Yelling at the internets.Part 2

This is not a pointed post. I am not aiming this at any one person in particular (except the ad execs at Nikon). Unless this makes you feel guilty then figure that out on your own. I just wanted to get a quick rant out. I am the first to admit I have committed at least 50% of what I just was ranting about. The important part is to look at it and recover and clean it up. I even like some images that are based in some of these points. Many people I know or even admire have great pictures of parking lots and bands.

This is more about "photographers", the Nikon "everyone is a photographer" people. Photography takes work an thought. It is one thing to have fun and take pictures and such but that doesn’t make you a photographer.  Little kids use finger paints all the time, are they all painters? Maybe. It is what I have even told kids who I have worked with, while engaged with materials you are that profession. But that is kids and we need to encourage them and give options. But I would lean to no. They are kids. They do not have labels yet. (Slippery slope there that I am not addressing at this time)

I know I am standing on a pompous high horse. It is very tall and very large. It sits on ivory columns and wears a robe and mortar. I am a trained artist and photographer. I studied photography from high school straight through to masters. I do feel that gives me some right to look at some pro-sumer who has excess cash, buys a mark III not knowing anything but that it is a cannon and starts claiming to be a photographer and complain a bit, and worse yet, they think they are artist...

Art is the only field where people can just go around saying that that is what they do. It is part of the strength and weakness of the arts. I can't just say I’m an engineer or a doctor. Sometimes, in some states or countries, that can be a crime.

Photography is my profession. I don’t make a lot of money doing it. Nor do I have to. Would be nice though. But it’s a practice and its work. If you make pretty pictures, that’s great. You are not an artist. Because you are good at something does not make you something. If it is a hobby, then you are not artists. If it’s what you base your whole life around and surround yourself with, and have a compulsion to do or you  physically get sick, then you are an artist.

Do you need training to be an artist? No. But it helps. I’m not talking a degree. I chose my path knowing that was what I wanted or needed. You should learn something to improve your skills. Renaissance artists are artist without degrees. But they did learn things through apprenticing and through the community. The idea of a hermit artist who is completely unaffected by the world is a myth, especially in today’s society. Get over your selves and take some advice and ask people how they do things. Work with each other. Stop being selfish.

Cut it out! Clean it up!

Yelling at the internets.Part 1

Here is a short rant. Just a growing list of things that get me angry with "photographers." You know why I put that in quotes, dont lie.

1) You are not a night photographer. You are just too lazy to get out of bed during daylight hours.
2) Generic abanoned buildings, stop it!
3) Close of of a chain link fence with a shallow depth of field, see above!
4) Naked chicks; Dudes stop being skeezy creepers. Being a photographer is not an excuse to get a girl naked. Make it interesting if your going to do it. It cant be just about "the femail form."  Creeper..
5) Selective Color: No, just no. Having only red with everything else b/w is not acceptable. Save it for the wedding portfolio. Cut it out, clean it up!
6) Pictures of friends drunk/high. If you were drunk or high while taking a picture, keep it to yourself. It's not art, you are just stoned.
7) Parkinglots...
8) Your images are not contrasty/yellow/blue/not fixed correctlly cause you like them that way, you just suck.
9) "I wanted that Palladium Look" Shut the hell up! You obviously do not know what palladium prints look like cause your print is pretty much purple. Palladium is not purple!
10) If you didn't trip the shutter, plan the ocmposition, or are "the artists as muse" give the images back to the person who actually did work on them.
11) "I want to stradle that line of documentary and fine art." stop/think about what you just said/punch your self in the face
12) Walking around with a leica or hassleblad like it is a badge or piece of bling. You need to give me your camera so I can take care of it cause you obviously can't. You are probably a "street photographer" right?

13) Parents bought you a view camera cause you wanted to TRY it. Let ME punch you in the face.
14) "Digital is so much better" punch..
15) "Film is so much better" face....
16) Toning a print to give it an "old or antique look." Is this an old time photo hut in Great adventure?
17) Band Photography? Really?
18) "Painterly" ::cringe::
19) You only look at photographers for influence? Do you live in a black box? Maybe a cave? Maybe Plato's cave (oh you dont get that reference cause you only read essays about photography.) You probably also describe your images as painterly, there for also insulting painters
20) Black Boarders or negative frames around images, do you know why this started, or what it means? why does your digitaly captured image have this? read a book, you only read about photographers anyway some one has to have told you why they do this.
21) Know your history. Dont repeat it! Take it as influence, dont copy it.
22) Works of art are just that. WORK! So if you were lazy and didnt work on your craft or anything, don't get mad when people dont get it.
23) Please learn to speak. Dont dismiss anything just because it isn't photography. Look at everything as images, not as medium. Medium can inform but is not always the most important part. (This really applies to all mediums not just photography)
24) Blank Stares. Just sick of um.
25) I really hate grain.... I just do. Hate.
26) Holgas are not worth $90. Even when painted CRAZY COLORS. Looking at you Urban Outfitters.
27) New expensive gear only helps if you know what you are doing. I don't care if you have that Mark whatever or if its a RED, how many pixels or if it is a hourseman or deardorf. Pictures are reliant on the person not the gear.

28) that Nikon solgan.... you know which one.

This is not a pointed post. I am not aiming this at any one person in particular (except the ad execs at nikon). Unless this makes you feel guilty then figure that out on your own. I just wanted to get a quick rant out. I am the first to admitt i have comitted at least 50% of what I just was ranting about. The important part is to look at it and recover and clean it up. If you wish to see the rest of my rant that is not in list form. Please see part 2.