The Itsy-Bitsy Polaroid.

January 21, 2011 9:16 AM

Programming notice: MeFi Favorite, The Big Picture will be moving from The Boston Globe next month to The Atlantic. Now, maybe Alan Taylor will get to work on his acclaimed photolog as a full-time gig.

_{Posting this to the grey because it isn't newsworthy per-se, but is one of the most frequently re-posted sources on the Blue, and also because The Globe hasn't been forthcoming about Taylor's departure. If this belongs on the blue, feel free to lock it.}

posted by schmod to MetaFilter-Related at 9:16 AM (39 comments total)

Hopefully this will somehow inspire The Big Caption to start updating again.
posted by Gator at 9:18 AM on January 21, 2011 [7 favorites]

Oh.... and he's one of us. Not sure how I missed that!
posted by schmod at 9:22 AM on January 21, 2011

This doesn't really seem "MetaFilter-related."
posted by grouse at 9:30 AM on January 21, 2011

Congrats to him! Really hoping they don't choose to change the format- I love how simple it is, and that you can see every photo on the same page with no flash or other cutesy trick.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:31 AM on January 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

I didn't even realize it was kokogiak until earlier this week either.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:19 AM on January 21, 2011

Interested folks may want to listen to our interview with kokogiak on an old podcast. Fascinating stuff.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:23 AM on January 21, 2011 [6 favorites]

This doesn't really seem "MetaFilter-related."

He is a mefite.
posted by empath at 10:43 AM on January 21, 2011

I love how simple it is, and that you can see every photo on the same page with no flash or other cutesy trick

So true. It's kind of an indictment of web developers that something as simple as "put static images on page with captions" can be considered innovative, but I guess that's to be expected when the field has for years been so thoroughly filled with stupid, lumbering, slow-loading sinkholes of shit UI like flickr.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:55 AM on January 21, 2011 [4 favorites]

I don't think The Big Picture is moving. It will just be run by someone else, since it's a Boston Globe property.

It will be interesting to see if anyone notices a difference with a new editor. Is it the curation of the photos that makes it good, or the format?
posted by smackfu at 11:00 AM on January 21, 2011

Congrats Kokogiak!

[this is good]
posted by Mick at 11:37 AM on January 21, 2011

This doesn't really seem "MetaFilter-related."

No, yeah, I'm very interested to learn this. Thanks for posting it.
posted by nevercalm at 11:47 AM on January 21, 2011

Nope, Boston.com is definitely keeping The Big Picture. But good luck and happy trails, Alan!
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:53 AM on January 21, 2011

Big Picture is great, so simple, yet fascinating, with a global reach. Love the fact that it's willing to show more graphic photos, yet hides their display by default. I'm surprised it's format hasn't been copied more.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:06 PM on January 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is it the curation of the photos that makes it good, or the format?

while the boston globe is retaining the name, format, and getting a new editor - the format was his idea - one he had to fight for, if i remember correctly.

so, while it's not technically correct to say that the big picture is moving, it does explain what's happening. he's taking his eye, his sense of layout, his ability to pick out topics and pouring those all into In Focus. what'll be left at boston.com (if they leave it exactly the same) is for all intents and purposes a ghost writer.

i'm super proud of him and hope that his new project will be even better since he gets to do it full time now.
posted by nadawi at 12:50 PM on January 21, 2011

Thanks everyone. I hope to post a new MeFi Projects post soon (when I actually have a blog to link to) And, to be clear, the Globe is retaining the name, blog & format with a team of editors taking over. I'm moving to the Atlantic (who have been nothing but awesome), and starting a new photo blog called "In Focus". As always, any ideas or suggestions are welcome.
posted by kokogiak at 12:58 PM on January 21, 2011 [14 favorites]

Also, a link to my original MeFi Projects posting for Big Picture in June, 2008. That posting was a big part of getting off the ground initially, for which, I am of course, very thankful.
posted by kokogiak at 1:02 PM on January 21, 2011 [4 favorites]

kokogiak -- I recall that in 2005 The Atlantic Monthly moved from their offices on North Washington Street, Boston to Washington D.C. Do they still have an office here? If not, I assume you'll still be able to work from here and not move to D.C. (?)
posted by ericb at 1:17 PM on January 21, 2011

@ericb Yes, they're in D.C. but I'll be working from home, so yeah, I'll be staying in the Boston area.
posted by kokogiak at 1:20 PM on January 21, 2011

Congratulations kokogiak!

As always, any ideas or suggestions are welcome.

"In Focus" sounds okay, but I bet we could come up with something better. Are you going a different route with the format, since you make it clear that the Globe is retaining that?
posted by cashman at 1:23 PM on January 21, 2011

@cashman, similar format to start, expanding over time as appropriate.
posted by kokogiak at 1:24 PM on January 21, 2011

Great! I should have looked at all the links first. I see it is already up and running. Congrats again to you! When you get to this point: "“It’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done professionally,” he says. “And it’s become clear to me that it’s something I want to do for years to come.”, you're coasting.
posted by cashman at 1:31 PM on January 21, 2011

And to think I knew him when he was flinging poo.

and helping us visualize a million (or more) pennies
posted by Curious Artificer at 1:39 PM on January 21, 2011

I'm a Kokogiak groupie since the afore-mentioned MegaPenny Project and Luciferous Logolepsy. The Big Picture was inspired and it was a delight to see it grow. I look forward to the innovations and creativity he'll bring to the Atlantic. This hire speaks well of the Atlantic's commitment to and progressive outlook on their web product, imo.

I macarize you, Kokogiak - yay!
posted by madamjujujive at 1:59 PM on January 21, 2011 [3 favorites]

As always, any ideas or suggestions are welcome.

The only advice I can give is what you probably already know - to keep using that "all in one page" format and to not allow the Atlantic's marketdroids to paginate every picture into it's own slow loading page.

Beyond the excellent curation and editing the Big Picture was great exactly because of that format. It's a breath of fresh air and an isle of calmness and sanity by comparison to most major news organization's photo gallery presentations.

But I've already written you mefi fanmail about that. If it's any help I'd be glad to write your new bosses a letter gushing about how awesome, rational, sane and user friendly that format is.

Marketdroids everywhere need to realize that inflated single page view counts are not the same as Nielsen TV ratings or something. They drive off viewers with distraction, frustration and boredom. If you've managed to capture someone's attention enough to click on a link to your gallery and land their distractable eyeballs on your page - you want to keep them there for as long as possible. They'll be more likely to return. If I have to spend more than mere seconds per page per image I generally just close the window and wait for the pics to show up elsewhere on the net.

(Don't even get me started on flash interfaces where I click a photo link and it does some fancy-ass resized flash popup with a 150 px border that ends up displaying a picture that's somehow even smaller than the thumbnail I clicked on. People are still buying and using relatively small screens, especially with phones, tablets and netbooks. Stop assuming I want you to show the image scaled to fit my screen inside of the huge-bordered frame. Just show me the raw JPG or PNG when I click on a thumbnail.)

Anyway, before I really whip myself into an angry froth about the absurdity of bad UI/UX design from old dead tree publishers, good jorb. Congrats. Let us all know if your new bosses need any encouraging words to preserve the format and editorial leeway. I'm sure there's a bunch of us that would be happy to write letters of support.
posted by loquacious at 2:04 PM on January 21, 2011 [14 favorites]

kokogiak: "As always, any ideas or suggestions are welcome."

Congratulations and good luck! Have always been a huge fan of The Big Picture.

I'm sure you're already familiar with all of them, but at the bottom of this post I collected a bunch of links to media photo blogs. Most of them use some sort of extensive (and annoying) flash display interface. Only a very few have refrained from doing so, like the Photojournal. I suspect the fancier ones lose some readers because of it.
posted by zarq at 2:18 PM on January 21, 2011

More kudos for the Big Picture. That is some great photography. It has long been a favorite site of mine. Best of luck in the new role.
posted by caddis at 2:26 PM on January 21, 2011

Holy sh!t. The same dude that did Megapenny does The Big Picture?

That's real dude. Real. He's my favorite. You all are great, but he's my favorite.

I'm on Nyquil today.
posted by elmer benson at 2:51 PM on January 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

Congrats. Let us all know if your new bosses need any encouraging words to preserve the format and editorial leeway.

Anecdotally, The Atlantic is one website I wrote to complain about changes to the UI, and they actually changed it back. I assume more people than I had the same complaint, but it was gratifying nonetheless.
posted by oneirodynia at 8:33 PM on January 21, 2011

Congratulations! And I heartily second what loquacious said about all on one page, no flash, etc.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:22 PM on January 21, 2011

As an American expat-in-China fan of the Big Picture (my daughters, 2 and 3, are big fans as well, especially posts about animals), one thing I'd like to highlight about the Big Picture is the diversity of the commenters as an affirmation of the project's global focus/attitude. I never did the stats, but I was always sure that I could find at least five languages represented in the first page of comments, and that to me is awesome and a sign that the Big Picture "got" the changing face of the internet. That focus is another thing that I'd be excited to see carried over to "In Focus". And if you see him, give a high five to James Fallows from me.
posted by msittig at 10:51 PM on January 21, 2011

last time I did an fpp of a big picture topic I got yelled at... I'm not doing that again, no matter WHERE they are...
posted by HuronBob at 10:25 AM on January 22, 2011

Yay for Alan!

filled with stupid, lumbering, slow-loading sinkholes of shit UI like flickr.

Ouch.
posted by ericost at 6:42 PM on January 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Congrats. I've tried to post the EOY roundup that TBP does here on MeFi for the last few years (was a little late this year but I remembered). For me its one of my very favorite EOY things on the internet, up there with Google Zeitgeist.

I'd n'th loq said above about the single page and all that. The EOY wrap-up is the exception in my mind given that its so huge, it really has to be in parts. Keep up the good work!

last time I did an fpp of a big picture topic I got yelled at... I'm not doing that again, no matter WHERE they are...

I've gotten flak in my posts too. Ignore the haters and keep posting good stuff. Its part of life on MeFi.
posted by allkindsoftime at 5:17 AM on January 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Does this mean the Atlantic has to subscribe to all the wire photo feeds just for this feature?
posted by smackfu at 5:51 AM on January 24, 2011

allkindsoftime: " I've gotten flak in my posts too. Ignore the haters and keep posting good stuff. Its part of life on MeFi."

Totally agree with this.
posted by zarq at 7:36 AM on January 24, 2011

last time I did an fpp of a big picture topic I got yelled at

I've gotten flak in my posts too. Ignore the haters and keep posting good stuff. Its part of life on MeFi.

At the same time, it may be a good idea to understand why people don't react well to posts, if the way people react matters to you. No need to really belabor this but I feel that it's important to mention

- getting a post deleted is not at all the same as getting yelled at by the mods
- everyone in the Big Picture thread that is being referred to was, at worst, mildly snarky
- single word posts are often not liked by a subset of members, adding more context can make a post that might otherwise not be okay, be totally okay

I love the Big Picture but it's a thing like The Onion or McSweeney's or a new Ebert column or a new OK Cupid stats report. They're linked here enough times that just saying "oh hey there's a new Big Picture" doesn't really meet the "is this a good post for MetaFilter" bar many times. Or sometimes it does. But it matters how you phrase it. I maintain that if you're someone who is sensitive to negative feedback, there are ways to make posts that will get you almost no negative feedback. I'm not saying that this is necessarily how things should work, only that it's possible. Otherwise, you take the crunchy with the smooth and share what you like and see what happens. But people who don't like a single word single link post to an oft-posted site are not necessarily haters either.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:02 AM on January 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

So is that February like February February, or like two days before March February? Ya killin me son.
posted by cashman at 10:31 AM on February 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

@cashman - Sooner than later! Working hard on it! Thank you! Exclamation points!
posted by kokogiak at 9:23 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

In Focus with Alan Taylor is live!
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:57 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]