Just can't do it!

[linkedforever]

I am a photographer in the Philadelphia area. Like all areas, I am seeing my market oversaturated with fauxtogs. I can think of a half dozen people who’s work I’d like to see on this site but I just can’t bring myself to submit it! I once started my career. I churned out some tacky selective colors. I rented a fish-eye, a macro, and a lens baby and went nuts, and produced a whole lot of crap that I was really proud of at the time and am ashamed of today. I bought peel-and-stick albums and had books made at Shutterfly. Today, I’m an award-winning photographer and I’ve definitely earned my place in the ranks. But what about all these other folks…do they deserve a chance? Or should I paste links to the absolute junk that they are charging people for???

[Res]

I’m in the same boat, but the ones that I’m seeing are people I know. These are men and women that I graduated HS with, whose names I know and struggles I’ve seen. That’s why I can’t bring myself to do it. I know how horrible I’d feel if my work popped up on this site for public ridicule.

I’m torn. But I still visit YANAP, day after day, and chortle with the rest.

 

I’m going to hell.

[Click It And Stick It]

Submit it!

[faux not funny]

I’ve submitted loads of fauxtogs, but none of them have ever been posted on the website.

[IHF]

I’ve submitted, and every single one has been  featured.  Most were people I have argued with on YANAP itself.  (or other forums/sites like itIf you are going to argue and talk the talk and not have the walk to back it up…. Well… Someone is going to call you on it.  You may be able to fool the fools but youcan’t fool the people who  actually photograph.  We can see right through all the smoke and mirrors.

I take every submission I make seriously.  So if you want to call them out do it.  If you are leery in any way, don’t

[IHF]

Wow! Sorry for the typos.  On my iPad

[Mrs Woo]

I attempted to submit a fauxtog but for some reason the email didn’t go through.  I felt really bad about it on some levels, but not on others (but decided divine intervention had warned me to not go any farther).  She is marketing herself as a pro photographer with a Canon digital Elph and picmonkey.  I can’t even begin to imagine how upset some of her future clients (when/if she gets them) will be when they show up for their $100 photo shoot and she takes out a pocket camera and begins shooting away.  She also does weird effects in her landscapes where everything has about 1/4 inch of glow around it if you blow it up to screen size.  I just look at it and think… “How?  Why?”

Some of her pictures she doesn’t necessarily “claim” as hers, if that makes sense, either, and others she actually posts with tags like “I want to visit here one day” (on her supposedly commercial photography FB page) – if you’re just paging through and not opening up every picture, you’ll assume that she was the one that took the breath-taking waterfall shots or the beautiful white sand beach sunsets, etc.

So I really wish that she could be reasoned with.  When you point out to her that she really isn’t prepared, she does the whole, “My intentions are to get all the good stuff as I can afford it and I will just keep getting better, so my prices will go up as I get better” kind of thing.

She of course does not know what aperture is, doesn’t understand how fstop, ISO and shutter speed work together, has never worked with off-camera lighting, doesn’t even own a Rebel and kit lens let alone anything better.

[veronicacburgess]

I really want to like this site but the forum is mean spirited and filled with self rightious photographers that seem to have forgotten that they were beginners once. We are in a different time than when many of you began. At that time you probably weren’t able to post your fauxtog work because there wasn’t a Facebook then. I’m pretty sure that most of you sucked ass just as much as the beginner photographers posted on this blog.

Further, and I am guilty because the photos posted are really funny, the writting on the main blog is just not good. Not funny…even slightly.

Being a photographer is a learning process just like anything else. Most of you churn out crap that looks like every other photographers work. There is nothing new so please stop thinking you are somehow special because you can work the settings  on your camera.

Most of you know I am right and many of you will be a little pissed at my post. That’s ok. Just please stop spewing disrespect to fellow photographers. You are simply no better.

[IHF]

So do you feel it’s ok to sell a professional service to people before you know how to provide the professional service?  Yes, photographers have to start somewhere, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing what you are doing, nothing wrong with learning, or with making sub par images, unless you are selling your sub standard services.

I personally think that a person should become a photographer first, before they start a business selling photography services.  This is not mean spirited, it’s common sense.  Yes, there wasn’t any online  social networks back in the day, but photographers have sought out and received critique sense the first camera was made.  I think it’s meaner and less productive and/or helpful to just say “you are good enough”, or to say nothing at all.

[TXGRL]

Im with you on that. Im a CPP, published and award winning, but over the years Ive put out my share of “Crap” along the way. We live and learn. Ive wanted to turn in a TON of local photogs to this site, but I believe in Karma…let me just say…if your curious….I will share….Houston, Tx and Ft.Worth, Tx craigslist will keep you laughing!

[Author]

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