male photographers talk about gear because they can't talk about emotions

The article may have a point, but I don't see the connection to talking about gear. Women photographers talk about gear too. And homosexual photographers talk about gear as well. So what then? Does everybody talk about technical specifications because of creepy psychological issues? Or?

There is a certain strain of popular masculinity that is anti-feelings, anti-romance, and fear of showing the slightest affection towards other men, but photography has never been poetry. The sorts of people, across all genders, that are attracted to photography tend to be more technically minded sorts.


I have however noticed, that it seems the more one talks about their gear, the less likely they are to actually use it to make photos. There's got to be something to that!
 
I think it is connected to the tendency of certain groups to talk about objects rather than subjects ... the objects certainly don't have to be cameras though! I also think it is more common in men than in women and that women generally do communicate on a more emotional level.
 
In the popular perception of arts, poets and their work had a certain image to the uninitiated. It is safe to say that photography did not/does not have similar connotations in popular culture.

On that topic, it is interesting to note that the past half century has seen much effort expended on "toughening" up the perception of poetry.
 
I'm on a wine forum, a car forum (not much now) and this forum. All are predominantly male.

I long ago decided the reason why all talked about gear, acquisitions, experiences with gear/wine/cars is that you can't spend all your waking hours drinking/racing/taking photographs, so talking about them is the next best thing (although a friend of mine did try to achieve the drinking all day long, but he was a full blown alcofrolic and in the end his liver went and that was the end of that).

The article really is pure drivel though!
 
I always get horny when i look at street shots of hot women here in the gallery.
What?? It's an emotion! Can i not talk about emotions?

Anyone wants to give me a hug now?
 
I am a photographer AND i am a poet! how about that!
(ok, i suck at both but anyway)
And i like talking gear too, and i am not ashamed hugging a (male) friend!
 
Pherdinand said:
I always get horny when i look at street shots of hot women here in the gallery.
What?? It's an emotion! Can i not talk about emotions?

Anyone wants to give me a hug now?
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So you are saying that you feel like Steve Martin in the movie L.A. Story.

One of the great comedic scenes in movies..............................

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsN40iv5nzg
 
p.giannakis said:
I work in this field day in and day out for years. This is another one of those very popular in the internet pop psychology articles (written by a comedian), replicating ideas of feminazation of men as antidote to so called "toxic masculinity". Basically it uses one stereotype to treat another. It is as shallow as any psychology article can be in a magazine like Harper's bazaar.
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It certainly is shallow and the idealisation of more or less traditional female behaviours, which have developed as a compliment to traditional male ones, is unreflected and silly.
Nevertheless traditional gender roles are ***** up, for both genders, and leave us all with a bunch of difficulties - the world is not going back to a state where these roles can stand unquestioned. The proposition that men are often caught up in a role that makes emotionally opening up to our peers difficult for us is true, I think. That doesn't need to devalue men's shop talk. Which btw the article doesn't, I don't know where the op got that from.
Extreme focus on technical stuff is an easy way out of artistic or other problems that is more prevalent among men. Most of us here are guilty of that, I certainly am. But regardless if that is sometimes an escape, it's ok and expected, it is a gear forum after all. The other extreme is making the personal into an absolute and losing contact with my more or less objective reality. Good art, or anything else, is only made when both of these problems are overcome.
 
Internet hug to Pherdinand!


So, I just cooked myself a beautifully simple casserole for dinner tonight, sliced chunks of beef with carrots, beans and cauliflower, seasoned with salt and rosemary, oven roasted for two and a half hours, and served with some brown rice. I'm at the computer cranking out some client work which needs maximum emotional impact (a short sporting highlight reel) and mulling over the rest of the week's projects. This is me, being non-political and a normal guy, hahaha.


For a forum supposedly overrun by gear talk, I quite regularly see male posters talk about their concerns, their questions, and their personal quests in their work.
 
Archiver said:
Internet hug to Pherdinand!


So, I just cooked myself a beautifully simple casserole for dinner tonight, sliced chunks of beef with carrots, beans and cauliflower, seasoned with salt and rosemary, oven roasted for two and a half hours, and served with some brown rice. I'm at the computer cranking out some client work which needs maximum emotional impact (a short sporting highlight reel) and mulling over the rest of the week's projects. This is me, being non-political and a normal guy, hahaha.


For a forum supposedly overrun by gear talk, I quite regularly see male posters talk about their concerns, their questions, and their personal quests in their work.
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I like your food Archiver! lol

I'm having a chorizo and vege stew with carrots, potatoes, choko, sweet potato and various spices and crushed tomatoes. I'll be having it with it with long grained white rice and some fresh made wholemeal flat bread. Fresh parsley in that stew from my garden I'll add!

:p:p:p:p:p
 
Keith said:
I like your food Archiver! lol

I'm having a chorizo and vege stew with carrots, potatoes, choko, sweet potato and various spices and crushed tomatoes. I'll be having it with it with long grained white rice and some fresh made wholemeal flat bread. Fresh parsley in that stew from my garden I'll add!

:p:p:p:p:p
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OMG that sounds fantastic, I need to up my food game! :D
 
On the weekend I shot some ducks (legally with a registered firearm) and had a long conversation with two men, one my age, one six years old, about the ethics of killing and the complex feelings killing brings up in many people.

Tonight, I am having duck with blood orange sauce, field mushrooms I foraged on the way back from the duck swamp stuffed with home grown herbs and fennel, cheese made by a neighbour, baby zucchini from the garden, and a nice glass of 2004 red that just happened to be in the cellar.

I find Leicas stirring, as I do many nicely made exquisitely designed machines. I have seen terrible, depressingly ordinarily bad, surprising, decent and wondrously amazing things. They all influence me. I particularly dislike being told what makes me how I am and how it influences me when the author is generalising and knows nothing about me specifically or what it means.

Marty
 
The article was written by a woman and appears in a women's magazine. What did you expect her to say? The author's credentials: she is a" comedian, writer, and storyteller."
 
ptpdprinter said:
The article was written by a woman and appears in a women's magazine. What did you expect her to say? The author's credentials: she is a" comedian, writer, and storyteller."
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More like propaganda spreader. According to her doctrine every male person who participated in cars, photo, watches forums is homophobic.
I guess, every person who is willing to learn, ask, share and argue from technical perspective is homophobic.
 
The link between the article in question and 'gear' or 'photography' discussions on this forum is a figment of the imagination of the OP.

The author of the article is specialized in the 'men vs. women' genre and has a string of similar articles to her name. It pays her rent... in Chamonix, France. One of these towns in the world where the underprivileged and downtrodden eke out an existence. :D
 
Truth is, I can talk about emotions...........I just don't want to, or need to for that matter, well, not all the time in any event. There is a lot to be said for strength of character, stoicism, keeping a stiff upper lip and getting on with life in the face of adversity. Isn't that what we men have been doing for time immemorial? God, the British built the largest empire the world has ever seen on stiff upper lips and a stoic attitude to adversity. Leg's been eaten by a tiger? Never mind old chum, you've still got another! Now get off that bally bed and go off to discover some more natives to oppress. (I am having a laugh of course - which is another way we men have of dealing with emotions that feminists do not understand, earnest, humorless lot that they are.)

My point being that this does not mean we do not have emotions. It just means we deal with them differently to women. Why this damned assumption that we have to behave like women - what privileges them over men and why the assumption that a "feminine" way of doing things is better, more functional or would even work for men?

I am both bemused and offended by the article author's representation of men's relationships with each other as being somehow repugnant just because feminists (who tend to both despise men and be ignorant in terms of their understanding of them in any event) do not care for it. When a man slaps another man on the back and calls him an "old b*stard" or when we make jokes at each other's expense it is our way of saying "I love you dude" without actually having to say that. We know that, we understand it. And I say this....if a third wave feminist dislikes it, then that is probably a good hint that we should keep right on doing it. After all my experience is that pretty well everything that type thinks is wrong.

But because we use an idiom that in the present political climate is regarded as not politically correct we are expected to believe this is somehow representative of "toxic masculinity" (God how I hate that misused phrase and the people who misuse it with the intention of putting men down.)
 
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