Quote:
Originally Posted by Gen34
They probably thought you were joking. Had they known you were posting the images up on websites like this they probably would have told you where to go. I'm going to be at the next ride and having seen where the bike ride images are ending up I am making very sure to keep my clothes on which is a shame because I was really looking forward to getting my kit off in the spirit of the event. I've been chatting to some fellow WNBR riders and they are furious and disappointed that their images are ending up on sites like this as it's not in the spirit of the ride at all. I applaud Brighton for having a fenced off area for riders to get ready.
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A few years ago, I purchased the official "World naked bike ride" book by Conrad Schmitt, one of the original organizers of the WNBR. In that book he states explicitly that the purpose of the nudity is mainly to draw media attention to their cause. I would definately urge all participants in the WNBR to read this book! And I doubt very seriously that any ride organizer today would deny that pics from the ride have the potential to wind up on sites like OCC. If you ask them beforehand, they will tell you. Its as simple as that. No one need be furious and disappointed because of their own preconceptions of what the ride is all about. This has been going on for almost ten years now.
That said, I do realize there are still a lot of concerns out there. Not all photographers honor the fragile relationship between riders and cameramen. But photographers ARE an important element of the WNBR experience as Conrad Schmitt has publicly admitted. The organizers WANT images to be publicly and freely available through the internet, and know that they cannot control exactly where they ultimately wind up.
OCC just funnels and concentrates these public images from around the net and makes it a bit easier for those that appreciate them to find them. But if this site was to suddenly disappear, most members would just go cruise other sources. The pics of you and your friends would still get viewed and commented on by people who you would perhaps rather not have see them. FLickr, for example, has many groups dedicated to WNBR images, as do other sites, and they are scarcely different in content than these threads here at OCC.
And if you really want to know - a great number of OCC members would probably be perfectly happy to see the OCC hardcore section go away. It does not define this site and never has.
EDIT: and now having wrote this - I'm wishing I hadn't. Mainly, thats because we should get on with the thread and not dwell on the negative. Hopefully, the discussion is closed and who knows but Fango might even chime in with an "amen".
Klondike