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)?