I agree that one of the few things that Flickr does right is the groups and community that it has. Besides that, I can't think of anything like Polycount but geared for photography. One of the sites I do go to frequently is canonrumors.com.
It's pretty hard to find any place on the net that has a friendly community like Polycount does. Especially in Photography. Personally, I browse dpreview.com a lot, luminouslandscape, and follow a bunch of blogs that, while they don't have a forum community, offer a LOT of amazing info.
My wife wants to get into photography as a profession. I know a lot of people here are into photography, so I'm hoping someone could point us in the right direction. If she can find an online community for photography like the great one we have here for game art, it would really help her on her journey. What's your go to…