What just makes you want to shake you head?

[rick_helmke1]

What have you seen photographically speaking that just makes you want to shake your head in wonder? Not being mean but maybe you were at an event and someone was walking around with some misbegotten accessory on their flash. Perhaps a monster backpack or four filters on the lens. Two things come to mind. First is a local commercial shooter who just knows more than everyone period end of story. Every time I run into him at some event he points out something that is my whole problem, maybe my flash or that I'm shooting Nikon, whatever. Didn't realize I had a problem but apparently so.I guess he can't help himself so I just keep on moving. The other thing I'm finding more amusing is the modern press conference. A talking head or two, all the photographers are burning through 8fps like the speaker was leaving the planet. I mean really, double or triple taps certainly but some of the shooters burn up 50 or more frames. It kills me but hey, it's their workflow. So what gives you a good chuckle?

 

Rick H.

[mark_chartrand]

I don't chuckle, but I do shake my head when I see a posting of a beautiful nude girl with her legs spread apart and not only

is the photographer trying to pass it off as art, but it is getting great reviews. I want to know what posessed the girl to

pose that way or what the photographer had told or promised her? That is the kind of thing that gives nude photography and

photographers a bad name. There are some sites other than photo.net that allow some very strange photos to be posted.

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>So what gives you a good chuckle?</blockquote>

<p>Photographers with less experience and inferior equipment who take better photos than mine. Seriously. I get a good laugh at myself outta that, several times a year.</p>

[User_276104]

<p>Now that I've been through the "gotta have it" thing with digital photography I find that the rumors and eventual introduction of new DSLRs make me shake my head.</p>

<p>I concede that the advancements in high ISO quality are actually quite astounding, but it seems that judgements of photos are increasingly linked to inane things like white balance and highlights. </p>

<p>I recently watched all 6 episodes of "The Genius of Photography" on YouTube (I was alerted to it through a Mountain Light email) and it really put the essence of content into perspective for me.</p>

[azlatic]

<p>A few weeks ago, my boss came into my office at work and asked if I had my "good" camera with me (meaning, my DSLR). I did, and she said her grandson was visiting from out of town and he was there, and could I take his picture. Sure. Any time I get to shoot on work time is fine by me. She said, "Anywhere is fine." I took one look at our cluttered office environment and said, no, we're going outside. We have a lovely landscaped wall that's covered in ivy right next to the parking lot. I put them both there and made about six images. Next day I brought her prints and e-mailed her the files. Not being a portrait photographer, I had actually impressed myself. It was cloudy that day, so the light was beautiful, soft and even, although one half of his face was slightly shaded, just enough to give some depth to the image. The ivy was just out of focus enough to create a lovely background without being too distracting. I was thrilled with the quality of the image I had managed to produce by sheer luck. </p>

<p>A week later she appeared again, this time with her granddaughter in tow. I didn't have my gear, so she comandeered a coworker who had his point and shoot. Off they went to the ivy, as she raved about how great a backdrop it was. Minutes later they were all oohing and aahing over the images on my colleague's computer. Of course, I went to see. Half the girl's face was completely (I mean totally) blown out due to the strong sunlight. When he printed the images, it went to paper on one cheek, half her forehead and half her chin. She's squinting in the sun. The ivy is in focus, and it's not half bad, but I like my version better.</p>

<p>So there those two images sit, on my boss's credenza, and, in her mind, they are totally of equal quality. I've gotten many kudos over the background I selected, but that's it. Every time I'm in there now and see those two images, mine with the gorgeous light and his with the blown highlights, I just shake my head.</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>A few years ago I was trying to get C41 black & white developed at a nearby Wally World's one hour photo. The lab technician insisted they couldn't do it even though another store had done a roll recently. I just wanted to shake her until her <em>tilt</em> sign lit up. I gave up and went to another store 20 miles away.<br>

In the book, "The Peter Principle," it is written that "everyone rises to his or her level of incompetence." I like to think of that young lady as "Exhibit A."</p>

[johnny_anderson]

<p>I love watching a night game on TV and watching all the flashes going off all over the stadium. Didn't know that my flash would reach so far!</p>

[phyrpowr]

<p>A coworker of mine was going to Africa, wanted to get a "real" camera, asked me about it.<br />Didn't want digital as he heard film was "more real". Fine, plenty of film cameras cheap at local store.<br />Told him about autofocus/exposure, no he wanted to "do it himself" (asked him, "do what?", no real answer)<br />Met at a coffee shop, he had a nice little film Nikon, AE/AF/Program/manual, decent zoom lens, and fought and questioned everything I told him. Had talked to some other Mr. NeoCon buddy of his and "he said...."<br />Found a little "basic stuff" enclosure in his manual, told him to read it, avoided shooting him (with the hand "cannon" that lives in my car) <br />Some of his shots came out very nice, he admitted he'd left the camera on "full auto" after the first day, and wasn't that feature great. It was the first thing I'd suggested<br />Oh, welll.....</p>

 

[sarah_fox]

<p>I like to collect cameras, and I swear I get some cameras with such indescribably filthy lenses that it's hard to imagine how they could take any sort of photograph. LITERALLY! One might think that such cameras were kept out, lenses uncapped, in the kitchen, over the stove. I can only imagine the cameras were retired once they stopped taking such good pictures -- or indeed when the pictures didn't come out at all.</p>

<p>Last night I had to shake my head when I saw a movie about a photographer. She took out a beautiful vintage camera and took a pic of a young girl, who proclaimed, "Wow, cool camera!" She said, proudly, "It's a Leica," and she stuffed it back into her purse with the bayonette extended and lens uncapped. Yikes!</p>

<p>I remember another movie in which the "photographer" had a big ol' SLR with what must have been a big, fat 400mm lens (no exaggeration), taking shots of a model from a distance of maybe 5 feet. ("All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.") To add to the humor of the situation, the actor was holding the whole thing with both hands on the camera body, with the lens flopping up and down. Oof!</p>

<p>I was once shooting a dental reunion. One of the participants was fascinated with my new DSLR. He pulled out a tiny little p&s about half the size of a deck of cards and demanded that it was the superior camera. He followed me around endlessly, boasting about his tiny little camera. I didn't say anything one way or the other. I was just the hired help. At one point we all went to Busch Gardens' "School of Beer," where we saw a film about brewing. He sat next to me and talked during the entire film. As he did so, I cranked my ISO up to 1600 and took a handheld shot of the audience, looking up at a large glass of beer being poured from a beautiful bottle, with the light of the screen reflecting off of their faces. I was happy with the shot and showed it to him. After trying in vain to replicate the shot, he didn't follow me around anymore. ;-)</p>

[karenf]

<p>when people think too much vignette is barely enough. some images it's like looking through a giant peephole.... apologies to lovers of the oversized vignette.</p>

[Charles_Webster]

<p>Newbies who post here asking how to accomplish a pro-level shoot they've convinced some client that they can do, at CL prices.</p>

<p>People who ask "is that a Leica?" when I'm shooting with my old Argus C-3, about as far from a Leica as you can get.</p>

<p>People who, upon seeing my pictures on a wall, say "Wow, your camera takes great pictures!"</p>

<p><Chas></p>

 

[benjaminoliverhicks]

<p>I'm with Sarah on this one.</p>

<p>People who justify there purchases by telling you how better their purchase is than yours, when they know nothing about what they are talking about. I had a friend of mine's dad constantly tell me, while on vacation with them, that his digital Rebel, the first one, was superior to my Mamiya RB67. He stressed convenience, which I gave him, but he also demanded it got better image quality. He wouldn't believe otherwise, especially since it was coming from a teenager. I wish he could have seen those slides.</p>

[bobcossar]

<p>lol....All of the above are great.....personally my head is most shaken by the <strong>"gear heads"</strong> ....'nuff said.....Bob</p>

[joshroot]

<p>People's obsession (pro and con) with Ken Rockwell's site. I've never understood it. I'm amazed at how much people seem to love or hate that guy.</p>

[mike dixon]

<p>I shake my head when I read threads in which professionals compare their superior skills/experience/photos to a.) the guy at the mall with the direct flash, b.) Uncle Joe with his new DSLR at the wedding, or c) some clueless newbie. Do professional chefs compare themselves to the fry cook at McDonald's? Do race car drivers compare themselves to average commuters in sporty cars? Does Robert DeNiro compare himself to the star of the high school play? C'mon, try to set the bar a <strong>little</strong> higher! Why take pride in being better than someone who's not any good?</p>

[Matthew Brennan]

<p>"just makes you want to shake you head?".............tourists behaving like cattle<br>

On the very rare occasion that I happen to be visiting one of my local 'hot' / touristy type landmarks etc - I will have waited for weeks, even months to choose a day upon which the light / sky is 'just so'. I pack my tri-pod, lenses, body, filters etc. arriving at said 'red hot' tourist destination expecting crowds by the bus load (literally) but hoping just get a few minutes with the light to get my shot in. I unpack my gear, hang back behind the last wave of tourists and wait my turn - needing only 3-4 min max. to get my shot. <br>

I find 40 - 50 tourists lining up in just <em>the </em>place I want to set up - all holding their mobile phones out arm's length and snapping shots in 5-6 different directions and then loitering in <em>the</em> spot, spending precious minutes 'chimping' at the 5 or 6 shots they have just taken, showing all their freinds / family, maybe re-shooting one or two of the angles and then the next person does virtually the same thing..... <br>

All this going on x 40 or 50 people when I just want <em>my</em> turn. Of course, by the time the last tourist has gone through the whole song and dance routine the next bus load of tourists has bolted like stampeding stock up the to <em>the</em> place I want to set up before I can get all three legs locked on the tri-pod..........and the show continues on whilst the light comes and goes and comes back again and eventually goes for good..........<br>

Tourists en mass are one of my pet hates. I try to avoid them and the sites that attact them as much as possible, but when travelling long distances (like half way around the world) one is going to want to visit a few of those <em>must see</em> tourist attractions. Tourists in large volumes are more often than not quite rude, selfish, inconsiderate, pushy, leave their litter and cigarette butts everywhere except the bins provided and can often behave like moronic sacred cows, wandering into and out of the frame without the slightest cognicence of what they are doing or where they are going. Sometimes tourist sites are just places to view and explore but keep the camera in the holster.......getting that 'certain' shot will more often than not drive me to distraction.</p>

 

[chris_waller]

<p>It was the guy who was aiming to take a shot at night of a town on the other side of a bay about 2 miles wide and dutifully clipped on his flash gun!</p>

[mike_stemberg]

<p>...when people categorise photographers as professionals just because they have a lens hood attached and sticking out upfront!</p>

[pjmeade]

<p>My friend who is an early adopter.</p>

[matthew_newton]

<p>All the people with the flash still on sitting in stadiums and arenas. Oh and the tourists with the flash on in museums where flash is prohibited. My best 'shake of the head' was in London at the national portrait gallery. Someone took out his camera to take a picture and a docent saw him before he snapped it and yelled at him "Sir, photography is not allowed in the museum. Please put away your camera". He looked somewhat abashed, walked in to the next room and started hauling out his camera again. There seem to be broad generalizations you can make about groups of tourists based on nationality. I don't like to generalize, but I have just noticed over the years that a couple of select groups tend to be more obnoxious about things then others, such as not bothering to even pay lip service to rules or lines (or pushing in shoving). Of course us Americans tend to be the most obnoxious when people don't speak our language (American apparently, or so I have heard from many people).</p>

[sprouty]

<p>With about two exceptions, this is such an unfortunate thread.</p>

[chelsea]

<p>What drives me right round the bend are the t.v. shows depicting some crime lab working on a bit of survellaince footage. From half a mile away..."Can you zoom in on that license plate?" And there it is...enlarged like 575 times, clear exposure, sharp as a tack and in living colour. Or the "perp's" face is shown in detail right down to the colour of the individual mustache hair. The cameras are always set at the best angle, and must have resolution that NASA scientists can only dream of.<br>

A couple of our photo club speakers have had me shaking my head. We had one guy showing the ultimate in large format photography, had a camera that shoots a 12 x 20 inch neg. The guy knew his stuff--technically. His photos were sharp as a tack with excellent exposure. But the subject matter that he wasted that film on just had us all shuddering! He liked to shoot farm fields, in winter, with a ditch right smack down the mddle. He proudly showed us these boring nothing images of white with a line right down the middle. No fence, no cow, no farm implements, not even some corn stubble that would have given these pictures any iota of interest whatsoever.<br>

Another one was this gal who prints and sells photos. Cheap photo printer, some of them with blips and blurps, photos I wouldn't pay you 25 cents for. This was when digital photography was still in its infant stage. A bunch of us were looking at each other like "she makes MONEY on this crap? Dang, going to run right out and get me all set up!"<br>

I really shook my head when one of the pro photographers advised people in our club "You never need to shoot raw or high resolution, 72 dpi is plenty. Don't waste your memory card space." One guy took his advice, shot 72 dpi jpgs on his once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Antarctic. He was terribly unhappy when he came home with beautiful shots of penguins on the ice, whales in the surf, seabirds and mountains...and his dreams of poster-sized prints got shot down to little 5x7 snapshots.</p>

[sandysocks]

<p>When I see the line "Shoot like a pro", in a national magazine, I shake my head. Pros are more interested in a good business model than good photos. The best phototographers I have known were amateurs. Only a dedicated amateur can approach photography in the proper way. Money talks, but truth has no price.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>"RAW"snobbery towards the JPEG middle class/ simple but pure of mind. And who trust compression by machine. Getting so few will admit to --shhhhh -shooting mostly all high quality JPEG. I may yet find the true faith. On a beach, on the street, cannonballing down to me one of these days.</p>

<p>I laugh mostly at me lately. I will go to extreme ladder heights if needed and will rarely shoot only at eye level.So I guess I cringe at those lazier than me who will never seek the angle that is elusive but there. Oh well.</p>

[jbauer]

<p>Popular Photography's squishy "reviews" of any camera from any manufacturer. They seem completely paranoid that they may in some way offend a potential advertiser that even poor performance is candy coated to the point where there are no sub par products or performance from <strong>any</strong> company in the entire industry. The camera world needs a magazine that has the cahones to call a spade a spade.</p>

<p>The second item is what I would call the "dumbing down of photography" for years by camera manufacturers to the general public. At some point most major camera manufacturers decided that the buying public was just too slow to understand the relationships between aperture, shutter speed and ISO and thusly the scene and auto modes became king. This particular gripe is tied very closely to a similar one in my mind regarding the lack of effort and thought that people put into something like photography. We are becoming more and more societies of the "do it for me" crowd.</p>