Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielN | Hacker News Reader

So, I flagged this post as not relevant to HN, and normally that would be the only action I would take. But I'm kind of curious as to why this is being up-voted so much.

Is there some element of this site that is legitimately within the purview of links appropriate for HN (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)?

It is getting enough votes that I am curious if there is some deeper element that I'm missing other than just the ascetic interest of it.

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It's quite creative. As developers, entrepreneurs, etc., shouldn't we be nurturing this very hard to qualify talent?

These are well done, but the idea's been floating around social-media sites for a while now. I'm not sure where exactly it started, but it's been a meme on Reddit for people to find childhood photos and pose to recreate them. This is basically a professional version of that, it seems. Though, interestingly, it comes across with a different aesthetic, which I do like better. The Reddit ones often seem jokey, while these come across as oddly surreal/timeless.

Shortly after my brother was born a photo was taken of myself and my siblings. Many years later one of my sisters noted the ordering and we've since made a point, on the times we're all together, to group ourselves in the same ordering for a group shot.

I don't think we've ever done a recreation sort of picture as this site has (some of which are quite striking) but it's fun to look over pix from 10 or twenty years and see how we've changed.

I like that conceit in the abstract, but I don't think this site even passes that. Does is display a significant talent in that there are many pictures from many sources with all the same theme?

Doesn't this site just display an ascetically interesting element that is easily replicable.

That isn't to say it isn't nice to look at, but is it more than that from the perspective of HN? How does this differ from any other artistic tumbler blog.

(This is not meant as a dig against the creator of this site. Only a question of this sites relevance in regard to HN. After all it is friday, maybe I should just get over it...)

I followed the link, looked at the site, enjoyed the images, then came back here and flagged the story.

Just because I find the site interesting doesn't mean it belongs here.

I enjoyed it so I upvoted it. I don't just come to HN for news about startups. The occasional off-topic but interesting site is nice to see.

Nah, its just arty creative, not hacker creative.

Serious question: Do you really feel there's a material difference? There was creativity in concept and extremely masterful technical execution. Feels pretty "hackerly" to me.

Frankly, other than painting, I can't think of any visually creative activity that is more hacky than photography. What you are glibly passing over as "arty" is often the result of non-trivial, technical work.

Yes! I'd normally stay quiet, but since the parent comment is the highest voted comment, I'll take from the guidelines[1]:

What to Submit

...anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity

Compare this with pg's latest submission[2]: Spotted Horses in Cave Art Weren’t Just a Figment, DNA Shows

It is not about startups, programming, languages, or technolody per se. But it is geeky and does bring some intellectual curiosity.

On the other hand, if you think that something shouldn't be here, please flag. I always trust my fellow HN users to keep me on my toes.

[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3214336

I don't see any comparison possible between an article showing progress on understanding humankind (pg's), and a list of well done funny pics (op).

Strangely, pg's submission had only five votes. Maybe, just maybe it is a sign HN has deviated a bit from its creator's intent.

"quite creative"

I know this blurs on the internet, as everyone sees different content, but in the last year I've seen at least 3-4 projects with the exact same premise; most importantly, Irina Werning's. Maybe this is the first that HN readers are seeing.

http://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/

http://www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme/

http://www.kontraband.com/pics/21738/Childhood-Pictures-Repo...

http://www.zefrank.com/lmld/

While it is indeed true, this isn't a very unique talent and I really don't think that any nurturing is required. I comlpetely agree with the first comment that this seems to not fall within Hacker News guidelines. While the aesthetic quality of the photos is indeed quite high, I fear for Hacker News being "reddit"-ified.

Agreed, this is what I wanted to say when I saw this.

I think it's creative and interesting. If one doesn't like it, what is preventing them from either ignoring it or quickly viewing and moving on?

It sure is alot better than great amount of other posts that make the front page throughout the days.

Also, just note, that a lot of the Hackers / Hacker News members I met at Startup School 2010 and in general are very much interested in and do things like this as a side gig or hobby and invest just as much money or more in nice equipment to do so.

Probably not, but relevance is only one dimension. I enjoyed this far more than any of the flood of bitcoin articles we had a whiles back.

It seems to have spurred a conversation on culture also, which I find interesting in regards to how our many, many cultures deal with each other. The protective vs. the laissez-faire lifestylers. Why it was requested to put an NFSW tag on this post, we should take into consideration how we censor ourselves in general, and in business.

I was assuming there was some post-processing going on to make the pictures look similar. Almost all of the "before" pictures appear to have been taken with a fairly low quality camera. I assume that the "after" pictures were taken with a much better, digital camera. Therefor these pictures shouldn't look anything alike (color, grain, etc.)

The author must have used some photo processing software to correct, crop, and maybe even replace, parts of the pictures. While I really like the creativity of the images I wish that they would have expounded on how the images were created.

I think you mean aesthetic. I definitely missed the ascetic part too :)

Creativity and effort taken to recreate the same situations on the photos. Personally I found this very interesting, and it certainly 'gratified my intellectual curiosity', so IMO it's on-topic by the rules.

Check out pg's essay Hackers and Painters: http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html

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