Reply To: Fauxtogs who should end up on the main page…

[fstopper89]

Cicely, yikes, I’ve criticized obvious fauxtogs on here, just like the other posters have done in this thread and others. This is after all, a website made to point out horrible photography, and those of us on here who are photographers use technical/artistic knowledge to give reasons why it’s all bad. You name-calling and making very blatant, just mean comments toward me specifically couldn’t really be unintentional, but whatever, I mean if I were making such statements it would be very intentional. So just leave it at that. Calling people fauxtographers and pointing out terrible flaws would not have it’s place on a different type of website, such as a website devoted to users giving each other critiques or a website talking about improving your business, etc.

Truth is only hard to hear when it’s not backed up by facts and instead replaced with exaggerations and nasty comments and sarcasm like you’re doing.

I have to say too, the local photog (or fauxtog? not really sure) I referred to as “creepy” really, uh, is pretty creepy. He’s got a pervy side to him. Someone I know lives with him as a housemate and she said she once caught him spying through her cracked bedroom door at her while she was doing the deed. That is creepy. He also goes to womens’ homes and does their makeup for shoots and another young woman I know had him come over to choose outfits for her and do practice poses, and apparently the poses were risque and he promised to not show the photos to anyone but her to help coach her, and then a week later a mutual friend of theirs told her he saw these photos the guy took. He had asked to take my pictures at one time and I was glad I did not, after hearing these stories (and yes, these were firsthand stories from the people who dealt with him). I honestly don’t know what his intentions are, he seems truly into photography and at times has some pretty good images, but I’m not the only one around here who suspects he has ulterior motives or side-benefits if you know what I mean. However to give him the benefit of the doubt, I’m sure middle-aged male photographers do have a harder time NOT coming off as creepy when they do model photography. Women are naturally less-threatening in that situation.

After buying a 5D Mark II it was a world of difference to me in it’s performance, specifically shooting a wedding/other low-light situations. I’m sure you can shoot some weddings with a Rebel just fine, especially if it’s primarily an outdoor wedding with more available light, but I would never want to go into a wedding without a camera body that could handle it and some fast lenses (that is purely my opinion, as I’m sure some of you have gotten very high-quality shots with an entry-level body also in that situation). I still really like my Rebel for some things. I have a 35mm prime lens and it works more effectively on a crop body as a fast portrait lens than it does on a full-frame due to the crop factor. (Soon I’ll get a 50 or 85 once I can afford it).

Those on craigslist are pretty bad, funny how the guy says “I’m a real professional, not just some amateur with a point and shoot!” when the photos are all snapshot-y and the one studio photo just was so blah.

Also to the person seemingly inferring I’m unfit to teach a photography workshop: I’m no college professor teaching a semester on photography. I certainly would not be qualified to do that. My classes went over VERY well. I taught a beginner class on things like types of photography, using photos to tell a story, composition, focal point and subject, using elements such as lines, shapes, patterns, and angles, avoiding distracting backgrounds, etc. and successfully got a class full of mostly children so interested in photography. It’s amazing to see young minds so engaged in something they didn’t know much about at all. These kids started out with “I have a camera and like taking pictures” to being able to identify what the rule of thirds was, what the subject of a photo was, what a nice background in a photo is, what an action photo vs. a portrait was, etc. The other class I taught was how to shoot in manual on a DSLR. Of course some of the participants didn’t actually have DSLRs (instead, those larger version point and shoot cameras, oh well) but out of the 6 participants about 3 of them were VERY interested and engaged (these were mainly adults). It was especially wonderful to hear the one woman, the only one who actually had and brought a DSLR, said she took my beginner class last year and got really interested in photography, bought the DSLR, but always kept it on Auto, and now is so excited to practice what she learned this weekend. She was taking lots of notes on the handouts I gave. That class was talking about: exposure and how it’s controlled mainly by shutter speed, aperture, and ISO (and what these all mean and how they relate), depth of field, different kinds of lenses and focal lengths and how they affect how the photo looks, etc. My goal was if I can get even a few people engaged, it was a success.