Cahterine's Bridal Shoot

[bennielou]

Ok, wow wow wow. Has anyone been to this guy's website? In case you haven't, here it is:
Flickr: jackstrutz's Photostream

I won't lie, there is some good stuff there. But I can't count how many stray hairs are going across that poor beautiful girl's eyes. You would have thought he would take a nanosecond to fix that.

Anyhoo, we obviously have a really different way of doing things. I don't know how many paid jobs he works every year, but I hope he has many.

Because he's got a BIG opinion.

Anyhoo, I'm going to go cry now. Thanks Pete for your support.

(I'm pretty much sure that this will make your day Jack. You can feel superior. That's the coolest. You hurt a person for no reason at all. I hope you are super happy.)

 

[bigtwinky]

Who are you kidding? I have seen this "over the top stuff" in all of your work.

Also, why would you be proud of that "little nitch market" that you claim to have? Don't you think that if ALL decent photographers look down on this technique that there might be something wrong with it?

What you do is not professional and is something that any self conscious high school girl with Photoshop and a Myspace could do.

I am even more bothered by the post processing you did on the eyes. They look ridiculous. #1 and 2 are perfect examples of what I'm talking about. The eyes are out of place. Back up and take a look at what you are doing.

I'm going to be honest, I feel bad for your clients. It seems like what you do is more or less not worth the price tag that you put on it.

I'm the first to say that I don't like this look. I find it fake and would not pay anyone to do this to my pictures or accept anyone pay me for this. I find it tacky and cheesy. But that is me.

Just because no other photographer does it does not mean that it is something that should not be done. If everyone were to think like that, then everyone would work like a cookie cutter and offer the same things. The world would be very bland.

For what it is, its good. If someone wants a plastic porcelain look with ultra freaky eyes, that is exactly what they got. And if their budget for $7000 works, then who am I to say thats too much.

If someone wants to buy a classic red ferrari and paint it pink with yellow polkadots, thats their choice. If they are ok with paying someone $50,000 for that paint job, and they get the paint job they want, then its all good.

If the clients are happy with the result and getting what they pay for, then why would you feel bad for them? They have the money, they got the product as requested.

I'm not sure if you have an intent to be a pro photographer, or even if you are one now, you might want to look more into the business end of things. If some people are willing to pay for something that you can do a good job on, then you get a contract. If those people show 20 of their friends and 2 like it and call you, you get 2 more contracts.

Ok, that really hurt too, but thank you for defending me in your really backslap way.

Sorry if the fact that I dont like the look or style a backslap and you find that hurtful. I've seen some of your work on your website, and even PMed you about it in the past, and find it oustanding. But this specific look, I dont like.

Just as I find tacky and cheesy all those over done cartoon looking HDR images

 

[bennielou]

I welcome your input, Bigtwinkie. I do. But the last line is pretty hurtful if we can be honest. "Cheesy" and "Cartoonish" is hurtful.

Can you just say, I don't dig it? Can you just say I don't like it for x amount of reasons?

I've already explained a million times why I do what I do. I've said it's over the top and photographers hate it. Is there any reason at all to hurt me?

Can't you just appreciate that people pay me for this service? You don't have to like it. You don't.

 

[bigtwinky]

the x amount of reasons are because I find it cheesy and tacky. The intent is not to hurt, they are my opinions. I'm not sure I know of other synonyms in my limited vocabulary that will make the point as much as cheesy and tacky. I'm seriously not trying to be confrontational at all, and if you know better words for me to use I'll try and use those.

I won't say "I dont dig it" as that is the same as the masses here who comment on posts asking for critique and just say "I like them".

Again, its your niche market, what you do you do well, I just don't like it for the reasons I listed.

:/

 

[bennielou]

You know what Big Twinkie? Your shots aren't my favorites either. I could actually say it's a half assed effort. But have I until now said that?
Um no.

Hey, you do things your way, and I do things my way, and at the end of the day, I hope we all make a crapload of money.

We are different my friend, and that's all cool. There is an ass for every seat. You do your thing, and I will do my thing, and I hope at the end of the day we can respect one another as business people.

Hugs,

 

[bennielou]

the x amount of reasons are because I find it cheesy and tacky. The intent is not to hurt, they are my opinions. I'm not sure I know of other synonyms in my limited vocabulary that will make the point as much as cheesy and tacky. I'm seriously not trying to be confrontational at all, and if you know better words for me to use I'll try and use those.

I won't say "I dont dig it" as that is the same as the masses here who comment on posts asking for critique and just say "I like them".

Again, its your niche market, what you do you do well, I just don't like it for the reasons I listed.

:/

The reason you listed is "cheesy" and " cartoonish". That's about like saying, "That sucks". A teenager does that. You should be capable of telling me why. Exactly. Since you are so driven in giving in depth crit.
TELL ME WHY. Don't just use hurtful words, tell me why? That is not too much to ask.

Ok, you don't like the style my clients pay for. That is cool. But don't be hurtful. I try not to be hurtful to you.

 

[bennielou]

the x amount of reasons are because I find it cheesy and tacky. The intent is not to hurt, they are my opinions. I'm not sure I know of other synonyms in my limited vocabulary that will make the point as much as cheesy and tacky. I'm seriously not trying to be confrontational at all, and if you know better words for me to use I'll try and use those.

I won't say "I dont dig it" as that is the same as the masses here who comment on posts asking for critique and just say "I like them".

Again, its your niche market, what you do you do well, I just don't like it for the reasons I listed.

:/

You need to get an emotion chip. I'm not asking you to be in love with the shots. I was asking for crit. Not name calling. Not deratory words, crit.
Hey, if my shots are aweful to you, maybe go haunt someone else. You have told me that my shots are horrible, and I think your shots are half assed, and so we have come to an agreement.

OK?

 

[bigtwinky]

My post was not directed towards a crit of your work. It was directed to the poster Jackrabbit in reply to his comments about the work not being what its worth and feeling sorry for clients paying the sums they do. I didn't feel the need to explain myself to Jackrabbit.

You have made many posts here asking for comments on your work to which I don't reply to because I have nothing to say on your work. I am not "driven" to give it in depth comments. Its not a style I like or support and thus have never practiced it and I cannot give any comments that would be beneficial.

Its all good though, I'll continue not posting directly to you on your comment threads, but should I see something that I feel I should comment on (whether its your original post or someone's reply), I'll take note to be as in depth and objective as I can to the post I am replying to.

 

[bigtwinky]

You need to get an emotion chip. I'm not asking you to be in love with the shots. I was asking for crit. Not name calling. Not deratory words, crit.
Hey, if my shots are aweful to you, maybe go haunt someone else. You have told me that my shots are horrible, and I think your shots are half assed, and so we have come to an agreement.

OK?

I don't remember name calling you here or in any recent thread. Can you point me to where I did that?

Might want to turn down that emotion chip. Replying twice to the same comment is kinda showing that you are responding emotionally. But hey, my goal is not to get under your skin, not at all. If you aren't liking my comments, no need to reply, its all good.:hugs:

 

[bennielou]

My post was not directed towards a crit of your work. It was directed to the poster Jackrabbit in reply to his comments about the work not being what its worth and feeling sorry for clients paying the sums they do. I didn't feel the need to explain myself to Jackrabbit.

You have made many posts here asking for comments on your work to which I don't reply to because I have nothing to say on your work. I am not "driven" to give it in depth comments. Its not a style I like or support and thus have never practiced it and I cannot give any comments that would be beneficial.

Its all good though, I'll continue not posting directly to you on your comment threads, but should I see something that I feel I should comment on (whether its your original post or someone's reply), I'll take note to be as in depth and objective as I can to the post I am replying to.

As I said, I appreciate you helping me out with junior nuthead. I respect you, so when you say things sometimes, it hurts.
Hey if you hate my ****, that is ok. Feel free to disregard. It's not life and death.

At the end of the day, I hope we can respect each other as business people.

 

[bennielou]

You need to get an emotion chip. I'm not asking you to be in love with the shots. I was asking for crit. Not name calling. Not deratory words, crit.
Hey, if my shots are aweful to you, maybe go haunt someone else. You have told me that my shots are horrible, and I think your shots are half assed, and so we have come to an agreement.

OK?

I don't remember name calling you here or in any recent thread. Can you point me to where I did that?

Might want to turn down that emotion chip. Replying twice to the same comment is kinda showing that you are responding emotionally. But hey, my goal is not to get under your skin, not at all. If you aren't liking my comments, no need to reply, its all good.:hugs:

I'm not ignoring you, and I appreciate your hug. I need it.

 

[bennielou]

My post was not directed towards a crit of your work. It was directed to the poster Jackrabbit in reply to his comments about the work not being what its worth and feeling sorry for clients paying the sums they do. I didn't feel the need to explain myself to Jackrabbit.

You have made many posts here asking for comments on your work to which I don't reply to because I have nothing to say on your work. I am not "driven" to give it in depth comments. Its not a style I like or support and thus have never practiced it and I cannot give any comments that would be beneficial.

Its all good though, I'll continue not posting directly to you on your comment threads, but should I see something that I feel I should comment on (whether its your original post or someone's reply), I'll take note to be as in depth and objective as I can to the post I am replying to.

That is all that I ask for. Blast me, but tell me why.

 

[JackRabbit]

My post was not directed towards a crit of your work. It was directed to the poster Jackrabbit in reply to his comments about the work not being what its worth and feeling sorry for clients paying the sums they do. I didn't feel the need to explain myself to Jackrabbit.

You have made many posts here asking for comments on your work to which I don't reply to because I have nothing to say on your work. I am not "driven" to give it in depth comments. Its not a style I like or support and thus have never practiced it and I cannot give any comments that would be beneficial.

Its all good though, I'll continue not posting directly to you on your comment threads, but should I see something that I feel I should comment on (whether its your original post or someone's reply), I'll take note to be as in depth and objective as I can to the post I am replying to.

As I said, I appreciate you helping me out with junior nuthead. I respect you, so when you say things sometimes, it hurts.
Hey if you hate my ****, that is ok. Feel free to disregard. It's not life and death.

At the end of the day, I hope we can respect each other as business people.

First, excuse me Ms. Hypocrite... "Junior nuthead"? Really? After you complaining that he and I were calling you names? Come on.

Second, LEAVE MY AGE OUT OF THIS? I absolutely resent older photographers writing my critiques off as irrelevant because I am a sixteen year old high school student. Just because I am younger does not make my opinion any less pertinent. People use my age as a way of discrediting me. But that's a whole other conversation now isn't it hahaha [/rant])

Third, I would like to retract all statements made about your prices. It is not my place to comment on the way that you run the business side of your industry.

Fourth, you keep referring to bigtwinky as "a fellow business man." While part of photography is a business, allow me to remind you that on top of that, you are an artist! Don't ever forget that! This job that you have decided to pursue is an art! People pay you for your art!

Now let me take a step back and comment on another post you made.

Ok, wow wow wow. Has anyone been to this guy's website? In case you haven't, here it is:
Flickr: jackstrutz's Photostream

I won't lie, there is some good stuff there. But I can't count how many stray hairs are going across that poor beautiful girl's eyes. You would have thought he would take a nanosecond to fix that.

Anyhoo, we obviously have a really different way of doing things. I don't know how many paid jobs he works every year, but I hope he has many.

Because he's got a BIG opinion.

Anyhoo, I'm going to go cry now. Thanks Pete for your support.

(I'm pretty much sure that this will make your day Jack. You can feel superior. That's the coolest. You hurt a person for no reason at all. I hope you are super happy.)

First, when it comes to my Flickr, about 1/4 of the work that is posted is not finished product. That one fourth is for client proofing and technique testing only. The other three-fourths are finished product. The senior photos that I have up there are part of the one-fourth which is for client proofing.

Second, please leave your emotions out of this. For pete's sake... This is not a shot on you. This is an honest opinion. And sometimes the truth sucks. I know that I have had my share of critics who have said something and it really really pissed me off, but it made me take a second look at the thing that I had created and it made me realize that maybe they were right; maybe I could change this or that.


Now I am going to comment on how I feel you could do what the clients who ask for the super smooth skin from you better, and will back it up with my own work.

Now here is something that I do realize. I understand that the people that I work with are, on average, at least a good five years younger than your clients, which does make my job eons easier.

Now here is an example of good skin post processing. Notice how when you look, you can still see the fine details (the pores), but the skin has an overall smooth feel to it still. This is what you want to accomplish. Let me give you another example.

On this photo, I did the crazy skin smoothing. However, I still maintained the basic detail needed to distinguish features in a face (eg on the jawline, on the sides of the nose, all around the eyes, above and below the lips), and this you have done a pretty consistent job of doing. Notice, though, that the eyes were left more or less un-processed. Eyes are too important of a feature to mess with! When there is something more than just a quick color correct or slight brighten done to them, it is always immediately noticeable and makes the eyes look out of place on the subject's face. Now, let me show you the conditions that this photo was shot:

This is why I knock you for not producing what you should be with the resources you have available to you. I am able to produce a photo with similar attributes to yours with a set-up like this. Now let me put a disclaimer on that: I understand that working on location is a whole different ball game. I know that. But I'm saying that the post processing you do can be achieved by anybody (I had been into photography for about a month when this was shot). Mind you, my equipment has seen notable changes since this point but still not 5D2 plus 7k per session for whatever else I want.
With the equipment you have--oh my gosh, it gives me the jitters just thinking about the stuff I would be shooting if your equipment was even an option for me.

I want to take a look at one specific photo from the set you just posted and that is #2. On this photo, the skin smoothing you did caused the loss of the ability to distinguish between where her jaw ends and where her shoulder starts. Now I'm not going to criticize your work further for fear of another emotional breakdown.

I want to say more, I do, because I want to clarify what I mean but unfortunately I have homework that I must attend to, you know, because I'm a junior nuthead high schooler. Before I leave you though I would like to present you with a challenge.

I challenge you to find yourself a model (shouldn't be hard... Happy ex-clients will usually be more than willing to help) and go do a shoot. However, in your post process, I want you to do absolutely no skin smoothing. I challenge you to challenge yourself to achieve desirable skin straight out of the camera. This is my definition of a true professional photographer and an artist--at least in regards to skin.


Sincerely,

The Junior Nuthead

 

[Dominantly]

I'm not sure I've ever encountered a person on the internet more emotional then the OP.
Tissue paper thin skin.

 

[Fedaykin]

Wow, well this thread has become something....