Chances Are, You Suck

Damaso

Damaso

Photojournalist
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I daresay this might provoke some controversy but many of the things he says in this post I've noticed here on RFF...:eek:

"So how do you become a better photographer when you're reinforced with so much unearned praise from your interent buddies? What's your motivation, to get a hundred likes instead of just ten? There's an easy recipe for that. Start making pictures of cats. Better yet, kittens... kittens and children. You'll soon be more awesome then you could possible imagine."

http://kennethjarecke.typepad.com/mostly_true/2012/02/chances-are-you-suck.html
 
Well the gallery here is pretty good. But this is an important point. Mike Johnston covered this on the TOP site some months ago. If you are gradually pushed towards takng photos that others coo over and say what a nice shot it is, you risk aspiring to banality. Fortunately we don't have a "Likes" system here. But the strong photographers regularly picked each week on RFF have a strong sense of what photogrpahy is for them and don't at this point need the praise of peers, or inferiors. Barnwulf and Petronius are shooting for themselves mostly.
 
a "like" or "favourite" based photography website (like flickr or 500px, even instagram) tends to condition users to post what they feel is gonna get them more people to like/fav their photos. i see that happening a lot, and fortunately i don't give a damn about that. what i do value, though, is criticism that will open my eye to a different possibility or from people whose photos i really admire. i mainly photograph for myself and use flickr as my "cloud backup", also doubling as an easy mean to show photos to friends or post on forums.

speaking of which, i should start posting some photos to the rff gallery, i've never posted any..
 
In forums especially, mostly "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours", elevating ordinary snapshots to exhibition level. In the flickr some are decorated with dozens of awards except the Pulitzer only to make us wonder if there's something wrong with our eyes.
 
chances? no, certainty. i do suck. once in awhile this pig produces a truffle. and when i do, the shame is i'm usually not sure how or why.
 
I know I'm not very good. I don't think I will ever really be- but it is nice when someone else says they like one of my photos! ;)
 
How true. Flickr is absolutely littered with pictures of cats taken with the latest, greatest and most expensive camera/lens combo. It tickle me when someone rushes out to purchase a Noctilux, or finally gets their hands on a Sony NEX 7, and then they post pictures of...cats. Well, as long as you feel f.95 actually improves your cat photography then I guess it was worth it.

I've sometimes thought of breeding cats specifically for this purpose: greyscale fur, complex patterns on the legs and belly to test for moiré, fine details on the paws and tail to test for edge-to-edge sharpness. You get the picture.
 
Photography is a subjective thing as I (and I am sure you too) keep like and dislike same old photos as time goes by. It must be hard to judge a photo in that sense, at least to me. Having said that we all produce great pictures and we all will be appreciated in time. We all capture in different ways, technology and look a of the present days and one day our photos will have the same "nostalgic" look as we look at Kertesz and Bresson's pictures. We will certainly tell a small portion of our everyday life as we know it now and we know how could it change in 50 years... We visualize the history of our days.
Knowing that one (doesn't matter who) looking 5 minutes through my pictures in 2048 will see the rhythm of our life today, the fashion, the happy and sad moments, the war, the peace etc. will still keep me going. No, we don't suck, we are just too many to choose from :)
 
Oh I know I suck, but occasionally, say 1 in 300, I take a really awesome picture that I like.

It's like scrabble; I suck at it but I occasionally score 40+ points on a word.
 
I know I do, but that's why I post in our RFF Gallery. The gallery here strives me to get out & take better photos. It's not easy to get comments in the gallery. Don't believe me...go look & you will find that most of the photos have 0 comments. Many are mine...& I like it that way. When I do get a comment from someone in the gallery I know it's genuine. We have a critique forum here at RFF so if I want an honest critique I can post a photo there, something I should probably do. IMO some of the best post in the gallery here. It's TOUGH. If that guy who wrote that column wants to really know if he sucks, then he needs to join RFF.
 
Yours-truly simply doesn't care one silly bit. I'm just an undiscovered genius and will probably be found long after my death, when my wife takes my negatives to a pawn shop or a museum or a publisher, wondering whether there's something worth the effort. Then will come the books, personal shows and galleries fighting over my work, and I'll have a good chuckle watching the whole thing from the great beyond. :)
 
SolaresLarrave said:
Yours-truly simply doesn't care one silly bit. I'm just an undiscovered genius and will probably be found long after my death, when my wife takes my negatives to a pawn shop or a museum or a publisher, wondering whether there's something worth the effort. Then will come the books, personal shows and galleries fighting over my work, and I'll have a good chuckle watching the whole thing from the great beyond. :)
Click to expand...

Touché...I suck so bad I don't even bother putting most my negatives in sleeves. After scanning I roll em up & put them in the empty film canisters. Date some of them & put them into empty coffee cans.

One day in the distant future someone at an estate sale will buy these coffee cans for a buck & discover my work was a nostalgisic work of art, make a blurb book out of it after showing it to the world on www & get rich. Thats my story & I'm sticking to it.:D
 
gb hill said:
Touché...I suck so bad I don't even bother putting most my negatives in sleeves. After scanning I roll em up & put them in the empty film canisters. Date some of them & put them into empty coffee cans.

One day in the distant future someone at an estate sale will buy these coffee cans for a buck & discover my work was a nostalgisic work of art, make a blurb book out of it after showing it to the world on www & get rich. Thats my story & I'm sticking to it.:D
Click to expand...


I suck so bad I just develop them and leave them lying on the darkroom table!
 
Is the theory really that we cannot distinguish quality anymore, unless others tell us so? Personally, I haven't met many people that deluded..
 
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