Reply To: Who are we to judge?

[fstopper89]

I did create that thread after I had basically been thrown into a shitpile (lack of better words) of fauxtographers, mostly in my town, constantly blowing up the local buy/sell page’s feed saying “Hire me! I’m super duper cheap but you don’t need a real professional photographer to get quality, and heck I will even throw in a free disk with all the photos I took, and I never actually learned photography but I’m just as good or better than anyone who went to school for it!” It was kind of the last straw for me when one person posted they were looking for a photographer and I, without saying any names, suggested anyone looking for a photographer should check out their work and look for quality and for someone who had the proper skills and equipment. Well I got jumped on by 5 fauxs within that post, them accusing me that I was saying they all had point-and-shoots (well, 4 out of the 5 did!) while the few actually good photogs all agreed with me. Some that myself and others have posted in that thread are people who have work comparable, or sometimes worse, than what makes it to the front page. And yes, we discuss why their photography and/or business behavior is awful. There are many patterns across the fauxs as well. Critiquing others’ work can be insightful for the rest of us as a reminder of how working on improving our own skills will always set us apart from the fauxs. The fauxs all seem to believe they are wonderful photographers and they just don’t get it. We all have things to improve on, even those of you on here who are full-time professional photographers with many years of experience. The difference is that you are always improving.