[emiliogtz]

Get back and post some samples, if you are allowed to, maybe tell us how you made it all work =) When we shoot in our living-room-turned-studio or in rented studios, things are difficult, can’t even imagine what shooting in a therapist’s office is like what with all the furniture, the shadows, people coming and going…

[emiliogtz]

Be afraid, be very afraid.

/And sleep well the night before, weddings can be really boring.

[emiliogtz]

Indeed, I received and email from my client this morning, she has decided to with her shots on the Ipad as they give her a look and feel more in line with her creative vision. Fair enough, I can’t complain about that.

This is as interesting as it is dumb. So what did she hired you for? Was she trying to prove something?

Unfortunately, Leica’s mystique has simply shot beyond all reality price wise, you are not paying for an excellent camera, you are paying for the name Leica.

On one hand you have people buying cheap cameras and using them for everything, even jobs other tools handle better; on the other hand, a bunch of people are paying through the roof for a very versatile, well made tool, just to put it on a shelf.

[emiliogtz]

My favorite thing of all time though is the “you take great photos, you must have a good camera” line. My standard arrogant douchebag response is “yea I do, and I know how to use it.”

Soon it could be “you take great photos, you must use a good app” and then we’ll think of the “good camera” days as the golden age.

[emiliogtz]

The little fish can be the real dicks.

Precisely. The less talented a photographer is, the more likely he/she is to be a dick.

My wife knows a couple of experienced, talented guys who are very nice and from them you can actually learn something.

Little fish think gear=talent;

[emiliogtz]

Sure if I have 3-4 hours each way, Orionid. I suppose Tonto National Forest might count; as it’s registered and all that.
…
//think I’ll settle for one of the riparian habitats; we have a few of those now, one stretches over 4 miles, 3 miles south of downtown, and I’ve got a few pictures from there now.

I think you should submit that photo for the lulz factor. If the gubmint says it’s a forest, then it must be. Gubmint is always right.

And ‘Tonto’ means ‘fool’ in spanish, so maybe they are trying to fool you.

[emiliogtz]

Sorry to hear that, we all have them from time to time. Hope it gets better.

Thanks, at least it’s coming to an end.

I too am tempted to give up on “people” in general but I try to remain optimistic. So my strategy has become to lead off with the deflection if needed (“lucky” being one subset of that suite of strategies), however I try to remain a good observer. The more interest or talent a person displays the more likely I am to engage with them. Most people want to talk about themselves, that’s neither good nor bad. People in general do not learn or change unless they want to. We see and hear what we want. Sometimes in the extreme.

I think there should be at least one, probably two persons in my RL microcosm genuinely interested in learning/sharing something, strictly speaking about photography. I just haven’t met them yet. On the other hand, I’m becoming a better observer, now I can almost instantly sense it when people just want to talk about themselves. Yes, that’s not bad or good, it just is. It occurred to me that maybe I too wanted to talk about myself, which is why I decided to just play along, and if/when needed, engage.

Being objective is (IMHO) the single most difficult this a human being can attempt to do.

You are absolutely right. =)

[emiliogtz]

I wrote back a LONG email explaining resolution, file compression, software rendering and pixels per inch in printing and how high resolution shots are always needed in print work. I nicely pointed out that a five megapixel camera and five dollar photoshop app really can’t compare to 16 mgpxls and actual photoshop.

Why even bother? There was a time when I would invest some of my time trying to help/educate other people. Now I’ve come to realise that they don’t want or need any help at all, and that’s just fine. They *are* happy. So maybe I’m the one in need of (psychiatric?) help. I’ve pretty much given up on the subject.

These days when somebody sees one of my pictures, likes it, makes comments/questions about it, I just tell them that I got lucky. That’s what they want to hear. That’s all it takes son, never mind technique, gear, its physical limitations, etc. You don’t need skills at all, just point and shoot. And shoot a lot, the more you do, the more likely you are to get lucky. What phone you said you have? I have that same one too. Ignorance *really* is bliss.

It’s crazy, but the ipad’s camera compares very well to early D-SLRs with the fanciest of lenses. SACD is never going to catch on because even most recording artists don’t care that much about sound quality.

And why should they care? This is what happens when people think MP3 files sound good.

Just a few months ago a friend of mine put his entire CD collection (hundreds) for sale for a ridiculously low price. I asked him why. He told me he already had way more music in his iPod and that CDs have been *out* for years.

SACD has been on a rollercoaster since its introduction, on again, off again, which saddens me since I really enjoy HD audio.

(I’m not an audiophile or a hi-fi snob, I just have a couple of average speakers that when properly placed can make a notable difference.)

Sorry for the grumpy/pessimistic/realistic mood, it’s been a hell of a week. ^_^

[emiliogtz]

Okay, so I went with the lowest hanging fruit, which at least for me wasn’t so low after all. That place where I took those pictures is just awesome, but quite isolated, and somewhat tricky to get at.

Those shots are beautiful. Gotta ask, is the foreground lighting natural or did you have a lantern with you?

Thanks! =)

It was the moon. There was a full moon that night which explains the foreground and the bright clouds also. According to the weather service that night was supposed to be crystal clear but what do they know.

[emiliogtz]

Okay, so I went with the lowest hanging fruit, which at least for me wasn’t so low after all. That place where I took those pictures is just awesome, but quite isolated, and somewhat tricky to get at.

[emiliogtz]

I really liked that image Yugoboy, there’s something about the windows, the brick wall, the staircase… Can’t put my finger on it but it certainly evokes nostalgia.

[emiliogtz]

I’m with the ones here opting for seeing things from the business point of view. These days more and more business-owners only care about the bottom line. Not that I can blame them. IMHO, it’s the consumers’ fault.

I just hope you are better off now you’ve quit that job.

[emiliogtz]

+1

[emiliogtz]

+1

[emiliogtz]

Very late to the party, as usual.

I’ve been at deviantArt for ages, more than 5 years with my current account (the previous one was hijacked for no apparent reason), I’m admin/founder of two currently active groups and I can tell you how bad/different that site has become. I’m not saying this in the my-good-old-times-better-than-yours way, I’m saying in it in terms if how diversity and creativity started to take second place to massive generic/mediocre/average content. Precisely about five or six years ago the creative people started to leave, as the masses started to crawl in.

What started as a site for artists and want-to-be-artists to show their work, it’s now a smorgasboard of porn, instagram, AW (specifically referring to all those pictures where there’s a person holding a sign telling something about their latest break-up, toy, gadget… ) and of course, all those cell phone mirror pictures. And the cosplay, let’s not forget the cosplay. There’s fewer people now actually wanting to learn something and a huge bunch who just are there for the attention, the page views. If you have the nerve to reject one of their images submitted to one of your groups, they feel offended. Some groups have a strict no cell-phone picture rule and yet they get their share of those submissions. Want to be hot and popular? Crotch-shots is the way to go.

There’s still talent and there’s still creativity, but you have to try harder to find it. And I’m sure the site owners are happy with the status quo. Shadowness.com it’s much better these days IMHO.

500px.com is another fine example of how once a site becomes popular the quality of its content suffers. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems you have to choose between quality and quantity when it comes to the internet.

My point is, what do you want farktography to be? If you open it up and becomes massive, that’s wat you’ll get, massive, mediocre content. There’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s what you want. It’ll be a little difficult, because you’ll be competing with the likes of FB and to a lesser extent, G+. But if you can get the instagrammers to come and post, and vote, they will take over the contests, they will grab all the votes, ennuipoet won’t be happy about it and will probably leave. That is, from my point of view, currently the situation at G+, a handful of “cool kids” and “attractive young females” are calling the shots, regardless of the quality of their work.

Farktography still has that unpredictability thing, you can take a guess at what to expect, but there’s always surprises. What does it lack? Exposure, so to speak. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of participants who don’t know about the week’s theme until late Wednesday. There aren’t much people voting on the themes suggestions either, afaik. In short, maybe what we want is people to become more involved. If you give people something back, they are more likely to become involved.

So maybe you don’t want to compete with Facebook, but why not use it? Instead of trying to be FB, make it a part of farktography. Make a presence there, advertise upcoming themes, let the participants brag about their entries. They win? Have their entries posted there, tag them, that way they friends will see it, and will comment on it, and maybe get involved. Fark membership as a requirement to vote is the biggest issue here, since fark is, I’m pretty sure, too obscure for most people on FB. So maybe that’s what needs to be addressed first.

I’m not the most avid participant, but I like it here, I like the challenges and I still think about how to beat U-Man every time I participate.

[Author]

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