How the public - and industry - sees photographers

[IByte]

I agree totally... (the rest of my post was deleted... as it would probably offend someone!)

Noooooooo, boooo to censorship!!

 

[IByte]

Lol ****ty artwork is the new abstract; like Geek Squad is the new high level of computer technicians.

 

[sleist]

If you shoot to please everyone, you will always fail.
If you shoot to please yourself, you will always be rewarded.

 

[flow]

Ugh, the tablet cameras. Take the kids to the aquarium or zoo, and there are people all over the place with that screen up in front of them. A few times we've been there same time as some school's field trip, and then it's a forest of them. I'm pretty sure, if I bought an iPad, I sure wouldn't trust a 10-year-old to borrow it for a (marginally supervised) day at the zoo!

 

[SquarePeg]

Ugh, the tablet cameras. Take the kids to the aquarium or zoo, and there are people all over the place with that screen up in front of them. A few times we've been there same time as some school's field trip, and then it's a forest of them. I'm pretty sure, if I bought an iPad, I sure wouldn't trust a 10-year-old to borrow it for a (marginally supervised) day at the zoo!

Took my daughter's Girl Scout troop to a horse farm the other day and one of the girls (10 years old) had her mom's t3i. She kept putting it down and had to be reminded several times to take it as we moved from one area to the next.

 

[Greiver]

Ugh, the tablet cameras. Take the kids to the aquarium or zoo, and there are people all over the place with that screen up in front of them. A few times we've been there same time as some school's field trip, and then it's a forest of them. I'm pretty sure, if I bought an iPad, I sure wouldn't trust a 10-year-old to borrow it for a (marginally supervised) day at the zoo!

Took my daughter's Girl Scout troop to a horse farm the other day and one of the girls (10 years old) had her mom's t3i. She kept putting it down and had to be reminded several times to take it as we moved from one area to the next.

This is why I wouldn't let anyone regardless of age use my DSLR.

 

[imagemaker46]

If you shoot to please everyone, you will always fail.
If you shoot to please yourself, you will always be rewarded.

I shoot to please my clients.

 

[bratkinson]

Seeing the I-pad 'special' shooter, it confirms what I learned about 40 years ago when I started taking pictures of trains in earnest...having consideration for 'the other guy' is a disappearing 'art'. Even amongst 'trained' rail photographers, there's ALWAYS some jerk that will step in front of the guy set up on a tripod when the train comes. These days, too many people are only concerned with what they want to do/satisfying themselves and everyone else can go someplace else.

Unfortunately, we who do practice 'courtesy' are a dying breed. The days of cell phone and ipad photography just adds to the 'jerk' class of photographer at an ever increasing pace. We have no choice but to deal with it.

Although, maybe we could tell some of the jerks that the big white lens and camera: "is a 44 magnum...the most powerful handgun in the world..."

 

[weepete]

Or another way to look at it is that even today, with a saturated market isn't it great that people are still buying prints?

Sure, there's no accounting for taste however when it's so easy to rip off images from the web surley its a good thing that a fair amount of custom can be had from these types of wee fairs. It can also mean that more people are getting into photography and while that may mean there is more rubbish about it can also mean that general standards can increase in quality too.

Don't forget that we are seeing the biggest change in photography since the compact camera was invented. Who knows where that will lead us....

 

[runnah]

If you shoot to please everyone, you will always fail.
If you shoot to please yourself, you will always be rewarded.

I shoot to please my clients.

I shoot to thrill.

 

[Steve5D]

Adapt or die.

If people are pandering to the tasteless, it's because the tasteless are signing the checks.

"Tricks"? Overcooked HDR?

If that's what people want to pay for, I don't see why it's surprising that there would be examples of those for people to buy. It's called "smart business", in that it offers customers what customers actually want to buy. Not offering it is a bad business decision. A person might believe it maintains a certain level of integrity as an artist, but then it should be no mystery to that person why the term "starving artist" exists...

 

[runnah]

If people are pandering to the tasteless, it's because the tasteless are signing the checks.

Remember wood paneling for cars? I think that should put the nail in the coffin that people in this country have horrible taste.

 

[amolitor]

The fact is that tastes evolve.

"straight" photography is no more real looking than "overcooked HDR" by any objective standard. It's simply because we've been trained to accept it as "real" that was accept it as real looking and, by definition, any photograph that does not look pretty much like that is "unreal".

I am as well trained as anyone, and I quite dislike HDR. I don't much like color photography, for that matter. I do recognize that my taste is neither a universal objective standard, nor is it shared by the majority.

 

[imagemaker46]

How the public see photographers. Well based on how myself and other photographers have been treated at so many events, we are all thrown into the same boat. We are the guys that were responsible for Princess Diana`s death, we are all just a bunch of animals that have to be penned up at venues to keep us under control, this kind of thing has been going on for decades. Now with all the non-real camera devices out there the situation is getting worse for us, not only do we have to deal with the misguided control the photographers at all cost types, we have to deal with all the cell phones that get in our way that aren`t being controlled.

There have always been photographers that have pushed the limits in order to find different positions to work with, and if they step way out of line it affects everyone. I know lots of arrogant photographers that don`t care who they piss off to get a picture, and it`s these type that keep the photographers are animals myth alive.

The general public doesn`t care anymore what the pictures look like in the newspapers, and for the most part there is more garbage being published everyday, and it will only get worse. Everything has come down to speed, I talk to my friends and they tell me it`s a show up shoot for five minutes and leave with something, they are losing faith in the quality of what gets used. So many times have they spent time really working an assignment producing a great image and then it gets cropped into a head shot, they give up. The public doesn`t care.

There are exceptions to everything, art style hang on the wall stuff will always be popular. Finding a niche and excelling at it, does not always work. I found my niche years ago, shooting sports at a very high level, and I am very good at it, because I work hard at it. These days digital has made it easier for people to produce a few good sports images, ones that are acceptable, and people buy into it. This person is great at shooting sports, I saw this one shot, and it was great, but what about the rest, people only see one. I shoot 800 pictures and they can all be used, but that matters to only a few people, my clients. Problem is that people are getting hired based on 1 photo and not on 800.

I read a quote that stated. If you aren`t out there bumping into people all the time you will simply vanish. It is the truth about so many things in life.

 

[pgriz]

Maybe, the issue isn't taking photographs. Maybe "Light Engineer" is a little pretentious, but really, isn't that part of what sets good photographers apart from the wannabees?