What's in a name

The ƒ Consortium? What does it mean? In what connotation does he use the ƒ? Isn't consortium mean association, partnership, union?

These are all questions I know have gone through one or two minds over the past year or so. I've been sort of dodging actually explaining in, in hopes that my original plans would just work out and all the pieces would fit nicely into place.

Basically the ƒ Consortium idea was hatched by me and a few of my friends from Brooks Institute of Photography. We wanted a place to host all of our work, a co-op gallery, a place to link us all together. My friends and I (when I lived near them, that is) did everything together, so why not create a website together?

I'm guilty of this as much as anyone else, but actually getting our work all on one server just never happened. We all tried, but nothing ever solidified.

Now, call it an improper use of the Latin word, I use the term to signify the partnership of the different facets of visual journalism I utilize - Photography, audio, film, post production of all and the hodgepodge of those wonderful "new media" toys that I love so dearly. As I said, technically it's not the proper use, but with the original idea in mind - it's a pretty slick sounding name.

The ƒ. Yes, this has baffled many of my non photog friends. The ƒ is in reference to the aperture of a lense. The ƒ-stops represent the amount of light being let through the lens and controls the depth of field. So no, the ƒ didn't stand for anything devious or sexy. Sorry.

So that's that.