[FauxFighters]

Yea if I was Ruby, I would seriously consider not posting anything incriminating on Facebook.  Especially on your “business” page.  Hate to say it, but employers these days check out everything and background checks now include social media.  On the last couple of hires in my department, our boss did the initial culling of obviously unqualified people, but when he got down to doing phone interviews, he will try and put a face to the picture.  Then once he makes a decision on inviting somebody to do a second interview on location, we are given free reign to scope them out beforehand, and we do.  If she plans to “work for herself” doing photography, this may not be as big a concern (though her ability as it currently stands should) but just like the person who was coating their page with Bible quotes, people make judgement calls based on everything you present.  Clients might smoke or might not, and photographers might as well.  But keep that stuff off the web.  It can and will bite you in the ass someday.

And Mykel, I agree with Roxanne.  I have a lot of friends that have done different hair color before, and a lot of them just look bad with it.  Either makes them look trashy, does not go with their skin-tone, or what.  But you can definitely pull it off and I can imagine photographing you would be really cool.  The contrasting colors with the background, like you in front of the horse, make for some amazing shots.  Very photogenic.

[FauxFighters]

Double header.  Another fauxtog!  This one has over 1,400 likes, which really surprises me.  So without further ado, I present Sara Lassiter Photography:

http://www.facebook.com/saralassiterphotography1

Here is one from her most recent session.  This shot is totally out of focus:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=524338030944145

Apparently having issues with focus runs throughout her shots.  Here is a series of shots from the same engagement session where focus is usually on something in the background, or none at all:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=491048400939775

He asked, but I can barely read it, because its so blurry and blown out:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=495716313806317

Thank God that sewer line is in focus in this shot:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=495716640472951

I think they are looking at the camera, but again we are focused on something else entirely:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=495716683806280

Blurry:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=474302469281035

Blurrier:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=474302482614367

Looks like he’s throwing the blurry blob:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=474303185947630

Serious issues with focusing on the subject, again:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=470288713015744

Shooting in a field in direct sunlight with no fill flash or reflectors doesn’t end well:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=470401806337768

Another session, with about half of the posted photos blurry and out of focus:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=467472066630742

Ditto:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=459822850728997

All I want for Christmas is some in-focus subjects:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=486392791405336

The pixelated and severely backlit bride is strolling down the aisle:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=199689980075620

I think you get the idea.  Definitely needs to work on the technical side of her camera and learn how to get the camera to focus on the subject.

[FauxFighters]

Alright, enough about the horseshit with Roxanne.  I am going to post on the topic of the thread!  I got recommended the link to this photographer via Facebook yesterday.  She had a sponsored FB ad and a very extended family member liked this page.  I was originally asked to shoot the wedding for this extended family member, but already had a conflict that weekend, so this person shot it instead.  I will say this person is not as absolutely terrible as Cathleen, but I still think she qualifies.  So I present:

https://www.facebook.com/photobykeri

Now to start off with, the first thing that really annoys me about this lady is her attempt to lure other Christians in by blanketing her FB and webpage with Bible quotes.  I am a Christian who attends church regularly and hope I am a good example to others, but I feel that covering your business webpage with this is distracting and oftentimes disingenuous.  Just because my page isn’t covered with Bible quotes and mentions of God doesn’t mean that I would be unprofessional in thoughts, actions or pricing, or that you are somehow a better photographer than somebody else.  Anyways, that is a personal rant, not anything business related, but I feel it could alienate people who have different beliefs than you or just simply distract from the important part of getting quality photographs that capture an important moment for your client.

So my first find was her wonderful marketing for a Family Stoll?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151017373841600

Good job not proofreading. Here is another one showing off her awesome Photoshop editing skills while “marketing”:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151317612666600

This folder is “The Beauty of Christ”.  It seems to me to be more reasonable to just name it “Some random snapshots I took out the window of my car and put a huge watermark on” as that is all they appear to be to me:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151464540416600.515306.195884881599

There is nothing that interests me in any of those shots.  Many are blown out badly in spots or extremely dark.  No interesting subjects or anything that makes those shots impress me.  Next is her “Portfolio”

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151384685201600

Looks like the front of the wagon is the only thing in focus.  The little girl certainly is not.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151384685136600

I think the focal point is on the tin roof, not the little girl on the tractor.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151384685221600

No consideration for the direct sunlight shining on half her face.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151384710811600

Automatic white balance for the lose (I’m guessing?) and the girl is out of focus.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151448520921600

Not sure whats up with this weird pose/angle on the baby, but wow.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151448520626600

Not sure why she posted a picture to her “portfolio” that a baby is grabbing her camera strap.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150200192036600

A fauxtog self-portrait, with a base camera and kit lens.  No surprises here, judging by the quality of her work.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151196882806600

Unsure where the focal point is supposed to be on this shot because they have vignetted half the kid dark, yet most of the shot is out of focus.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150263119451600

Another marketing piece.  I guess she has (wisely) deleted some of her old photos, but the photo in the top right hand side shows a bride hidden in the shade with a camera that has obviously metered for the brightly lit sky behind instead.

This following photo is my favorite, but this one is from her personal page, not the biz page.  She was apparently “ripped off” by another fauxtographer.  Seems she gave the person who got this photo full rights without a clause saying “Full use, except commercial”.  Therefore this other person posted her photo up as her own, and since there was no watermark branding on the photo and the lady has the CD with “full rights” to use it, I guess she does.  Gotta pay attention to those things fauxtogs and newbies alike.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4947934252027

Thankfully because of that little tidbit, I might have another fauxtog to share!

[FauxFighters]

Yea it can also be called schwag.  But basically just stuff you get at trade shows from vendor booths, free samples from restaurants, crap marketers hand out on college campuses, etc.  In this case it was like Hooters beer koozies, keychains, maybe some hats, and some funky ice cream/yogurt stuff that was supposed to be like a frozen energy drink thing.  Things like that were what I was referencing in the post above.

[FauxFighters]

I do not disagree with the Rebel being a capable body, much like the D40/D3000 is a capable line.  I started on a D40 as my first dSLR and still shoot with it on occasion when I do not have/want to carry a bigger body.  I just didn’t want anybody to assume that grabbing a Rebel means “OMG I’m a wedding photog now!” because while it can be good in the same way a D40 can be good, it will not get as good a quality of shot as somebody shooting with a full-frame sensor or (much more importantly) good glass.  Be prepared as they say in scouting.

As to don’t care let me just say, I don’t think she is a fauxtographer so I don’t think I’m being a hypocrite in defending her.  Just like earlier in this thread (back before it went on the BEG tangent from Hell) when some folks posted up some “faux”togs and I disagreed with them.  I have said before and will say again, if you have to cherry pick somebody’s album and only p0int to their oldest photos and 1-2 shots out of a whole album more recently, then they are NOT a faux.  If they are showing growth and development, then they are probably working their way out of being a fauxtog if they have not already.  Don’t be super critical because they “stole” business from you or you fancy yourself to be better than them but have some made up excuse why they get all the business instead.  I defended Misty & Jennifer Nolan as well, so I definitely don’t feel like a hypocrite.  I truly abhor work like that Cathleen and Rebecca Lange Photography as they seem to have gotten a camera and learned nothing about it but hung out a shingle on FB and BOOM they are open for business, even if that business looks mostly like #2.  My three personal hatreds that scream “Fauxtog!!” to me are 1) technical ineptitude, lack of compositional awareness and horrible editing.  I do not think any of her stuff obviously fell into any of this.

Meanwhile who is the frequent poster who can’t stand behind their word and half the thread is full of their posts and subsequent deletions?  Oh yea, thats right dont.care obviously does care.  Seems hypocritical to me how you will post all sorts of things and then blow pages of it away.  Takes one to know one?

But you are right, in general I would not just do that for any random person that calls me up, although I have made exceptions as late as a few months ago.  But unless you want to run around 24/7 making $20 a shoot, you are always going to have somebody that will undercut you on price, but will likely under-deliver on quality as well.  You just have to accept that and hope that people someday realize they are getting sub-par photos and an unremarkable experience for a relatively minor savings in cost.  I would rather have three exceptional photoshoots than eight that are boring or even worse, just bad.

[FauxFighters]

Alright ladies and bitches, I’m back.  I didn’t know that middle school kicked in on the weekends while some of us were out doing work, shooting gigs, and having lives, but it seems like a bunch of catty cunts roll up in here and act like BEG pissed in your cornflakes.  Funny how some of you are pointing out that she posts a lot on here and must not have a life or should spend that time out doing photography when you people are doing the exact same thing, spending all your time around here stalking one person.  Most of ya’ll are the pot calling the fucking kettle black.

My opinion on the shit slinging going down in here.  First off professional classes versus learning on your own.  Both are a viable path to being a photographer.  One of the guys that I worked with picked it all up by learning on the job.  A couple others went through a photography degree program at a university.  I’m doing both, started off picking it up from my father and grandfather, then branched out into classes, photo clubs, interning with a pro, and also reading all that I can on the subject.  No way is necessarily better or worse.

As for Roxanne and her photos and websites.  My question, what is really that awful with even that Wix site?  Are the shots horribly over or underexposed?  Is her composition terrible?  Its not great and nothing is really compelling about the site, but nothing also screams out fauxtog to me.  Technically the shots are all in focus, exposed in a mostly appropriate manner, and not destroyed by awful editing.  As to her main site and the comments about her using a Rebel, who cares what body it is as long as you get a high quality shot?  Does the data also tell you what glass is attached to the body?  I have some really good shots with my D40 before using some shitty lenses and some using my much better glass.  That doesn’t mean it is my main camera, but if I ever pull out that camera, I don’t instantly turn into a damn fauxtog, I just have to know the limitations of that camera versus my higher end bodies.  I previously posted a fauxtographer who has horribly blurry and unfocused shots and lo and behold she was using a Nikon D3!  Meanwhile I know another guy whose parents got him a D2 when he was in HS.  He went to school for photography and now works for a local TV station doing sports photography for their website.  So the gear doesn’t make the photographer, the knowledge to use your equipment properly makes you a good photographer.

Now to the person earlier saying you could even do weddings with a Rebel, please don’t actually bother to do wedding photography and roll up with that, or you WILL get laughed at.  You might be able to do your cousins wedding in her backyard on a sunny day with a Rebel, but the first time you go up to an ill-lit church and the preacher says “We do not allow flash photography in the building” you will be shitting your pants.  I have seen that happen to a family member and her photos during the wedding are TERRIBLE because the photographer was not prepared (and I was in the wedding so I was unable to help).  The photographer was good when she had proper lighting, and has some nice external shots and posed shots after the wedding ceremony when she could use her flashes indoors and available natural lighting, but she didn’t have any fast telephoto glass to compensate for the crappy low light and her camera (I do not know which one it was as I am a Nikon guy) had terrible image quality at higher ISO.  Combine that with no monopod or tripod and you have a recipe for blurry shots.  So while in some situations you can shoot a wedding with lower level gear, make sure you have the necessary gear (or access to it) for even tough situations like that before you put out a wedding photographer shingle.  Otherwise it is a recipe for disaster without proper planning (like say doing a tour of the venue with the client BEFORE the day of the wedding).

So to conclude, can we please wrap up the bash party on each other in here?  I’m tired of seeing others bash one person that has good enough shots to show she understands how to use her camera, editing software and a decent eye and trying to compare her to your shitty friends who we originally pointed out have no business trying to run a photography business as their current skill level.  I would like to get the discussion back to what this thread was truly about, showing off really bad photographers who are often being deluded by friends and family into thinking they are turning out a product that people should pay for, when to anybody with a knowledgeable eye, they are far from it.

 

[FauxFighters]

I had another one I just thought of.  This guy is more of a creeper fauxtog than anything else.  He is a much older guy who runs a local website that does “model photography” which is usually just an excuse to get questionable looking women to take their clothes off for him.  Really cheesy stuff.  This guy used to stalk around on another message board I frequent where he was much older than everybody else and was basically run off because the other photographers thought his work was terrible.

As for the encounter itself.  I was doing some photo stuff for a local charity celebrity golf tournament.  Myself and another guy from aforementioned website were walking around the course trying to get different shots of the action.  About halfway down the course we ran into a hole sponsored by Hooters.  They were giving out swag and hanging with some of the celebs as they would come by and the spot was obviously teaming with guys.  We got some pictures and kept on going.  When we came back later on that afternoon, we noticed this old guy hanging out with a camera who had been there before.  The other guy and myself noticed how he was taking lots of pictures of the girls and was showing some of them the shots.  I got a picture of him doing this once.  We joked within earshot of him that it would be funny if it was that same guy that had been on our message board before.

Sure enough, later that evening I was processing my pictures and ran across the one shot I got of the guy showing a Hooters girl his picture.  He had a lost and found label on his flash and it had his website name on it.  It was the same creeper dude that we had talked with before.  That was definitely random as hell and he absolutely looked and played the part.

[FauxFighters]

Its an open forum, so its quite hard to make everybody have the exact same objectivity and consistency.  Sorry, but that is the nature of the beast.  Anybody can share, regardless of their ability or lack thereof.  Thanks for your contribution and have fun building computers and thinking you are better than everybody that said your friend made a bad decision in posting subpar photos online.

[FauxFighters]

Guess what, I do IT work as well, and design/build/repair computers on the side.  That said, I can easily critique other local computers companies work, whether its a crappy network setup they did at a business, ridiculous way they hung a projector for a boardroom AV install, etc. and I can discuss that with other people like myself who are AV professionals and both learn whose work to avoid, and find ways to make our own work better at the same time.  Any type of business you do, when you are with others of the same profession, you naturally discuss the pitfalls and follies, as well as successes of that business and others who are engaged in it.  The difference is, 99% of us on here aren’t going to their site and belittling them in front of their clients.  Again, if you don’t have a thick skin and can’t accept that people will not like your work, find something else to do.  This isn’t elementary school and everybody doesn’t get a participation trophy.

[FauxFighters]

I think the issue is that with everything, nobody is going to totally agree on who should and should not be on here.  Some people have an axe to grind against certain individuals or competitors and may be overly critical of them.  Others are trying to down everybody.  I usually try to call out the truly bad fauxtogs and point out shots from all over their portfolio (not just two shots from a single shoot), but I also try to defend folks that are doing pretty good work and may have made a questionable decision on posting a couple of shots posted by others.  Hence why its going to be hit or miss as to who gets posted, “trashed”, etc.  I have not approached posting on here as ax grinding.  I like seeing what others are doing and how it can encourage me to do better.

As to the front page, I hate to tell you, but the difference between posting them on here and people STEALING others work and misrepresenting it as their own on their website/page is totally different.  I do not know the legal implications of simply reposting a shot on the front page, but nobody on YANAP is claiming that the shots are theirs.   Additionally those of us in this forum (who AFAIK aren’t any of the admins of the site) are merely pointing to photos posted publicly on FB or whatever site they are posted on and critiquing them.  I think some of the folks are unnecessarily mean, but if you post a photo for the world to see, you better be prepared to accept the criticism, just like any other artistic medium.  If you are worried about getting your feelings hurt, then this probably isn’t the right thing to be in.

[FauxFighters]

Here is a semi-comprehensive list of my gear.  I didn’t list my kit lenses and some older glass that I rarely use.  Anything with an asterisk next to it is in my go bag though.  Not gonna bother listing individual cards, filters, and my studio lights (White Lightnings)

Bodies:

Nikon D7000*

Nikon D200*

Nikon D80

Nikon D40

 

Glass:

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D Autofocus*

Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF Autofocus*

Nikkor 70-300 f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED Telephoto

Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC Telephoto *

Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S DX

AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D*

Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED

 

Extras:

Nikon SB-800 Flash Unit*

2 x Nikon SB-600 Flash Unit*

16GB SD & CF Cards*

Manfrotto Monopod & Tripod

[FauxFighters]

Roxanne, I agree with you.  Misty Nolan and Jennifer Teague may have had a couple of poor shots on their pages, but you are having to really cherry pick to get TERRIBLE shots.  They belong nowhere near Cathleen and her ilk.  Please consider the whole of somebodies work before you use 3-5 pictures to completely trash them.

Southern Belle Photography, which you already posted once before Bri, is definitely in Faux territory.  She is most of the stereotypes we have previously suggested.  Looks like she’s a young Marine wife who has a D3100 with just the kit lens and pop-up flash.  Additionally she is now working at a Sears Portrait Studio.  Maybe she’ll learn the value of a real flash in making much better shots and will improve.  She’s not as bad as Cathleen or some others, but she has a lot of room to improve.

[FauxFighters]

The Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) in North Carolina.

[FauxFighters]

^Haha I wonder who that could be!  Looks like Bri is getting in on it too.  Nice!

[FauxFighters]

Totally agree Gerbles.  As I have stated earlier in this thread, I love seeing people interested in photography and showing off their work.  I do it on my personal page, as I make no attempt to advertise my business on the side or have a separate page to facilitate that.  But you are right, it amazes me how many people get a camera and start shooting and think they can just start charging for crap.  Great, she learned a few techniques on Photoshop and Lightroom (most of them are bad).  But even if you are working with great software, you can’t turn a terrible photo into a great photo.  It can fix small problems and enhance a good photo already and bring it up to the next level.  But if you are working with blurry, grainy, horribly composed shots already, it is not going to help.  If you polish a turd, it’s still just a turd.  She needs to refocus on learning how to use the camera instead of “fancy” ads and more props.  Maybe take it out of Auto mode for starters.  When she gets that “Cannon” camera, maybe she can buy a book on how to use it.  That would be a HUGE start for her.  And like you said Gerbles, I have digitized my whole families photography into one gigantic photo library.  Scanned photos, negatives, whatever.  Even when I was shooting with my little 1.2MP Kodak DC240 P&S 13 years ago, I got shots that were in focus, properly exposed, and of decent quality.  They certainly don’t compare favorably to my current stuff with nice glass and a D7000, but I would likely still take them over the photos by Cathleen.

 

[Author]

Posts