Have you ever looked at JPG Magazine's Photo Challenges?  If you have artist's block, they might be a perfect afternoon adventure.  Uncertainty in my professional life (my second AmeriCorps year ends in August, and this time I'm going to get a real, civilian job) has led to stress and lack of motivation in my personal projects, which I think is par for the course for many people in situations like this.  My biggest ideas have gone to the back burner, and I can only assume my usual energy and lust for new challenges will resume once I secure a full-time job.

In the meantime, I know I can't just come home and play video games every night, so I've decided to do as many JPG Photo Challenges as I can.  Not only do they only encompass a short portion of an afternoon, they encourage me to try out new and silly techniques like camera tossing.

This afternoon I experimented with the Create-A-Filter challenge, with mixed results.  However, if you've never tried putting a thick nylon stocking over the lens of your DSLR, I highly recommend you do.

Returning to Monday's post for a moment, it isn't entirely incumbent upon us artists to be professionals. After all, what would happen if everyone exhibited top-notch professionalism in the business world?

Just as artists compete for top opportunities, the organizations providing those opportunities must compete for the top artists. They are responsible for selecting individuals who are producing well-considered work and presenting it well.

To that end, the big challenge for the two groups I've been discussing of late is sifting through the massive amount of images submitted. In the case of JPG Magazine, I have been gradually less impressed as the pool of contributors has increased. The top prize will inform my final verdict on the Baker Artist Awards. A strong, well-rounded portfolio in the number-one slot will keep me – and many other participants, I'm sure – engaged for years to come because we'll know the selection process is credible and we will continue to submit our work and challenge ourselves as creative people.

I feel very hopeful about the Baker Awards, more so than about JPG at this point. In some way, I feel like the Baker Awards are an American Idol for Baltimore artists. This sounds silly and I hope it doesn't offend anyone, but I can't think of another analogy that works so well. Regardless of whether I enjoy the show (I do, okay?), I can't dispute the fact that the model works very, very well. Beginning with a wide base of great talent, great disillusionment, and tons of hope and energy, a pool of contestants battle it out in the public eye. This, the audition, is the Baker site. In both cases, the end goal is not just to win a lot of money by snagging first prize – which always goes to a very talented individual – but to survive the process well enough and long enough to catch the attention of an industry professional. While very few of us will actually win something, we're hoping a curator or two will notice our work in the process.

So, unlike JPG, which has undergone a hefty amount of criticism during its crisis, I think the Baker Foundation and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance have it just right and are putting Baltimore at the forefront of a new, very exciting movement in the art/curating world. They are taking a proven model that folks just love and translating it to fine arts, which is something I am happy – and privileged – to support.

The plot thickens over JPG Magazine's supposed departure. As I continue to read the news coming out from JPG and elsewhere, I find it difficult not to get cynical. After all, in the original goodbye letter, didn't editor in chief Laura Brunow Miner say “we sought out buyers, spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative efforts, all without success?”

Either JPG did a pretty incomplete job looking for buyers – especially considering all the rumors that Flickr will be the buyer – or this was all part of the plan to cut staff in half and start a cash-only bidding war.

What's your take? Does something about this smell fishy?

In other news, I stumbled upon some humorous (that is, humorous because there were no injuries) “glad that's not me” photos of a skier who ended up suspended upside down sans pants on a lift in Vail, Colorado. Unfortunately, the photos – taken by a resort photographer off-duty and with his own camera – have cost the photographer his job with Sharpshooter Images.

Well, January 5 is rolling to a close and JPGMag.com is still up and running for the time being. Personally, I'm not harboring much enthusiasm for sudden redemption and prosperity, but I do view JPG Magazine's demise as a significant loss to the photo community. Why?

1. The synergistic relationship between the online community and the printed publication filled a unique niche in the contemporary photo scene. The interactive nature of the selection process gave the final product a richer meaning than a more traditional, behind-closed-doors jury.

2. Users could submit words and/or images. This was a match made in heaven for those of us multi-talented folks looking for a place to show off our writing and images side by side (as they should be).

3. Many unknown artists got work published and received valuable feedback from the community.

4. As I've said previously when commenting on the Baker Artist Awards, the newest generation of visual artists has come to expect a certain level of interactivity. No longer are impersonal submission processes and sterile magazine pages going to be stimulating and inspiring for new artists...or so I suspect.

The problem with user-generated content that hurts profitability is anyone can do it. The stumbling block facing fantastic, innovative projects like JPG and the Baker Awards is, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Sure, Baker and JPG unearth a lot of talented new artists, but by their very nature they also attract some mundane, poorly considered work that brings the whole community down. As the pool grows larger, so does the percentage of work that makes me sigh and ask “really?”

My thoughts in the aftermath of all this are, given that the playing field is definitely shifting toward a broader, more participatory model, how can the photo community address the “everyone wants to be a photographer” issue? How can we set standards without being exclusionary or elitist? How might the definition of “photographer” be altered by advances in technology, both online and on the shelf of the local camera store (or the Target, as the case may be)?