(no subject)

[olivermoss]

Me on a shoot: Literally kneeling in mud on an unpaved street at 1:00 AM to get 200 ISO shot in the dark

Comment on the image: I'm sure it was on accident but the lighting really turned out great on this, and the angle. Man, photos just turn out that way sometimes don't they?

Why are people?

I finally have a raw file previewer that works with Olympus filetypes working so I can actually see what those massive folders of raw files have in them. Hopefully, this will help me get better organized. But man, I have maaaasssive folder of repetitive, lackluster images. Some with baffling choices for the focus. I definitely did used to 'spray and pray'. Lotta crappy pictures, but somehow I eventually started to learn?

I need to sort through for a few images if I can find the original, but I shouldn't spend too much time on this. I am mostly better off taking more pictures. Life would be so much easier if this was all better organized.

Comments

[malinaldarose]

"Spray and pray" -- Yeah, that's pretty much how I do it.

[olivermoss]

I'm glad I did it at times, because I've got the shots. But sorting through all that after was insane.

[writedragon]

People don't realize how much skill and choice goes into art making (that includes writing) of any kind. Which is why I've had to fight my whole career to get paid for what I do for money (writing, mostly). I feel your pain. Your work is really cool though; I hope you get to keep doing it for as long as it's fun for you.

[olivermoss]

I try to not complain too much, but the amount of 'pfft, I could take a shot like that' type reactions I get is unreal. The 'I'm sure it was on accident' part of the comment just annoyed me, though.

Thanks! I plan to keep doing it. Only way to having better galleries is to keep at it.

[mistressofmuses]

Why ARE people. It's so offensive to me for anyone to comment (on any art form, tbh), with such a backhanded 'compliment.' Noticing something that was absolutely very intentional and worked for and assuming "gosh, it just magically happened all by itself" is so insulting. (But it seems like people feel more entitled to say that shit on photography than other types of art, though I've seen similar jackwad comments on writing.)

[olivermoss]

I think with photography people always think they could have taken the shot, and with writing they think they could 'if they took the time'. With drawing most people realize no, they can't.

They never understand the image enough to realize to know what made it good, or the technical side of the shot. It shouldn't bother me because it's so dumb, but sometimes it does.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, I think you're right about their "reasoning", even though it's not actually very reasonable. So many people are sure that they could get any given photo if they'd been in the same place at the same time. (And yeah, assume that of course they could write perfectly well if they'd wanted to.)

It's just so damn insulting to have people look at a work (photo, story, fic, etc.), specifically point out the things that make that work good, that the artist behind it worked to achieve, and blithely comment on how they couldn't have meant to do it. Fuck off.

"Wow, the color composition of this is just so beautiful! I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose, but it's great!"
"I know it was just an accident, but the lighting on this is so nice!"
"I'm not sure if you noticed, but the way the beginning and end dialogue coincidentally and accidentally parallel each other is really cool."
"I know you didn't mean to write it that way, but the emotional arc in this fic was so cathartic!"

FUCK YOU.

I also realize it's stupid and shouldn't bother me, but it does. >:(

[olivermoss]

Sounds like you've been through a few rounds of that myself.

What do they expect? 'Why yes, clever person, I never realized what I was even writing! All this structural stuff just happened by magic!'

I know I am not the best photog and I don't shoot everyday, but people really do not get what goes into creating the galleries that I've got. I am not satisfied with those galleries and will be back out tonight working on them, but I've literally walked miles in the rain, gotten one keeper shot and been happy with that. Not to break my own arm patting myself on the back, but people think that just millions of cameraphones somehow create the great photographic content online, like it's crowdsourced by the masses and no ... not at all. Lucky shots happen, but not nearly that often. People just like to think that they can get shots like that. But most meme formats are stock photos for a reason.

The internet thinks the infamous Chimpanzee Selfie was a fluke from a chimp grabbing a camera and not the culmination of a several months long project of a photographer.

[mistressofmuses]

I've gotten it, and so have other friends of mine.

But right? "Gosh, it's true! I hadn't even thought about the words I put down! How cool they just happened in that order all by themselves!"

You're absolutely right. I think that people almost all having access to a fairly decent cameraphone at all times has really made them feel like *good* photography is equally ubiquitous. And it really... isn't.
I wonder if the way camera [especially phone] capabilities are advertised impacts it, too? I know you've talked before about how deceptive the practices are, with simulated screen images that are absolutely NOT fair representation of what you'd really get. But if people believe that a commercial showing a crystal-clear, perfectly lit, amazingly close-up concert picture taken from way back in the venue IS what you can expect just aiming the phone up over your head to get a picture... too many people may come away with the idea that the camera does all the work.

Right? Photography is so often also divorced from the photographer, in a way that's really unfair.

[olivermoss]

Samsung has been caught repeatedly putting images in it's ads that have been traced back to dSLR photographers. Huawei likes to do fake viral ads. "omg gee what this camera phone did" when in reality it's part dSLR and part special effects.

Robin Wong compared a 10 year old mini camera to the latest Samsung. Those tiny cell phone lenses, there is a hard limit on how much light they can take in. They perform great in very limited circumstances, but they still don't compare to a camera that is worse than my first starter camera from 2010.

The adverting is a mess. People have so much faith in phones or in camera aps or those dumb clip on lenses to totally do macro shots! When I was at The Grand Canyon someone asked me to take their picture and stood backlit against the Arizona desert sun. I told them it wouldn't work and they were so condescending about how they had the latest phone and it auto-adjusts, etc. It didn't. It could not handle those conditions. They were solid black silhouettes against the sky. They begged me to take the shot because I was carrying camera gear and then ignored me and acted like I didn't 'get' camera phones with my bulky gear.

People really do want to divorce the photographer from the photos and treat it all like community property.

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, god. Yeah, the advertising is trash! I was definitely thinking of Samsung... but yeah, such deliberately misleading advertisement of what a phone camera is capable of (much less how easy it is to get that quality) probably impacts what people think is possible.

My little point and shoot sony digital camera kicked the ass of any of the cell cameras I've had. It bit it close to 4? years ago, I think? And I got that one to replace the one that died near the end of high school, so it'd be well over a decade old, and was far from professional grade.

I use my cell phone, because it's what I have, but it's extremely limited in what it's good for!

That's really obnoxious about the "take our picture" tourists. It doesn't work like that! Against the damn AZ sun, you aren't going to be able to see shit! And if your cell camera is able to adjust to keep you visible, the background is going to be so washed out it isn't going to matter!

I think that photography is definitely the art form that gets that treatment the worst. Art and writing theft happen, certainly, but I feel like most people at least recognize that they *had* an original creator and didn't just appear out of the ether.

[olivermoss]

I hate the words 'could you take our picture?' so much by now. It feels rude, almost aggressively so, to turn people down. But I've had so many weird and unpleasant experiences. I seem to give off an aura of 'ask me to take your picture' even when not carrying visibly camera gear.

With those lighting conditions, there is no adjusting enough to make the faces visible. The sensor can't handle the light intensity without a polarizing filter. Arizona sun is brutal.

Yeah, people treat photography like is 'just happens'... meanwhile I've got sore hips from walking on slick sidewalks for ... idk some number of miles last night.

[mistressofmuses]

It does seem like the kind of thing you can't say no to without seeming like a total asshole, but yeah, people get weird about shit like that.

Right? There's too little respect for how much goes into getting good shots!