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FauxFighters
Participant^Wow a fauxtog local to me! Looks like her website has been down a week, which has also killed her email. You can find her Shootproof page though:
http://onceuponatimephotographync.shootproof.com/
Here is her personal page where she develops photos at Walgreens:
https://www.facebook.com/KristinLeAnn252
And from her photography page, it appears she is considering teaching photograhy!
“We are considering adding mini classes to our photography and design websites. What would you like to learn how to do? Take better close up photos? Replace the sky with a prettier one? Design a poster? Comment below or message us with ideas!”
Shockingly it hasn’t received any comments or likes.
ParticipantI must concur that Kelby has some good material for learning both in text and on The Grid. I have never paid for training on his website, but I bought or was given a few of his books that helped make some of the transition from being an “Auto” photographer a lot less daunting. I got this set when it was just two and then later added the third:
I must say that he has some humorous stuff in there. I most appreciated his financial advice for gear as it gives you a low, medium and high cost option and gives you some explanation as to the cost-benefit. That is the kind of book I wish many “fauxtogs” would pick up to get some basics of the technical side of photography.
ParticipantI personally don’t give a shit how many kids she has and with whom, as long as they are taking care of them and not on the taxpayer dime. My point was that I have several friends who became MWAC’s after having a couple kids and especially after becoming a stay-at-home mom or being married to a soldier and relocating somewhere they could not find work. They were fucking horrible, but people told them they should do it because they shot pictures of their own kids in the yard and posted them online, so they were “photographers”. I was also commenting on her background that led to her becoming a fauxtog and my perception that she has a problem with staying focused professionally/personally. She was in nursing school, then went to a bank, and now has been a fauxtog for 3 years but only had a “website” one year and has already had at least two business names. None of that and certainly not her work screams “professional” or that she is dedicated to learning about photography. To me it screams “I am bored and want something to do; I have a Rebel; being a photographer can’t be that hard.” Disagree with me if you want on my assessment, but her fauxtography speaks for itself.
ParticipantA new fauxtographer has emerged from the depths of Facebook and littered my feed with her horrible work behind the camera “photographing” an acquaintance or two. Welcome to Edge Photography!
https://www.facebook.com/kb.edge.photography
Edge Photography is a typical setup. Young MWAC (three kids by three different guys) who looks like she went to nursing school, worked at a bank, and then became an owner-operator of a photography business. Even though she lists working as a photographer since 2011, her FB page didn’t pop up until February 2013. Here is a picture of this particular faux getting down to business:
She is guilty of all the typical MWAC issues. “Natural light” only, on location only photography. If you need light, get ready for the power of pop-up. She can guarantee blurry shots, out of focus photos, off axis shots for no reason, and no color balance whatsoever. But at a great price. Here is one of her latest promotions:
“ATTENTION: The rest of this month is Customer Appreciation Month…book a session this month for 60$. That includes a session with NO time limit, NO outfit limit, NO pose limit and this also includes a CD of ALL edited images with permission to print. Yes you heard correctly, the session is UNLIMITED. We LOVE LOVE LOVE our clients!!”
I guess with that no time limit you could make her stay and shoot all day. It’ll still mostly be crap though. If you loved your clients, you might take a couple classes. Here is what clients have to look forward to.
Uncomfortable poses:
Not being in focus, and barely in the picture:
I love how this shot draws the eye away from the subject and onto the wheat in the foreground:
Looks like she beat the model:
One of my favorites and probably front-page worthy. Take a very large and pregnant subject, making her beer gut sporting baby daddy poke out his stomach behind her while sitting in the middle of the road, and then to make it “artistic” let’s take 90% of the color out of the picture. WINNAR!
Glad she threw her watermark all over this kid, because I know people were planning to steal this flat and blurry shot of this kid having a blast at the fire station:
Here is a cute little girl with almost all of the color sucked out of the shot, probably because 75% of the background is totally blown out:
And here is another girl with horrible color issues. This time she’s green!
This shot is unnecessarily crooked, blurry and the posing is horrible for these two little girls:
While buying new photography gear might be one way to spend your hard earned money, another way is to go hit up the Goodwill for ancient furniture to use as props. OMG how original and so much better than to buy a sharp lens or maybe a real flash:
Kelly also does nature shots:
Here she is advocating for supporting small businesses:
I’m sure she has her business license and is paying all applicable taxes.
And her last post is asking about doing a wedding. I could hardly wait to book her! With her terribly hit and miss on a situation that she totally controls and promises unlimited time to get the right shot, I can’t believe that she hasn’t already shots tens of weddings at reasonable prices. Ugh. Can’t wait to see that train wreck posted online!
ParticipantI would say that hellkitten may be overreaching a bit calling Jess a full on “faux”. With that said, she still needs to work on some stuff. Here is my critique of her web and FB page.
First it looks like Jess is a young MWAC. Per her About section on J.Mc Photography, she is 24 and has no formal training, but photography is her “passion”. Strike against her, but not a huge thing if your shooting is good. A degree on the wall is just paper if you can’t shoot worth a damn, but it does lend some credibility. If I was her I would take that “no formal training” stuff off though. Just screams MWAC. Or maybe take a class or two so you can say you have some honest to God education on the subject. But enough of this, lets look at some photos.
I’ll begin with the Portrait Shoots – Studio album
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.523046511076047.1073741832.250486584998709&type=3
To begin, her lighting is usually not bad. I don’t see any glaring problems many fauxtogs have where its painfully obvious they are using super weak lights, if not just the pop-up. Shadows are almost nonexistent. Focus is usually sharp (couple are a touch soft but not unusable) and she only did one faux shot with selective coloring. My only complaints would be like this:
She did not bother to remove the white spot right on the subjects shoulder. Really draws my eye in that shot as its really obvious.
This one highlights what I think is her other weakness where her lack of training shows. She sometimes has the model and awkward poses, like the lady in that picture with her right arm.
This one, same thing. Her arm is really straight with just a slight bend.
This one she has her arm bent, but then the subjects face just does not look happy. Also I would have had her drop the left shoulder a bit more and done something better with the left hand. Again, the photo isn’t bad, but I think a model posing class or book would help a lot to make these shots really pop.
As to her outdoor shooting, I would say that it isn’t bad. She is smart enough to not do the usual fauxtographer tricks like having bright splotches of sunlight on the subject, or a semi-blown out background. She does occasional go super-dutch on the angles when I don’t think it is necessary, like:
If I had to pick her worst thing though it would probably be her white balance issues. She posts a lot in B&W so you can’t see it, and I think some of that is because she can’t balance consistently.
And she does have some shots where the focus is not great. Here are a few:
Overall I still would not call her a fauxtog and she doesn’t have anything that deserves to be on this page. However I think she has a long way to go, and must be using some sort of like buying or like ladder to get that many likes. I know multiple pros that having being shooting professionally as their sole income source for years and they have been 500-2000 likes. She should do some training and maybe collaborate with some other local photographers to expand her knowledge and skillset. But she isn’t bad.
ParticipantAnother faux bites the dust! This one came to my attention earlier this week via social networking. Saw a picture, checked her gallery out and it was all over the place featuring the usual suspects of blurry shots, out of focus subjects, improper lighting and more. Here are a few random selections:
Not sure why she went with the hunched look for this girl. Very unflattering. Oh and love how she tried to correct her dutch angle and ended up with grey by the subjects leg on the lower right which she did not fix.
Auto white balance fail. Also love that background for a wedding bridal shoot.
Her “studio” setup has several glaring problem in my opinion. First, she has apparently never learned that you should roll up backdrops for storage, not fold them. Secondly, why is she using CFL bulbs (which I understand are cheaper and easier to newbies as they don’t require triggering) for the light source on stands with shoot through umbrellas that are setup like reflectors? And does she want them to fall over? That is the only thing that makes sense as to why she would put the stand legs out just barely far enough to get the base off the ground, rather than extending them fully.
Noisy, blurry, subject soft, dutch angle, wrinkly backdrop, etc.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think its FBs fault this shot it super blown out.
Looks like the poor child has maggots coming out of her nose. Maybe she is physically ill at the quality of the photos being taken.
So my inspiration for this shot was I wanted to make her look like an undead tranny.
There is so much more but you can check it out on your own here:
https://www.facebook.com/OneMemoryCloser
Unfortunately per her last post, the reality of being a business person and not just a photographer has gotten to her and she just posted a couple weeks ago that she was shutting down her photography business. I guess it was too tough trying to actually make money while giving away photoshoots for likes. Oh and not knowing how to use your camera probably does not help. Oh well, One Memory Closer is now being renamed One Less Fauxtog.
ParticipantFauxtographers come in all shapes, sizes, ages and colors. While I was catching up on YANAP this morning a FB friend liked a photographer, and the name really grabbed my attention, so I HAD to check it out.
“God’s Gifted Photography & Productions”
https://www.facebook.com/GodsGiftedPhotography
What a name! I strapped in and knew that this was going to be a good one and was not disappointed. This guy has it all. He covers both photography AND videography. So let’s get to the shots!
His model looks like a streetwalker or homeless crazy person. Her pose says to me “I’m just walking down the street and some guy in a car drove by and took my photo” not “I have been positioned in this crosswalk for a very specific shot by a photographer”. And I’m sorry, I normally try not to judge the models and how they look, but what the hell is she wearing? The whole wardrobe is horrible, but she does not need to be showing off her midriff!
Blessed Beyond Meausre? Nice spelling there.
Random shots anybody could take with their cameraphone or P&S.
White balance issues, soft shot, and horrible vignette.
Glad nobody wanted to see the family behind the watermark! Yet he still took the time to put their name at the bottom of the shot (I guess because you can’t see their faces through the watermark)
Has time to put vignettes, watermarks, and edge treatments, but doesn’t bother to remove the weird scar on the girls arm?
The fauxtographer himself in front of the camera.
Seriously weird color removal. Looks like he tried to remove the green and blue channels, so red traces are all over the photo still. The door in the back, her lips, the wood, her dress, etc. And then he vignettes the shot so dark that his prom dates face disappears!
A little creative editing on a rainbow.
That one is from his personal page, but it shows that he continues to ignore grammar and spelling when he’s editing these photos.
This is his FB cover photo. Pretty nice, right? I thought it looked familiar so I did a Tineye search on it (great Firefox Plugin for photo searching) and got over a dozen hits. This photo is on the Wikipedia page for Charlotte. He jacked the photo from that and just superimposed Uptown Charlotte at the bottom. Classy thief is classy and definitely doesn’t need to give credit to the actual photographer!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151581415603763&set=vb.409020229214181&type=3&theater
Another favorite, a “video” of July 4th fireworks. Except it’s just a cheesy slideshow of his photos with some music tracks over it. I’m definitely sold on his video abilities as well.
This guy is pretty young and has lots of time to improve, but until then I think I would have stuck to just posting these on your personal FB page until you got to a level where you would want to put your “business” name on them.
Participant^Its showing as content unavailable.
Kim, thanks for being mature about it and taking criticism as a learning experience. If you have speedlights already, I would say one way to REALLY upgrade your game is to look into off-camera lighting. Even with base lenses and a low end body, getting your light to be dynamic and not just the flat shots everybody else has will make your photography so much better. For those outdoor shots, get a cheap light stand, umbrella/softbox and something like a pair of PocketWizard X units to remote trigger the flashes (Nikon has an IR system built into their cameras/speedlites. Its a small investment compared to fancy lenses, new bodies, etc. but will make your shots so much more professional looking. Then just learn to manually adjust for that light. Strobist.com is one of the best websites for teaching how to use off-camera flash. They even have very simple walkthroughs that explain a cheap setup and how to use one flash, two flashes, etc. Good luck and never be satisfied with your work, but always be looking to learn more and continue to grow.
ParticipantSorry, can’t type and apparently can’t edit either. Meant to say “Second shot is boring. First shot was going for something different.”
ParticipantThe second shot is boring. The terrible photographer doing yearbook shots can knock that shot out 1000+ times a day. The second shot was going for something different, but it was a bag of fail too, as was previously listed. I like that he was going for something more creative and interesting, but he did not nail it in the camera and the post production to fix it just made it worse IMO.
Participant^Yes I would completely agree with you CC. Cute Moments has a bit of a sappy/cliche name, and one or two of their photos are a bit ugh. But, most of their stuff is quite sharp, exposed well and appropriately lit. Also the chalkboard shows some artistic talent, an original (at least to me) idea and something that is much safer to do than hanging babies in baskets. Additionally I saw no fake vignetting, spot coloring, etc.
So yea, they do not belong in this discussion.
ParticipantYea unlike the Useless Moments Photography, Heartfelt seems to be an actual photographer who doesn’t realize what “fauxtography” is, but is definitely pulling it off.
ParticipantI think Sweet Monkeying Around would have disappeared a long time ago if not for the whole “I’m a lawyer” visit. I honestly pity her. It seems like she has some mental issues or a learning disability, or maybe just did not get any education. Either way, I’m tired of beating that dead horse. Magpie is more awful to me, as she passes the sniff test for a actual “fauxtog” that might fool somebody into purchasing her services.
I could not find a search feature to check if this one has already been done, but I am hoping it hasn’t. This one is a bonafide fauxtographer. It even says so in the name of her business:
Heartfelt Faux-tog-raphy
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heartfelt-Faux-tog-raphy/107876959296132
She has it all folks. Tons of props. Shitty soft photos. “On location, natural light photographer!” AKA I don’t have a studio space or even a fucking flash. Lots of props though. Plenty of shots that still blown out, have white balance issues, etc. Also making guest appearances are the always appreciated white vignetting, wrinkled backdrops, selective coloring, etc. Special guests include lots of “Photographer Posts” that she has liked and shared on her page. Something you don’t often see though are photos of her photos, taken with her smartphone or SLR while they are being displayed on her desktop monitor in the editing softwware. This has to be one of the worst ways to share a photo, as the image quality is further degraded, making it appear at about the worst level imaginable. So, let’s roll that beautiful bean footage:
An example of the shot I was talking about. Bonus points if she leaves her watermark on some of the photos in the middle of the collage!
Love that this one was done on the railroad tracks, but the typical ways that you use railroad tracks as a leading line are totally ignored. Instead she did this from the standing or slightly crouched position, with the subject being out of focus and blown out. Wonder if the photo had to be done in black & white because of white balance/light issues?
Another shot of her monitor. Really?!? Why not just post the damn picture itself.
At least we can tell from this shot that she is shooting with a Nikon D3100. Hell I have a D40. It was my first camera. But I wasn’t charging people or had a photography “business” site. I still don’t in fact.
This poor child looks like they died. And the shot is extremely soft as well.
Selfies in the drivers side mirror!
ParticipantOr rock a Disturbed shirt. Those show up really well in pictures!
ParticipantSo today, I found another pretty horrible fauxtog doing something I like call Facebook Fauxtog Fishing. I try to put random names and phrases in and add Photography to the end and see what comes up on the search. Today I was doing a search using super cheesy names and found this gem. Family First Photography (obviously the family is first because the photography work is not at all).
https://www.facebook.com/Familyfirst1208
So Family First Fauxtogs has only been on about a month. In that time they already knocked out a wedding! Here are a few choice samples from a hunting themed wedding:
Not well centered, not framed on the porch, and quite a bit of it is blown out in the dress. Oh yea and it isn’t sharp at all.
Dark and lots of noise.
And added a cheesy white heart vignette!
SUPER NOISE.
Really love the lack of cropping, focus, or anything else on this shot.
Different set, but loving the selective color with the blurred sepia effect which was done on the subjects legs!
Again, no cropping so you have a vignette covering half the kids and then tons of empty space above them in the vignette.
There is a Chance this shot could be a bad idea. At least they got the power lines in the shot!
This senior photo looks like it could have been shot with a camera phone at lunch. Love the water pipe in the background.
This wedding photo go the comment “LOVE THIS”. Really?
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