Photo Snobbery

I've recently been accused of being a "photo snob".  This, as a product of a discussion with my fiancé Meg about an upcoming local photo exhibit.  No offense was taken by me, and upon reflection, I actually grew a bit of pride from this new label.  In fact, maybe I should have a t-shirt made, or a vanity license plate. 

OK, so here's the thing....I have a very low tolerance for certain types of photography.   What really sets me off, is when I see an image, or series of images where the photographer attempts to compensate for their lack skill by injecting a shallow bit of 'creativity' into the image. 

You know what I mean...the ubiquitous street images that are shot with the camera off kilter. How edgy!  Or how about the soft-focus glow processing applied to an image of a European cityscape?  If you do this, just go ahead and admit to yourself that you want to be Thomas Kincaid.

Next, we have selective color imagery, using b&w for all but the main subject, which remains in color.  Wow!  Did you really think that would be interesting for more than 2 seconds?  Recently, an entirely new cliché category has been created; that of the really poorly done HDR images.  Can't you tell they look annoyingly fake!?

Let me not overlook the most desperate attempt to cover up one's lack of talent.  This one, I've noticed, is currently just for the women...when all else fails, just take your top off and do a self-portrait.   Wow...you are so complex, deep, mysterious!  Now get in there and make me some dinner!  (The sexist nature of the previous comment is completely intentional.  The audience being the topless photographer afore mentioned.  The satirical nature of the comment is intended to make light of the value this person establishes for themselves by creating these types of images.  It's really a shame I feel compelled to explain that.)

Sometimes the truth hurts.  And whenever asked, I often feel compelled to share the truth.  Why go through life not having an opinion about what's important to you.  To buy into the cliché is to compromise your own photographic integrity.  I refuse to play that game and for that, I am proudly a "photo snob." 

Comments

[Craig Persel]

I'm with you 100%. I've wanted to write a post on this very topic for quite some time. Many viewers fall all over themselves about these types of photos, but they are essentially "made for tv" versions of good photography. Well ... they're probably even worse than that. While I'm on the subject ... after 1+ year of thumbing through thousands of photos on numerous online galleries I've begun to realize just how few really outstanding, origninal photographic artists actually exist. Kind of depressing, but what keeps me going are the those jewels you run into now and then. Intermittant reinforcement is a powerful thing. :-)

[Carl]

do you guys mean people who are professionals or well known photogs that are uncreative, or just people that are fooling around (like most people on photo sharing websites)?

[Craig Persel]

I mean the former. Professionals or serious amateurs ... and not people who are photographing as a means of remembering vacations, family, friends or special events. Sometimes it is 50% the photographer's fault and 50% viewer reinforcement of crap. The same goes for filmmakers. 90%+ of released films are nothing more than escapist drugs for the masses and have nothing to do with creativity or truth.

[jude]

I had to read what you wrote twice, then look in my pics to see if I'd done any nude SP's lately..lol

I agree totally about the HDR. I am fascinated with it when done right.. but so many times it is done poorly and unnaturally.

I do - as you know - dabble with effects because I love that addition to photography, but I also know what you mean. I think it's easy to see when someone uses effects to compensate (or try to) for their lack of real talent..

I have to go now.. I have no idea what I did with my blouse .. ;)

[Chuck]

Carl,

My comments were made with the photo sharing sites in mind. So I'm thinking more here about amateurs and wanna-be professionals. By the term "wanna-be professionals", I mean people who spend more of their energy in trying to become recognized as a "professional" than actually growing their photographic skills. It seems that many people think they have "arrived" and just haven't been noticed yet. When in reality, they haven't the skills deserving the recognition they crave.

From a personal standpoint, I KNOW I haven't the skills to create on the level of the the professional photographers which I admire. And I'm not into pretending that I do. So my comments on this particular post are really aimed at those people who think there is a creative shortcut to mastery of the craft.

[Carl]

that clarifies it a bit. i haven't evolved into a full blown snob like you yet(:OP), but i can agree with there being a lot of wanna be's. unfortunately though, they lurk in every career/hobby. i think the number of truly creative people out there is always going to be small, but, like craig said, with the surge in availability of cheap (relatively!) digital photography tools and the increase in popular photo sharing sites, the signal to noise ratio has become quite a small number. and as beginner it's very easy to get drawn in to the fray. using pbase as an example, i loved it at first, but began to feel something was wrong after ~1 year when no one ever said anything constructive. i began to just take it for what it was and have fun with it, but began searching for something better to grow/learn with, only to find most of the sites have the same atmosphere....

[North Face Sale]

I chanced upon the same thread when it was just starting up a few days ago. Started seeing the usual bi-polar comments of people either loving or tearing down the guy's work and sighed at the usual pack mentality of the latter.