Think back in the early 80's, when ASCII terminals were the norm, 1200
baud modems were speed daemons, and rec.photo was a single newsgroup.
People in the newsgroup wanted to see each other's photos, but couldn't.
Somebody organized circulating portfolios of about a dozen prints each.
You received the portfolio in the mail, posted your comments on it, and
sent it on to the next person the portfolio's list. As I recall, one
person coordinated everything, getting people to volunteer to send in a
picture, collecting a list of people who wanted to view each portfolio,
packaging separate pictures into a mailable envelope to start it
circulating, and sending the prints back when it finished circulating.
Everything was limited to unmounted prints 8x10 or smaller to keep
mailing costs down. There were a couple portfolios circulating at any
given time. It was pretty successful, as I recall.
With web sites these days, there is less need for paper to circulate,
but screen images just aren't the same as the physical object. I have
visited web sites, but still prefer to see pictures up close.
Would anybody be intested in trying this with alt-photo prints? If so, I
will try to remember the rules (or find them in old files). I would be
willing to coordinate things.
Willard Korfhage