I’d like to share a very cool website with you: 500px.
This website is “another” photo-sharing website, but who’s complaining?! We need more photos in our lives!!
Once you sign in (for free), you can start uploading your best pictures. There is no selection process, which means that whatever you upload is ending up on the website, in the ‘Fresh’ section. The pictures are saved in your own portfolio as well, which you can customize to your liking.
From there, based on a secret and complex algorithm, your pictures get a rating based on Likes and Dislikes, and other factors.
When one of your pictures reaches a rating of 60, it then is showcased in the ‘Upcoming’ section. The goal is to achieve a higher rating (it varies but is around 80/90) to have your picture shown in the ‘Popular’ section, where all the best pictures are!
The photos showcased in the ‘Popular’ section are indeed amazingly beautiful! The best I’ve seen on the web, bar none!!
My website of reference, to date, was 1x.com. The philosophy of the two websites is slightly different and it is unfair to compare them: 1x.com has a selection process, where curators determine if your picture is worthy of being featured on the website. Whether you like it or not, it places the bar fairly high and ensures that mostly good pictures are shown. You may disagree with the bias of the process, but the pictures on 1x.com are beautiful.
For 500px, it is different: all kinds of pictures are uploaded, and as such, the overall quality of the pictures is average. However, if you look at the ‘Popular’ section, the quality is, in my opinion, superior to 1x.com. Furthermore, there isn’t a 500px ‘style’, like 1x.com has. The photographs on 500px are more diverse than on 1x.com.
Another interesting point is that the rating of the pictures on 500px varies (goes down) over time, promoting new work, which is a good thing.
Also, the 500px team (which is based out of Toronto, by the way) recently released a very nicely done iPad app, that makes looking at the best pictures on the web even easier!
I love beautiful pictures, and 500px is my new favorite photo website (after VOGG Photo, obviously!).
Enjoy!
Ghyslain