Member Services
New Member Orientation
We're so glad you joined the Utata group! Welcome. You are in good company, amongst fine people and all that we really ask of you is that you conduct yourself with civility and follow the few rules we have. Below are all of the really important things to know about us and many other interesting things exist on the site. We urge you to poke around and read some of the articles or look at some of the photographs we've showcased. Once you join you're one of us and this is your place now, too. So, welcome home, kimosabe.
The Group
In short, we operate like a traditional salon. We discuss things, engage in group activities, talk about important and mundane things, share experiences, knowledge and the ocassional bad or good mood. We're indulgent of one another to the degree civility and friendship demand and we run the gamut from point and shooters with their first camera to heavy hitters with Hasselblads in their back seats. And when we walk through the Utata front doors, we're all the same. That's the tribe secret.
Show Off Your Member Status
If you want to show off your Utatan status on your flickr profile page or on your own blog, here's your chance.
To include the Utata group graphic on your flickr profile insert the following code into your profile:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/utata/"> <img src="http://static.flickr.com/35/70642203_6ff033e35d_o.gif" /></a>
To include the utata.org graphic on your flickr profile insert the following code into your profile:
<a href="http://www.utata.org/"> <img src="http://static.flickr.com/35/70642204_ba7055f22f_o.gif" /></a>
The Pool
We have a few basic guidelines for using the Utata pool. Please read them carefully and follow them with a reasonable degree of care:
- Please do not post more than one image at a time- so if you post an image to the Utata pool, someone else has to post one to the pool before you can post another. You can put as many as 50 photos in the Utata pool each month.
- Please do not post nudes to the pool. This is mostly because we run a public site, not because we're prudes. In fact, we might open a Nude Utata one day - who knows? But for now, it's a no-nude Utata and that's just the way of it.
- Please do not post photographs to Utata which are present in more than 5 other pools.
- Please do not post anything to the pool which you did not photograph or create yourself and for which you are not the sole copyright holder.
The Site
We love flickr. Madly even. And it's the greatest photo storage and management tool ever invented. And it has a pretty cool community interface. The basic theory is that the web is like an organic thing and the best results happen when technologies and platforms can merge - like symbiotic creatures - and create better services for users. So. Flickr stores our photos and offers us a place to hold tribe meetings and, to their great credit, has a wonderful open interface so that we can use the data stored there, in our own format on Utata. Flickr is the great community hall and Utata is one of its boutiques, so to speak. To be a member of Utata you must be a member of flickr.
Utata was built so that we could do things with our photography. Give ourselves goals and inspire our own creativity and present things to the general public which are fun and interesting. What we're really trying to do is make the concept of photography on the internet more of an active endeavor than a passive one. Here are our small triumphs and our group successes - here our are shining moments and the things we want you to know. Here we share selectively and judiciously, hopefully turning the ephemeral into the perennial.
Okay, Okay, I've Joined Utata - What Next?
To get the most out of Utata it will help to understand all the things we do and how you can be part of them
The flickr Group:
Here you should just jump in. Start threads - contribute to ongoing threads - poke around. The more you participate, the more you get out of it. Your mother was right, after all.
Member Page
If you want to do things with us, participate in projects and have visitors to the site be able to see a selection of your work and a biography about you, you can request a member page. It's very simple - just go to the add/update member page and fill in the blanks. You will have a chance to tell us which of your photographs you would like to represent you and even create a bio for readers to see. Please keep in mind that lots of non-flickr, general user sort of people view the site everyday and this is not only a very good opportunity for additional exposure for your work but is an excellent chance to show off your skills with project participation.
Once you have made a member page you can update or change it at any time so you do not need to have all your biographical information when you first request your page.
Here's an example member page and an index of all members with pages. If you want to get your own member page, you can go here.
Put Photos In The Pool
Using the guidelines above, put your best photographs in the pool where they might be selected for the daily blog, the daily spotlight or in the Utata Ink column.
Contribute!
You can contribute in many ways to Utata. Projects, as you may have guessed, are the primary way that Utatans get involved with the community. In addition, you can write articles or even create your own column or ongoing series if you have a good solid idea that you can convince us needs doing. See our submissions page for details.
What Are Projects?
What's This Testimonial Business
One of the ways Utata really is tribal is that we ask that everyone who requests a member page find some other Utata member who does not yet have a testimonial and write them one. Go visit their stream, check out their work, write a considered testimonial. Your name is on that list, too and if everyone does their part then we should never have more than a few Utatans without a testimonial. This is an important part of the community spirit and we urge you to do your bit, please.
More on testimonials here.
