Reply To: Should I do a corny christmas shoot?

[emf]

My whole point is I’m not a great photographer. Not to charge at least and am fully acceptant of that fact. That is precisely why I am not charging. At the same time, while I’m in this position I want to take the chance to exercise artistic control. I may not be great at photography but for me it’s just another fine art medium and I’ve studied and practised fine art my whole adult life. I have ideas about the kind of photography I want to do and am trying hard to avoid cliches. I don’t want to take photos of whole families wearing the same colours, looking more like they work for Gap than a family. I don’t want to take photos of kids stuck in pumpkins on wrapped in Christmas lights or whatever.

One of the main premises of this site is to deride ‘fauxtographers’ who churn out the same cliched rubbish. Yet you seem to think I can’t even make such a statement without going through the same process?  I have to cut my teeth on that kind of stuff before I can make a statement?

You’re talking about Avedon but you’re confusing a cliche with a genre. They are not the same.