Every generation goes through fads. People of one generation all want to be musicians. People of another generation all want to be artists. Well our generation … we want to be photographers. Not only do we want to be photographers, but we think we are photographers.
Am I a fan of this fad? Not in the least.
The moment that one girl buys herself a “nice” camera (although she’s never owned one before), she thinks she’s instantly the world’s best photographer. Wrong. Now I’m not claiming to be much better than she is; I know I’m not a photographer. I do, however, have an artistic eye — I can tell you who shouldn’t be calling himself or herself a photographer. For that reason, I’ve compiled a “there’s your sign” list to help us all out. No one wants to look at painfully failed artistic photos, (but if you do, check out youarenotaphotographer.com) and you don’t want to be the person taking them either. With these few little tips, I think we can cleanse the world of fauxtography.
To start things off … if you tilt your camera about 20 degrees when snapping a portrait shot, you are not a photographer. Tilting the camera does not make the picture artistic; it makes it an unbalanced, crooked photo with people who are so far leaned over they are defying gravity.
Also, if you own a Mac and edit your pictures solely using iPhoto’s automatic settings, you probably shouldn’t be charging people for your services. The second I see a rounded or darkened edge, a blurred corner or a grossly sepia-toned flower picture, I cringe. If your picture needed any of those effects to make it look OK, then you should have just taken a new one.
Next on my list: If you start a company page on Facebook and put something in your description to the effect of “I just like to capture the little things people miss,” I know you are an amateur and that no one should consider you and your camera a company. Yes, I know you hope to grow as a photographer; but I also saw the 15 blurry pictures you put in that one kid’s senior picture album. If you have such few quality pictures that you have to put the blurry ones on display, that’s really not a good sign. They are senior pictures for goodness’ sake, if the tree in the background is more in focus than his face … what’s the point of the picture?
Another thing that just irks me is over-editing. Bumping up the brightness and contrast like nobody’s business does not make your picture look artsy. It makes your picture look ridiculous. Levels, people. Play around with the levels and the curves, and do it within reason. When the contrast is so high that you can’t see anything on her face but her dark-contrasted mascara, you overdid it. When I see a grainy picture that is super yellow/red/green, I am sad because I know that before the editing beast came alive, that picture was probably, well maybe, decent.
Now for a few other small notes. Please do not use Picnik to put the words “don’t” and “believing” around the word “stop” on a street sign. Actually, don’t use Picnik to put words on any pictures at all. Oh and as for nature. Yes, it’s pretty and yes, your shot of that tree is nice enough I guess, but if trees and flowers are all your shots, I just cannot take you seriously.
So there you have it. A simple cheat sheet of things photographers shouldn’t do. I realize that there are exceptions to all of my rules and that a great photographer could challenge each of these things with an exceptional shot. The truth of the matter is, though, I can almost guarantee that that great photographer I speak of is definitely not you.
