Fauxtogs helping fauxtogs

[fstopper89]

Ugh. I’m in a few photography groups on FB. This one has a nice network of photographers from around the world. I give lots of advice there and sometimes ask for advice.

This woman has started posting a lot lately. She even got banned from the group for a day because she was posting about 20 comments in a row where she could have just collected her thoughts into one simple paragraph. Despite how friendly people are, they got so fed up they actually told her “please collect your thoughts and post one comment, I’m sick of getting a notification every time you hit enter!” I can’t tell if she’s professing to be a pro but she has referred to people as “clients” and is saying how she is doing a senior shoot soon, etc. I don’t know if she even has a DSLR. Honestly, from the way she types (speaks), things she says, and her profile photo, I think she actually has some mental slowness.

But now she posted these Halloween-themed photos and is asking for help on how to remove the background- she took photos of her friend’s kid and “they wanted him by that background” etc. People offered advice for the future, such as having him sit further forward from the background and not having so much stuff in the background. The whole image is a disaster. Now a man chimed in with his edit of her image which looks like a kid’s cut-and-paste project! She asked if he could send her the image so she can give it to the client because she loves what he did to it, and then also wants him to send her the photo he used to replace the background- omg I just can’t handle it.

<a href=”http://tinypic.com?ref=20r3d5z&#8221; target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i40.tinypic.com/20r3d5z.jpg&#8221; border=”0″ alt=”Image and video hosting by TinyPic”></a>

[adent]

Looks like work done with a camera phone and some Halloween themed app.

[emf]

LOL – what a cheeky bint – then she asks him to ‘fix’ the other one!

[fstopper89]

I don’t think it’s a phone app… the blue bubble pattern that is partially around the kid is a “pattern stamp” function in Photoshop. He had said he used a “photo” to make the new background. Huh. I don’t really get it. I did click on his profile and it said something about “art photography” under his job title. It’s not very public but the few photos he has on there have funky things cloned/pasted into other photos.

[IHF]

This is freaking hilarious !

blind leading the blnd?

[Bill]

I know the woman your talking about BEG, her name is Penny. I don’t know her personally but I have seen her ramblings on Facespace and it is just mind boggling the way her mind processes thought. I wonder if she has 1,000,000 pos-its stuck to everything in the house.

Scatter-Brain

[Bill]

She also has a YouTube page, scary. For her sake, I’m not going to post the link.

[NotAnselAdams]

I’m sorry but if you use Facebook to showcase your photography, you are not a photographer.

[fstopper89]

Ansel, that’s kind of a generalization. I use Facebook (besides a blog, Flickr, and a business website) to showcase my photography. It definitely gets the most traffic.

[EyeDocPhotog]

here’s a site where they sell Lightroom presets to fauxtogs:

 

http://www.lightroompresets.com/

 

[pril]

Hi, Forgive me for adding my opinion. However marketing skills are well better then my snapshots and I feel if you do not promote your work using social media sites like facebook, you are more in likely to fail. Not saying to use facebook as your sole provider and or to host your images.  to get the word out it is one of the best ways!  I know very few people who do not use facebook.

 

[emf]

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with fb – as others have said it shouldn’t be your sole forum but we live in an age of social media and self promotion through that media – it seems kind of integral to any business these days.

[EyeDocPhotog]

Unless the service you provide is unusually specialized with an equally diminutive market – ie., you and perhaps 2 others are the only providers within your region and all the prospective clients know ‘you are the only game in town’ and tell everybody for you – a small business requires some form of a web presence today as this is where the general public goes to seek out most services. There are still ‘yellow pages’ vendors, but they are slowly going the route of the rotary telephone.

I only shoot candids of children who require more attention & patience than most (you might say ‘special needs’), so paid advertising on the internet is really a waste for me. In fact, most of my clients would not even bother looking on the internet for they know through years of trial and error that very few photographers will even entertain their requests. My market knows of me and passes my number to other families within the small (but growing) circle of families here in NYC.

My portfolio is on my website, but also on FACEBOOK. Prospective clients who’ve been told of my services STILL want to see samples of my work. I have a website, FB, Google+, and Twitter accounts for blogs and portfolio captures for these purposes. I also send out weekly newsletters through these media to help educate parents on the finer points of photographing their children. It works splendidly to “get the word out.”

To put it bluntly, whether you like it or not social media is here, to stay. You have 2 choices – embrace it, or run from it. Your comment

“…but if you use Facebook to showcase your photography, you are not a photographer.”

is as preposterous as saying “If a shop doesn’t have a brick & mortar presence, they’re not a real store.”

[Author]

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