would you please consider adding www.shutterday.com to you list of memes? It's going to be a Saturday meme that will hopefully fill the void left behind by Pxite.

Sincerely, Homer Laffoone.

Dear Mr Laffoone,

Consider it added. And please make it very difficult and strict so that we may begin Shaming again.

Sincerely Back,

'Memes'

We would be remiss if we did not mention that Barbara/Xerraire has a very nice weekend challenge at http://www.uniqueexposures.com/challenge/

NOTE TO PHOTOBLOGGERS WHO HAVE OUTSTANDING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS THAT THEY HAVE NOT SUBMITTED: WE HAVE A HALL OF SHAME TO RUN HERE!

Note to photobloggers who do not have outstanding interview questions that they have not submitted: Return here to check out your competition. They are more interesting then you think. They are certainly more interesting then WE think.

Mr Frozen Moments Responds

2007-02-08T04:08:00.000+11:00

This early AM we lifted our wee heads from the bare mattress of love and found that our pillows followed them. "Curious," we thought, as it normally stays put. While trying to swing it off we found our upstairs loft to be much colder than normal and it had FROZEN to our drooly and icicled faces!

During the night we had received a another note tied to a rock and tossed though our one good window, allowing in all the cold!

It read as follows:

hello,
i'm the 'mr. frozen moments' and i read your entries.
i've read many sad things about me and my blog. are there problems with myimages, why aren't you mailing me? it's really unhappy to read somethinglike this at your blog!
i can't explaine the 136 votes for me, but are you really form an opion thati'm voting for me 136 per week?? that means 19 votes per day??

i guarantee that i didn't vote for me and i didn't use a vote-robot orsomething like this!
so please adjust the entries about me!
regards
thomas mueller

Allow me, as we press warm compresses to our frostbitten faces to dictate answers to the following inquiries from Herr Mueller.

There are no problem with your images and we aren't emailing you because we are horrific chickens. We couldn't explain the 136 votes either, so we eliminated them. Sometimes photographers can find that their photographic friends can vote for them repeatedly, lifting them into the ranks of winner in contest after contest and clearly, this little vote at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame has proven to be another example of where perhaps you received more votes than you really should have. The difference is that we closely monitored and scaled the scores to correct for the issue.

Consider the entries about you to be adjusted by your defense here. We also hope that you and other who find themselves at the end of some practical jokers vote pumping will bring it to light as you have.

Sincerely,

Your noisy upstairs neighbors,

The Right Honourable Memes, Monitor and Shame, Esq (et, al)

The Colour Purple

2007-01-27T14:45:00.000+11:00

Recently on one of our exposes of Mr Frozen Moments we listed in great detail all his photomeme 'wins'. We have a few things that we would like to hang out into the wind in the light of day for group scrutiny of our team of Shamers.

We would post this to you individually but we have lost your email addresses when the Mongols were cata-. Oh, wait, mememonitor told me to never talk of that AGAIN. EVER!

If you have not already, go to SeeItSunday: Purple and look at two entries.

Ms Photine, who we voted for and delighted in her comment and Mr Frozen Moments (and in the words of frequent and courageous public shamer Atomische "and that's not even purple")

So go flee you uncolour blinded shamers and email us or comment and tell us who you think more worthy of 'purple'

We will keep tally here!

Photine: 18

Frozen Moments: 1

Wtf? Who cares?: 1 (This will grow)

Voting is now closed. Before we closed it the tally was Photine 18, Frozen Moment 136 and all from the same German ISP so we counted it as one vote.

Congratulations to Photine and welcome to the 5 new Shamers who reared their ugly cowardly anonymous heads for this little project.

The Photo Meme Hall of Shame: Growing in Sneaky Cowardly Underhandedness since 2006.

What We Dreamed

2007-01-23T13:54:00.000+11:00

Mememonitor and me (colloquialism intended) upon returning to the Loft D'Amour (Loft of Love) and the Bare Mattress of Love (Bare Mattress D'Amour) found ourselves having the most restless of nights brought on by bad airline booze and worse airline food had the SAME and following dream...

We were townspeople in a large (well, sort of small) far eastern European Village and we were inside the fortified walls of the town away from our traditional farm and the streets were filled with people and goats and hens, and things burning and noise. Most of all noise. We were INSIDE the fortified walls because we were under SEIGE!!!

BY THE MONGOLS!!!! It was terrible, I tell you!

These Mongols were fierce fighters but also nomads and they travelled with their herds and LOOTED, LOOTED, I say. And we weren't giving them a lick so they put our city under seige but we had FORTIFIED WALLS. FORTIFIED WALLS, I say!

Well I was just thinking to myself and mememonitor was thinking to herself just how smart we were being all inside the fortified walls and the Mongols were outside. Until they started catapulting corpses with disease and other ickiness over the WALLS!

THEN...I woke up in a cold sweat. It was terrible. Then it occured to me.

I'd been through far worse than that...

I had transferred this Photo Meme Hall of Shame from the OLD BLOGGER to the NEW BLOGGER!

Now mememonitor and I are no Will and Ariel Durant but let us reach back into History for a little lesson for those photobloggers of you also using Blogger.

Until Google shows up at your fortified walls and begins catapulting rotted and diseased corpses at you, DO NOT CHANGE OVER TO THE NEW BLOGGER! It is a TRICK!

You heard it here first. Unless you heard it someplace else. Then you heard it there.

Memeshame, Out.

What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

2007-01-23T06:57:00.001+11:00

CRIKEY! (more to follow)

Does Donald Rumsfeld say 'cute' to you?

2007-01-19T12:27:00.000+11:00

When the kids came along, my mother-in-law was forever reassuring me that all babies were cute, this to counter-balance the look of horror on my own mother’s face on being presented with her first grand-children. I love my Memeshame, don’t get me wrong, but for both the kids to end up his spitting image is a somewhat cruel twist of genetic fate, particularly for poor little Bindi. I don’t know what it is but I swear even our adoptee Fuzzy is starting to resemble Shame (Run, boy! Run for your life!).
Anyway, last week’s Moody Monday was of great comfort to me; ‘cuteness is in the eye of the beholder’ indeed. Witness the following:

Monkeygirl (This appeared to me in a nightmare once )
Erik (a very appealing dead wasp)
Journal Extime (This is a cat...with it's mouth open. Non-cute in so many ways)
Lomat (Before ending up with Memeshame that drunken night many years ago, I dated a guy who was indeed as cute as this microphone)
Fotogeneric (Now if only Bindi and Bobcat looked like THIS)

I See A Little Silhouette Banana

2007-01-18T20:03:00.000+11:00

Scaramouche.

Frozen Moments Watch

2007-01-06T11:38:00.000+11:00

One of our resolution this year has been to try harder to recognize greatness.

We can't talk now because the streets of Baghdad are being scoured for our presence. They are looking for our Blackberrys but we have them hidden in our pants! We did, however, take time whilst hiding to scour the memes and look for Clear and Present ~~Dangers~~ Winners.

As we noted before Herr Frozen Moments stands out above the rest at the (frozen) moment(s). Please help us and let us know if we have missed any other of his wins. His site seems to be lacking a page listing all his winnings and we just want to do it here. He really shouldn't be so humble. We wouldn't be! Must Run! We see Headlights! Memes Out!

PhotoSharks Wins (In the Top 5, * denotes 1st place):
03/23/06 Trees *
04/13/06 Food
04/20/06 Blue
04/27/06 Easter *
05/11/06 The Woman *
05/25/06 Yellow *
06/01/06 Clouds
06/08/06 Birds
06/22/06 City Views *
06/29/06 Mirrors *
07/06/06 Glass
07/13/06 Photographers *
08/17/06 Singing
08/24/06 Eyes
08/31/06 Dogs
09/07/06 Old People
09/21/06 Sculpture, Art Objects
10/05/06 Roads
10/12/06 At Night
10/19/06 Rooms
10/26/06 Love
11/02/06 Internet
11/23/06 Cold
11/30/06 Scary
12/14/06 Baby *

SeeItSunday Wins (Sole Winner):
Wood
Water
Toys
Crazy
Blue
Leaves
Work
Balance
City

Holidaze Update

2006-12-29T15:33:00.000+11:00

Staying current on your entries has been difficult as we Memes took Bindi and Bobcat to the Holy Land for Christmas. We felt they ought to see all that Bethlehem can offer behind it's massive steel gate. "Come see the skeleton of the Baby Jesus. Only 5 dollars!" A quality experience to be sure. Lifelong secular humanist they now are.

Then we had to dash to 125th Street in NYC to pay our respects to Godfather Brown and now we must make our way to DC to view Jerry Ford. We never knew him, but had known the welcoming refuge of Betty Ford and her 'camps' where we have hidden out on occasion until the heat died down. And next we have to scoot to Baghdad for ummm...we just do.

But this, as it is said, neither here nor there, we only want to say before we dash off again...

HERR THOMAS MEULLER OF FROZEN MOMENTS, HAVE YOU NO SHAME, SIR????

Or mailbox was filled with messages from our cabal of Shamers who monitor such things in our extended absences.

We have some comments about your multiple wins.

Do you honestly believe your images are so much better than you fellow photomeme participants? Or do you think WE think so? This voting situation has got to have attention paid to it. But are you to blame, Sir? We think not. Surely simply because you, your Mom, the office girl and your postman all vote for you, you are propelled to victory. So who do we blame?

Your fellow photo meme participants who do not vote and allow this to go unchallenged.

The photo meme moderators who set up the sites and contests and do not moderate while their contests become less and less meaningful. (As opposed to those ruthless bastards at Macroday)

And ourselves, for not providing adequate guidance and education. But this will be remedied. Stay tuned.

Anyone seen our banana?

2006-12-18T20:00:00.000+11:00

Thieving gits.

Long time, no Shamings

2006-12-11T00:31:00.000+11:00

It’s been a relatively quiet month here at Shame Headquarters, what with photo memes dropping like flies and you lot actually starting to think before you hit that ‘submit’ button. We’ve been grateful for the break, given the time we’ve had to invest in all that weightlessness training. In the end, we had to send Bob-Cat up in the shuttle alone in his little monkey suit since neither Shame nor myself do nights.

Nevertheless, although the latest themes have generally been the catch-all-can’t-go-wrong type (‘action’, ‘orange’, ‘trees’ blah blah blah; post something stupid for one of these and we KNOW you’re just taunting us), our little team of Shamers have been earning their keep and brought the following to our attention:

Orricle: http://upload.pbase.com/image/70146757/large
We are neither convinced of the relevance nor the political correctness of posting a photo of poor street vendors in India to the Photo Friday theme ‘gross’.
Le Penven: http://www.jikael.org/article45.html (Photo Friday- ‘gross’)
There’s little memeshame likes better than to grab his pole in the bath and start singing ‘O Sole Mio’, huge fan that he is of Venezia, so he bristled a bit at Le Penven’s entry of a beloved canal to the ‘gross’ theme. To each his own, we suppose.
We have to admit to being relieved as we looked through the entries to not find any photos of Shame in the bath. We heard they had been ‘leaked’ to certain disreputable websites. Shame says he knows nothing about it. I only found out when I opened the rejection letters.
Moving on…
It seems the Tuesday Challenge ‘ginger’ had a few of you flummoxed. We’ll let those of you who posted sunsets and other blatently ‘orange’, non-ginger-specific photos away with a ‘tut-tut’ and a wag of the finger. Is12.net (http://www.is12.net/index.php?showimage=394) , however, deserves a special mention for his post of a black & white portrait (we expect to see this again for the themes ‘blonde’, ‘blue-eyed’ and ‘red t-shirt’ ). For posting with utter abandon a pic of a hotel roof for the same theme of ‘ginger’, we have to applaud the sheer nerve of Shutterbox (http://shutter-box.talentado.com/hotel-philippine-plaza/00118/). You’re a braver man than us.
Lastly, a special mention has to go to Edina Lorincz (http://edinalorincz.com/photoblog/index.php?showimage=87) who posted the same photo of two jolly-looking innocents, happily reading newspapers and minding their own business, for both Moody Monday ‘camouflage’ and Photo Friday ‘gross’. Edina, sweetie, our banana was a teaser, not an example to be followed. ‘Two wrongs do not make a right’, etc.

My dears, consider yourselves hereby shamed.

And What To Our Wondering Eyes Should Appear...

2006-12-09T15:14:00.000+11:00

Attached to this day's rock tossed through the window was a small whitish clump of what we knew not and a phone number. We ran poste haste down to the local 7-11 for a Big Gulp and to dial the number on the payphone and found the number was to a one Mr Google Inc. Google told us that the clump, as held in our frozen little mitts, was a section of melted fiber optic cable from so much traffic looking for the latest updates.

Listen, here is the deal you stupid gits who are being so daft, we are creating a Photo Meme Hall of Shame mailing list just to let you know when smoething occurs here so you can stay the hell out from looking for anything new unless you are here looking for something old. Like our increasing list of interviews of the best photo monkeys and junkies we know.

We have so much to tell you and we'd like to call all of you under seperate cover but there is a man standing next to the hot dog cooker and burritos staring at us for being on the phone too long already and mememonitor is itching for a fight so we soon must flee, room temperature eggrolls in hand.

Upcoming 2007 projects include:

Our new Photo Meme Certification/Decertification!

More Shaming!

More suggestions by you scamps who have already written in. You know who you are. As do we.

More identification of cheating wankers!

More pleas to link us and for you to tell yer friends and yer mums.

More Meme Participation Reviews.

More discussions of winners you think unworthy!

MORE PANDERING INTERVIEWS OF YOU STUPID GITS WHO ARE SO DAFT!

So listen, here is what you do....either leave in the comments that you want to be added to the Photo Meme Hall of Shame mailing list if you are brave and we will add you and send links out when we create a new post OR email us a photomemeshame@gmail.com if you are normal.

For faster service, please write M@le En4@nc3m3nt Pr0duc!s in the subject line so we will know it's you.

All You Ever Needed to Know About Master FuzzyPoints*

2006-11-30T20:56:00.000+11:00

As the next step in the adoption process of ThomP of *fuzzy*points*of*light* , we had Social Services run a bit of a background check (we are surprisingly fussy, given the state of our own unfiltered, murky gene pools, about who we welcome into the Meme family) and, since you all encounter our beloved scamp time and time again (unfortunately sometimes in a single theme) in the weekly memes, we thought you would like to partake in the information we gleaned.
We love you, Memethomp.

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?
I am, therefore I needn’t bother any more. Up until recently I was an architect. I gave that away because of the lack of consistent design work and high levels of horrid business style activity. Now I design retail interiors and public art pieces, as well as a certain amount of graphic design… I have a team of little suited monkeys that do all the business bullsheet for me, so I just sit in front massive screen and design all the time. It really is quite cool.

I have to do quite a bit of photography as part of my job, but I couldn’t call myself a photographer in a truly professional sense. I have done a certain amount of paid work for advertising and the like, but I resist unless they want abstract or art shots. Some one else can do the boring head shots and jewellery. I enjoy photography too much to go and ruin it by doing it for money. I meme because it gives me a creative challenge to extend myself both photographically and in my capacity to make abstract links between meme topics and unrelated photos.

What did you have for breakfast?
VEGEMITE!!!! Like having steak spread on toast. But there is no meat in it. A long macchiato from my lovely machine. I find the process of making ‘proper’ coffee almost as relieving and therapeutic as the relief from the caffeine withdrawal headache itself.

Have you ever been to the bloody big rock? No? How about Vegas?Are you one of us?
No big red rock for me… How could you tell? I find graffiti strewn alleys more exciting than major tourist attractions. Especially ones in the middle of huge hot deserts. As for LV, I have never even been to the USA… I intend to visit EVERYWHERE else on earth first! I have a romantic notion that it would be quite nice to become respectfully, internationally ‘known’ and then die in obscurity. I think that Vegas may be a good location for the latter. As for being one of you, I’ll send you some spit and hair in a jar and we’ll let the scientists decide for us.

Do you know Kerrin?
I once killed one with my bear hands… I had to hide it in my shirt so the ranger didn’t punish me for killing one of his stock. It gave me a nasty rash on my chest, so I guess it ended up fair for all in the end.

What gear do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?
I use the new Sony DSLR a100, a couple of lenses and a remote flash. It is a great snapper for the price (as long as you change the crappy stock lens, which I think should be best used as a door handle). I do love it dearly. Sony however, are BITCHES! They really are ass bitches from hell. But it is a very nice camera. Oh, and photoshop… But only for colours. I don’t use it for anything you couldn’t do in a darkroom.

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?
Biketrials. Look it up. The nerdiest ‘extreme’ (I hate that word) sport there is. It is my only true manly pursuit

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?
I am working on a very specifically themed photo book called “No Junk Mail” that will be available for online purchase in the coming months, and hopefully in a bookshop near you a short while after that.

What is the best photo that you missed?
A million beautiful shots in India. I got worn down by the trouble caused by taking photos very quickly. I got to the point where I could spot 5 people who would hassle me if I took a shot at any point and eventually just gave up… I did get many wonderful photos… But I missed many more than I got. It is such a shame, and hindsight is being so cruel to me about it.

Tell us your worst habit.
I am genuinely forgetful. I was going to write something else here but I forgot it. Oh, and multiple posting for single meme themes… I just can’t help myself sometimes. It isn’t my worst habit, but my most appropriate.

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.
Working in and around the theatre. Travelling EVERYWHERE twice. Listening to King Crimson and leading a life of decadence…

What are you wearing?
A black T-shirt with a girl blowing her brains out with butterflies on it. http://www.threadless.com/product/114/Flowers_in_the_Attic . The Jeans I wear most days, and a pair of shoes I wish I wasn’t. My feet are actually wearing the desire to be bare. I am never truly happy with shoes on.

Why can't you beeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaave youself?
Because I don’t want to… Being naughty is how I stumbled upon (read: was tripped over and given a spanking by) your kind selves. This in itself is an incentive to be naughtier still!

Ahhhh. We love you, Memethomp. Same time next week for your spanking?

Edit: Master Fuzzy kindly furnished us with some links to some of his best photos. Click below and go shower him in affectionate comments.

Green Tiles
Red2
Archihall
The German
Wikkiwall
Red Shoes
Bubblewrap
Tree

Pxite is Fix(ite)

2006-11-29T11:13:00.000+11:00

More good news for you meme fans- Pxite is back, restored to its former Saturday glory (well, except that it was Sunday...but possibly Saturday in your part of the world...we don't know anymore. Those experiments NASA has been doing with us in the centrifugal force machine have us all confused). Now, we LOVE Pxite and missed it the way we missed McDonalds for a week after that BSE scare, so go enter and show your support before it disappears again to be replaced by Saturday Banana, the photo challenge for lovers of all things banana-ish.

Elsewhere in the meme world...
we have to congratulate Frozen Moments on yet another SeeItSunday win and the interests of a bit of variety, would like to nominate a worthy runner-up for the 'work' theme. To this end, our applause go jointly to is12.net and Photoschau. We couldn't make up our minds. I'm blaming NASA again.

Macroday is Back(roday!)

2006-11-23T02:32:00.000+11:00

We, the Memes, were again out for a Sunday drive with Bindi and Bobcat rolling around in the rumble seat when suddenly in unison we screamed to the chaffeaur "STOP ARVIN! MACRODAY IS is not DARK AND BOARDED UP!"

We circled around and sure enough, it was not dark and boarded up, just like we said.

It turns out after an email exchange, much to our chagrin, that delightfully irritable Mr Carlo Ferroni is indeed staying put in the neighborhood. He secured some financing after the 5th race at the track to pay off some other gambling debts, bought back his wife and children and dog and auto and home and decided to once again, torment us on Sundays.

So we had to put away our MacroSunday signs and leased back the domain to a male enhancement drug supply firm operating out of a one TeehwannaMayheeko (is that Welsh?) as the chap said on the mobile. ~~You~~ we are stupid gits for being so daft!

All offers for the Photo Meme Hall of Shame are now off the table also as Mr Ferroni's pulling himself out of the market sent our appraiser running for the back lot and now we have nothing to measure the value against. "Oh Bother", said Pooh. Were we 3.5 Macrodays? .025?

One thing for certain we were certainly worth more than a half drank case of Foster's so you can forget THAT, ThomP! You are a stupid git for being so daft!

Off Topic: Note to the person who has tripled our traffic by constantly landing on our site by googling "Kerrin Terrier": We are certain we are the number one site for that because it's "CAIRN TERRIER"!

Are you also getting these, Kerrin? Do they make you sad?

THEY ARE STUPID GITS FOR BEING SO DAFT!

SeeingItAgainSunday

2006-11-21T12:47:00.000+11:00

Dear SeeItSunday participants and voters,

We here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame will be brief as rarely is our want. We wish to take nothing away from the winner of Space and Clouds but would like to point out to you that they are the same participant and worthy entries, though they be, we would like to choose the Unofficial SeeItSunday Second Place Winners (a juried position)

They are as follows:

Clouds: Eterisk

Space: Neverhappen.com

For more on SeeItSunday voting click here: A Call To Arms

Memeshame, out.

Greg Tee of Moody Monday

2006-11-20T13:31:00.000+11:00

Mr Greg Tee is the first Meme Moderator to take notice of the the Photo Meme Hall of Shame, or the first to foolishly mention it on his site and we've been glued to his hip ever since. The chances are good that the Moody Monday mention was your first exposure to us and you have never been the same since.

So who is this ground breaking individual you ask? So who is he who rides the first wave you inquire? So did we. Here was the first reply we got: "Piss off! I'm far too busy to answer your stupid questions and I'm sorry I took notice of you in the first place now stop bothering me but if you like you MAY submit a series of questions on a punch card and I will punch out the matching letter for you and your masses. NOW OFF WITH YOU!"

Below is the punch card we got back in the poste.

1. Who is Mr Greg T? Is he…
(a) A techie who likes taking photos?
(b) A photographer who spends way too much time on the internet?
(c) The Bob Geldof of the photomeme world?
(d) Henry, the mild-mannered janitor?

A. For sure! I am a manager of the engineering department at a Dutch Business to Business ISP during the day who sometimes has the time to take a photo or two.

2. In which of the following moods are you most likely to be of a Monday morning?
(a) Happy-go-lucky?
(b) Hung-over?
(c) Murderous?
(d) Relieved?

C. Murderous!

3. You're having a dinner party. With whom are you playing footsie under the table?
(a) Memeshame?
(b) the cat?
(c) Condoleeza Rice?
(d) You're afraid to look?

A. Memeshame for sure! Although I'm still waiting for those photographs she promised to send me. (Mr Tee was given the chance to change his mind once he learned that Memeshame is the male half of the duo but he declined to do so and Memeshame was thusly quite touched. - the eds.)

4. What's the best thing about running a photomeme?
(a) It's all about the power…. THE UNDENIABLE POWERRRR! mwha ha ha ha ha?
(b) It's all about giving photobloggers a place to show off what they got?
(c) It's all about being asked to give an interview on Hall of Shame?
(d) It's all about the little people?

A and D. I love to have all that power over the little people ;-) No serious, the whole idea was to have a photomeme for and by "the people"

5. We will give you a plane ticket to go and take photos to your heart's content in one of the following places (possibly only one-way; depends what we can get for memeshame's kidney). Which appeals to you most?
(a) Europe ?
(b) Africa ?
(c) Antartica?
(d) Utah ?

B. Kruger and Cape Town... (planning on it already)

6. If your photo-taking habit was to be replaced by another, would it be…
(a) the ponies?
(b) nail-chewing?
(c) gym-membership?
(d) a nun's?

E. Taking up knitting together with memeshame. (or mememonitor, who knows?)

7. Having seen this interview on Hall of Shame, your new-found fans are surely going to want to send you presents from all around the world. Which would you prefer?
(a) cash or gift vouchers?
(b) Underwear?
(c) local speciality sweeties?
(d) them never to contact you again?

B. Only if it's worn for more the 2 days in a row.

8. Who was your favourite James Bond?
(a) George Lazenby?
(b) Roger Moore?
(c) Sean Connery?
(d) Any of the new crappy ones?

B. I would have to go with Roger.

9. What, in your opinion, makes the best subject for a photo?
(a) A cute baby animal?
(b) A flower?
(c) Scenery?
(d) People?

I think D is usually the hardest to get right, so that for me makes it the best if its done right.

and finally…

10. What are you wearing?
(a) Your cowboy outfit?
(b) Comfy casual?
(c) Dinner suit?
(d) Less than us?

Usually B, my suit days (I used to be a consultant (shame shame) are over ;-)

'Not The Way It's Supposed To Be'

2006-11-11T22:33:00.000+11:00

There we were, shortly after 10am on Friday, at the poolside, enjoying an ice-cold glass of camel's milk, when the alarm sounded. Memeshame's first reaction was to call Jong-Il and make sure he hadn't pushed any of the buttons we'd told him to leave alone while we were gone airing out the holiday home in Dubai. All was fine with Kimmy, it transpired, but then what was all the racket? Just then, Alfred came by with the message that Gmail was having trouble with our e-mail account, such was the volume of mails gushing into our inbox. Well, Hall of Shame business takes priority and Michael Jackson will just have to bring a few air-fresheners with him when he borrows the villa next time (I do wish he would leave that monkey at home...but then he says the same about me when we visit Neverland); we pulled on a very few items of clothing and raced home.

The strain on our Gmail account was lessened a little when I managed to delete a few colourful missives from some non-Hall-related sources (memeshame's been subscribing again) but still the inbox was packed to the gills with mail after mail from irate, amused or simply confused Photo Friday participants....and one man is to blame.
Remember this? Ooooooh, yeah. Dream Awakener is at it again. Our previous shaming of Mr Woodward seems to have merely encouraged his devious activities but, as before, our trusty army of Shamers was on stand-by and nabbed the screenshots we needed for yet another tap on his shoulder. Notice we said 'screenshots'- that's because this time the entry that secured him the number one spot on the submissions list went from this...

to this...

to this....

before being changed yet again back to the termite mound on the (we think ironic) suggestion of commenter torekimi. But Mr Woodward didn't hold all of his commenters remarks in such high regard; at least two comments expressing disappointment in a lack of fair-play were given the blog equivalent of concrete boots and a quick shove off the pier.

Gaze at the smiling face of the U2- and Cornelius Plating Jr-loving Mr Woodward. We completely understand when one's mission in life (his: "awakening people to renovate their world in Los Angeles and beyond", ours: getting Bindi to the bathroom before she vomits in the hallway) makes one temporarily forget the concepts of integrity and not beating Rich Legg (Although a noble goal and sometimes we'd like to Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Mr Legg ourselves) to the number one spot. And we are sure that this friend to mankind WILL NOT DO IT AGAIN.

Whither Macroday?

2006-11-07T13:17:00.000+11:00

We the Memes were out for a Sunday drive with Bindi and Bobcat rolling around in the rumble seat when suddenly in unison we screamed to the chaffeaur "STOP ARVIN! MACRODAY IS DARK AND BOARDED UP!" We circled around and sure enough, it was dark and boarded up, just like we said.

We later found out that IT IS FOR SALE!!!!

Carlo Ferroni is off to bigger and better things not involving YOU on a Sunday.

And he wants to take some cash with him.

We here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame (Which is showing phenomenal growth and further potential) can't say that we blame him. In fact, the Photo Meme Hall of Shame (Which doesn't take a lot of time and brings TONS of satisfaction for you and your loved ones. And it's located near great schools) lends our full support to Mr Ferroni at this time and we STRONGLY IN THE STRONGEST TERMS POSSIBLE HEREBY SAY UNTO THEE that you better not be planning some Sunday Photo Meme called, like, Macro Sunday or something BECAUSE WE WILL SEE THROUGH YOU and SHAME YOU at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame (Which, did we mention, is showing phenomenal growth and it currently severely undervalued and preparing an IPO as soon as we file papers with the investment overseering organizations in various countries with the most stable currencies?)

This is...WeeklyShot

2006-11-06T03:16:00.000+11:00

There is, in the photoblogging community as in the Jungle, a simple law under which we all must live: Survival of the Fittest.

Brandon Stone (yes, THAT Brandon Stone, of Photoblogs.org and the Family Stone) has created a little side project called WeeklyShots. It's by invitation only and for good reason.

We mention WeeklyShot here in our little forum as a prime example of what photomemes, SHOULD BE, which is: Self-policing.

At this time we should probably note that we here at the Photo Meme Hall of Shame never invade photoblogs like ants and try to carry off unworthy photos back to our colony to serve up to our Queen and feed to our pupae.

Nay, we only critique images served up to us on a platter as though we were sitting once more by the pool at the Hotel Castillo Venice in Monaco (Which has very good service but gets surpringly cool after dark, even in the high season). But I digress...

We never ever ever critique the content or artistic merits of an image, nor a photographer's matrilineage. "Because you are fair and kind" you ask? "Because you are to us like the good shepherd to the lamb who has lost its way?" No, to these.

Because we could never outdo WeeklyShot.

WeeklyShot is not juried, or voted on, or simply exhibited, it is a cold, ruthless, viscious dog-eat-dog, Lord of the Flies, type challenge where every member is encouraged, nay, DEMANDED to participate, comment and berate other photographers into improving their art.

And what happens? Photographers get lean and mean and serious and post relevent and beautiful images or they lie in wait for the next time.

They do not post for the sake of posting. It is hard enough to escape with limbs intact with a lovely image which you have taken, nursed, wrapped in swaddling clothes, cradled in your arms and carried to altar that is WeeklyShot only to leave with it bleeding and screaming as they run back determined, next time, to post the perfect image.

And they are the better for it. Psychologically? God, no. They are a twitching jumpy mess and rarely ever fully recover. But Photographically, immeasurably so. (Or they quit and sell their gear and never look at another image which isn't hand drawn again so averse are they to photography, but that is where the Survival of the Fittest comes in.)

If one comes out at the top of a WeeklyShots Challenge they truly have won something and are among the best at what they are doing.

So we salute Brandon Stone and the participants of WeeklyShot and encourage all of you, to make yourselves and your Photomemes more relevant and mean something and improve the higher art and yourselves in the process. Be more participatory, critical (self and otherwise) it hurts a little in the beginning but you'll be the prouder of yourself and your endeavors and of the others around you in no time.

Until then, we will remain your Good Shepherds. God bless.

Love,

Your noisy upstairs neighbours,

The Right Honourable Memes Monitor and Shame, Esq (now 'et al')

The Sacking of Photo Friday

2006-11-02T11:09:00.000+11:00

Shamer in Chief, S, pushed a hastily scribbled note under our door the other day while on his paper round. 'Check out Photo Friday's "accidental" ', it said, 'Never has a photo meme been so violated!'. With an urgency usually only associated with grabbing the remote control and turning up the volume when Condoleeza comes on the tele, memeshame clicked through the tabs on his new Internet Explorer 7 ('BikiniBabes... BeijingInvest... KofiAnnan.com... BluegrassWorld... AdvancedCarpentry... where the hell is it?... Ah, here we are... Photo Friday') and we poured over the entries in disbelief. Memeshame reckons he feels dirty and I've not been able to get him out of the bathroom since (although that might be something else entirely). We've had a full postbag recently from Shamees denouncing their former submission-related behaviour and thanking us for our cruel-to-be-kind methods in showing them the error of their ways. So self-satisfied were we that we were thinking of booking ourselves a weekend in Vegas (the ever-yummy David Copperfield for me, something called Aussie Angles for memeshame- he tells me it's something to do with his carpentry course, dovetails or something) but we can see now that we can't spare the time. You're all spiraling out of control. Our despair was too overwhelming to go much beyond the first 50 or so entries to Photo Friday but here are a few of the entries that have prompted the crisis. Bear in mind that the theme was 'accidental'

http://dfunkd.com/detour/2005/09/28/reach-for-the-stars/
http://www.c2photo.com/2006/10/cindys_song.html
http://www.solar-flare.us/index.php?showimage=58
http://foggyspace.com/photo/index.php?showimage=344
http://gottabuzz.typepad.com/coffee/2006/10/accidental.html
http://aerufe.blogspot.com/2006/10/photo-friday-accidental.html
http://www.stillwatersphotography.ca/images/moose-in-log-cut_oct2006.jpg
http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D678873&entry=10005&mode=
http://www.glasslens.com/gallery2/v/Dave/g1/people/shelly_sm.jpg.html
http://www.3amfromkyoto.com/index.php/2006/10/11/the_punting_party
http://www.fabiomarza.it/pixelpost1-5rc1-1/index.php?showimage=64
http://junae.lansu.net/images/index.php?showimage=22
http://ryancordell.com/2006/10/runaway-train.html
http://shotoftheday.wojtekgil.com/index.php?showimage=310
http://www.gez.hu/157.html
http://www.eterisk.org/archives/1620_1552137716/156628
http://www.8pmdaily.com/index.php?showimage=65
http://melange1.blogspot.com/2006/10/accidental-sunset-or-accident-going.html
http://fotolog.joostburger.nl/pixelpost/index.php?showimage=17
http://rustylopez.typepad.com/imagoarticulus/2006/06/clevelan_sage.html

Working out who should appear on the Named and Shamed list on the right is a task too depressing for us to undertake alone. Mail us with your nominations for the least appropriate ten.

Photo Friday: Accidental

2006-10-27T17:53:00.000+10:00

An accident waiting to happen. 'Pre-accidental', we could say.

Meet your public, Mandy Hall

2006-10-27T13:59:00.000+10:00

Next in our series of interviews with the people you've been dying to know more about is a Q&A session with Ms Mandy Hall, of Pixels & Bandwidth and cockatoo fame. Mandy was one of our very first lost lambs but has seen the error of her ways and we love her like family.

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I run a web company (http://www.ddsn.com/). I have a degree in ceramic design, but don't do too much of it these days. I also make jewelery and draw a little bit. I started my blog about 3 years ago. I think I found Photo Friday just after that. Photo memes have helped encourage me to keep the blog up to date. I've always taken photos. My mum also takes photos as a hobby, so I spent a lot of my childhood following her and taking photos, then working with her in the darkroom.

Why so many birds? Are you a bird? A cat?
Hmm. You guys are a little obsessed with the birds, aren't you? Were you stalked by Alfred Hitchcock at some point? Ok, I admit I had a bit of a mental blank at some point and started submitting cockatoos to everything. I still don't know why. But then I found the Hall of Shame and I'm all better now. It couldn't have come at a better time in my opinion. I'm glad someone is out there keeping us honest, or if not honest, shamed.

What did you have for breakfast?
Peppermint tea. If you were here we'd have bacon and eggs - drop in any time, but not too early.

Have you ever been to the bloody big rock? No? How about Vegas?
Nope, I've flown over Ayers Rock in a plane a few times. Never been to Vegas. Is that an invitation? I'd choose Vegas, just so you know when you get the tickets.

Do you know Kerrin? Is she you? Does she owe you a life debt, perhaps because you saved her life or something?
No, never met Kerrin, except in the memes. Us Aussies stick together though, especially when it comes to birds. Everyone visit her site and tell her how nice she is: http://kerrinsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/.

What gear do or have you used? Are there any manufactures you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?
I've got an old Minolta 35mm SLR and all the darkroom stuff. I can't afford to use film these days and I can't be bothered setting up the darkroom any more. It was fun back in the day though. I'm glad I learnt to do all that before Photoshop came along. My first digital was a Canon Digital IXUS - it had no zoom and was only 2 MP, but it did the best photos in low light. Someone stole it :( Then I got a Pentax Optio 555 which is great. I like it cause it has a great zoom and people don't notice you using it. I use it as a backup camera now, cause it has an excellent macro. I currently use an Olympus EVOLT E500 with a wide angle 35mm lens & a 40-150mm lens. It's very good in low light conditions, which is what I wanted. The zoom is fun. I'm saving up for a dedicated macro lens for it, which costs almost as much as the camera, unfortunately.

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?
I love live music. I inflict it on my friends and family by dragging them along to gigs or making them watch DVDs.

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?
I have music photos on these sites:
http://www.martincilia.com/ (homepage images and a bit of the gallery)
http://www.kimhumphreys.com/ (about half of the gallery)
http://www.davidjonesdrums.com/ (main image on inner page)
http://www.oxocubans.com/ (a few of the photos in the gallery)
I enter stuff in DP Challenge when I have time:http://www.dpchallenge.com/ (my username is Mandyp) .
Entering challenges like this has really improved my pictures. I sell some photos here: http://www.dpcprints.com/, but I don't have many up there yet. My side project these days, which is rapidly becoming my main thing, is creating websites for musicians (see the top two URLs above) and photographing them. I've got a few of these photos going onto CD covers and a book. It's fun.

What is the best photo that you missed?
Mick Jagger - I was 10th row at the Stones last year, but security were SO tight. As soon as I pulled out my camera they were onto me. I got 15 shots off. He came over right in front of us just as security came to tell me off, so I missed him. There are lots and lots of others. I'm sure I'll think of them tomorrow.

Tell us your worst habit.
I'm not telling you! You never know where it might turn up! Haven't you heard of the internet? It probably involves chocolate...

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.
Probably something that involves traveling. I'd like to be a writer, but I'm not very good at it. I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing right now.

What are you wearing?
Feathers

And here are a few of Mandy's photos (birds not included):

01-Toadstool.jpg - little toadstool on my front porch, about 5cm high.Taken with my old 2MP Canon digital IXUS.

02-Lioness.jpg - Taken at Werribee Zoo in Melbourne. Taken on the Pentax.

03_Joe_Camilleri.jpg - Taken at Mordialloc festival in March this year,in late afternoon, so the light was great. Joe is pretty well known in Australia, has been in bands such as the Black Sorrows and JoJo Zep &the Falcons. Taken with the Olympus E-Volt.

10-St-Kilda.jpg - Sunset in St Kilda, Melbourne. Taken with the Pentax.

11-Mal.jpg - Mal Webb, solo performance at Revolver nightclub. Thescreen behind him was on a 5 second delay, so it looked like he wasyelling at himself. Taken with the Olympus E-Volt.

12_Oxo_Cubans_Mal.jpg - Mal Webb with the Oxo Cubans at the Mordiallocfestival in March this year. Taken with the Olympus E-Volt.

13-St-Kilda.jpg - Boat Ramp in St Kilda, Melbourne late afternoon justbefore a storm (no colour correction was used in this photo). Taken withthe Pentax.

15-Blue-Lounge.jpg - Promo shot for the swing/jazz band Blue Lounge.Taken underneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Taken with the Olympus E-Volt.

18-Gerbera.jpg - One of my favourite photos. Lit with a small blue LEDtorch, which is what is creating the purple patch. Taken with the Pentax