Reply To: My favorite local fauxtog

[iliketag]

Seems I’ve missed a bit in the last few days! (My city is on fire… I’ve been busy. 🙁 )
I want to chime in very quickly on what Thom said.

I’m a strong believer in work being technically sound. Generally though, if someone’s work is interesting and artistic, yet sloppy, I’ll cut them some slack as long as they continue working. However, if someone’s work is technically sound but dreadfully boring, it’s lacking in life and is not a strong quality. I believe photographers, especially those who want to shoot portraits as their primary field, should have a strong handle on both. In BlueEyes’s case, I believe working on the technical aspect will help improve her work currently and at least bring her up to a better standard where she can begin to branch out. The equipment is a part of that. She asked specifically about lenses so we provided advice on what could help.

Someone with great equipment can still turn out absolute crap, I totally understand that! But we were encouraging her to learn and become more acquainted with her camera before doing any more portrait shoots for “clients”. Posing, directing and working with clients should come after you know how to harness the power of your camera. Developing an eye is certainly important… but seeing as how she’s still taking on clients (which I explicitally believe she should not be), knowing how to capture a sound image (even if it is a hum-drum family photo) will help wrap those up in the mean time.

I was lucky. My teachers constantly praised my “eye” in school, which encouraged me to get better. I’m not perfect but I started out with a passion for art and threw myself into it. A lot of older folks don’t have that same kind of reckless passion for a new hobby. Starting young gives you an advantage because everything is still pretty interesting to you. I believe complacency is a large problem in the fauxtographer community… So a lot of them recycle poses without new spins on them, they find “inspiration” online and make a poorly executed carbon copy (just look at the chalkboard image on the main page!), and they skate by on uneducated clientele. The eye is harder in some aspects and honestly, she may never develop it if she’s not willing to close up shop on this business and go back to square one.

So in a sense, you’re right; we shouldn’t focus on technical aspects entirely, but I do believe we have provided a lot of materials for both sides of photography.