I've had the honor of being the Community Volunteer for the Macro Photography gallery for three separate terms and, as such, have had a lot of opportunity to take a really long look at the gallery and I've started noticing a concerning trend. Over time, the quality of macro photos within the gallery have been declining and from what I can see and what I've been told by the community is that most photographers would rather submit to a subject based gallery, e.g. Animal, Plants and Nature or Still Life - instead of Macro, as the overall quality and originality is greater in these wider subject-based galleries.
Let's be honest, there isn't much you can take a macro shot of that's "original". The water drops have become a Chinese water torture and the eyeballs staring back can frankly be creepy!
I rarely feature Macro DDs anymore simply because barely anything rocks my chair anymore and honest to earth, how many water drop, ant or eye photos do you guy want to see featured as a DD in a week?
Macro is based on a technique that requires specific equipment to be done correctly. Technically speaking macro is at least 1:1 magnification and up. I have written many journals about this in the past, but technical stuff is not always easy to understand for beginners.
Over time, I have received lots of feedback from the community about the issues that concern this gallery and after discussing the feedback with moonbeam13, we both agree that changes need to be made.
Here are some ideas we've had:
#1. We will move the current content of the 3 macro sub galleries into subject based galleries, meaning Macro - Nature into one of the fitting Animal, Plants and Nature galleries, e.g. insects, flowers and plant, etc, move the Macro - Objects gallery into a fitting Still Life gallery and last move the Macro - Human gallery into the People and Portraits gallery. This option would result in 'Macro' being removed, as a gallery and everyone would submit photography based on the 'subject'
This option seems to be the best in my opinion since many macro photographers already choose a subject based gallery rather than a technique-based gallery.
#2. Creating sub galleries in the APN, Still Life and People and Portrait galleries for macro and move the existing macro galleries in these.
My thoughts on this: It doesn't eliminate the problem, we only would move it and still be stuck with a technique based gallery.
#3. Don't do anything and leave it as it is.
#4. A better option you guys can come up with.
I would appreciate input from photographers and especially macro photographers on this one, but really any helpful opinions are welcome. So please leave your comments with feedback and suggestions about what your thoughts on this issues are in the comments below!
Thank you!
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I read this news in "desing of liquid" group, so I've come here to offer my thoughts on the sugestions people have had, so to avoid that Macro gallery be shoot down 
First of all, I've always noticed this gallery category it's one of the reasons why people enjoy dA, why then enjoy comment and come here, and it is natural they think so, because macro it's one of the most beautiful and amazing tecniques of photography that have been invented, serously! People enjoy to admire contemplate real macro photos, they always give precious feelings of wonder, happiness and amazement, and there's really talented people who take macro here, with a quality that I've never seen in any other sites that aren't dA! Thus, macro is a vital part of dA as it is "fanart" "sci-fi" "fantasy" or other galleries that people look for and they care about and love to see through and they like that they can find them easily because these are main galleries.
In my opinion, what I can realize when I think about this, it's that all this apparent "declining quality" of macro shoots that you say to see, it's just a misunderstanding. It is due the fact that some people post their pics of just close up shoots that aren't macro, on macro gallery, and then that's why it seems like the pics have been lost their quality, but no, actually, because those aren't macro, they are just photos of natura and still life and stuff. I think what will solve very well this problem it's to have a more accessible info about the categories on dA for those who don't know where their photos belong too.
Also it would help to have some people who volunteer to spread the word about what macro is, and some people who knows about the subject that want revise the photos submitted in macro category and take them to the right galleries if aren’t macro. Aslo, to ask help to the fellow deviant; the common deviant can help too (the no moderators ones and stuff) when browsing dA, if they see a photo on macro that isn’t macro, they could let someone know, someone who gets in charge of this category, so they take charge for changing it. I can help! I Volunteer to give notice to the people in charge when I browse and find something that isn’t macro. I can do this whil doing my usal browsing every day after a hard day of work. But please, don’t let them take down macro gallery!
if you do, then it will be so truly difficult for me (and other people of course) to find real macro photos, and then, what will give me happiness and calm when I come back from a hard day of work! :’(….Deviantart will never be the same without macro being macro category, lots of people browse it and look for it everyday, you know it's true!…then why would to shoot it down one of the categories that has the most amazing and beautiful photos that this comunity has to offer?! It's true that there's people who don't know and put their other photos in "macro" but, we all will pay for other people's mistakes?....Don't you think it's better to teach them, to instruct? I'm sure they don't do this on purpose, they just don't know!
First of all, I've always noticed this gallery category it's one of the reasons why people enjoy dA, why then enjoy comment and come here, and it is natural they think so, because macro it's one of the most beautiful and amazing tecniques of photography that have been invented, serously! People enjoy to admire contemplate real macro photos, they always give precious feelings of wonder, happiness and amazement, and there's really talented people who take macro here, with a quality that I've never seen in any other sites that aren't dA! Thus, macro is a vital part of dA as it is "fanart" "sci-fi" "fantasy" or other galleries that people look for and they care about and love to see through and they like that they can find them easily because these are main galleries.
In my opinion, what I can realize when I think about this, it's that all this apparent "declining quality" of macro shoots that you say to see, it's just a misunderstanding. It is due the fact that some people post their pics of just close up shoots that aren't macro, on macro gallery, and then that's why it seems like the pics have been lost their quality, but no, actually, because those aren't macro, they are just photos of natura and still life and stuff. I think what will solve very well this problem it's to have a more accessible info about the categories on dA for those who don't know where their photos belong too.
Also it would help to have some people who volunteer to spread the word about what macro is, and some people who knows about the subject that want revise the photos submitted in macro category and take them to the right galleries if aren’t macro. Aslo, to ask help to the fellow deviant; the common deviant can help too (the no moderators ones and stuff) when browsing dA, if they see a photo on macro that isn’t macro, they could let someone know, someone who gets in charge of this category, so they take charge for changing it. I can help! I Volunteer to give notice to the people in charge when I browse and find something that isn’t macro. I can do this whil doing my usal browsing every day after a hard day of work. But please, don’t let them take down macro gallery!
if you do, then it will be so truly difficult for me (and other people of course) to find real macro photos, and then, what will give me happiness and calm when I come back from a hard day of work! :’(….Deviantart will never be the same without macro being macro category, lots of people browse it and look for it everyday, you know it's true!…then why would to shoot it down one of the categories that has the most amazing and beautiful photos that this comunity has to offer?! It's true that there's people who don't know and put their other photos in "macro" but, we all will pay for other people's mistakes?....Don't you think it's better to teach them, to instruct? I'm sure they don't do this on purpose, they just don't know!Award a badge