Controversial Topic: What irks you about other photographers?

Muzzieman said:
I have come across an attitude from quite a few pro photogs that they are reluctant to give praise on others work as they somehow think that will devalue their own work!
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I've never seen those attitudes expressed by genuine/knowledgeable/established professionals. Instead I think you're more likely to see that from aspiring photographers who have failed to achieve their goals and need to big themselves up. In other words, insecurity!
 
Ken Rockwell's website gives me rage.

Other than that I'm pretty chilled.
 
Lindsay D said:
That's atrocious. I go to car shows and I have never ever seen anybody behave like that,
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Neither have I. It's only a small scratch, about 2cm long, but it's not the point. She had a sparkly belt on, and I think the glittery stuff got on her jeans, and basically acted like sandpaper when she slid her fat arse over the bonnet. She wasn't climbing all over it or anything, but sat full on the bonnet/nearside wing.. feet off the ground.

I'd love to go to Goodwood... too far away though. I'm 'oop north :)
 
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thesilverfox said:
2. No EXIF data for images online


Part 2, I ought to explain. I learn by making mistakes and looking at what others are doing 'right' (in my eyes). To see how someone achieved a result, with what settings and equipment, is something I like to see a lot. When it is 'hidden' on the likes of Flickr. The accountant in me assumes something to hide, but of course I know that's not the case. It's just an irrational annoyance if you will.

Rationale or not - it irks me, as I just like to know how things work!!
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I'd irk you big time then. All my "serious" photography that can be seen on line is done using film cameras - and they don't put EXIF data on the film. But if you ever stumble across my work, I can tell you now that if it's from a 5x4, then it's odds on that the aperture was f/16, the film FP4 and the developer Rodinal at 1:25; the lens would be a 150mm Schneider Symmar; and you'd have to work out the probable shutter speed by judging what the lighting was.

More seriously, as others have pointed out, the lack of EXIF data may simply be that none is supplied by the equipment. And I rarely post details of what equipment I used, because in most cases the image could have been made with almost anything - given that we're talking about a very small image on the internet.
 
StephenM said:
I'd irk you big time then. All my "serious" photography that can be seen on line is done using film cameras - and they don't put EXIF data on the film. But if you ever stumble across my work, I can tell you now that if it's from a 5x4, then it's odds on that the aperture was f/16, the film FP4 and the developer Rodinal at 1:25; the lens would be a 150mm Schneider Symmar; and you'd have to work out the probable shutter speed by judging what the lighting was.

More seriously, as others have pointed out, the lack of EXIF data may simply be that none is supplied by the equipment. And I rarely post details of what equipment I used, because in most cases the image could have been made with almost anything - given that we're talking about a very small image on the internet.
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Indeed - I know that there is often a good reason for it, but in reality, those shooting film are (sadly) a much smaller percentage than ever before. To clarify, for digital uploads, the lack of EXIF is an irk (for me!). For film, even a brief description would help sometimes, though I do also accept that it's not a reasonable 'ask' when someone has a lot of content to comment on :D
 
Pookeyhead said:
Neither have I. It's only a small scratch, about 2cm long, but it's not the point. She had a sparkly belt on, and I think the glittery stuff got on her jeans, and basically acted like sandpaper when she slid her fat arse over the bonnet. She wasn't climbing all over it or anything, but sat full on the bonnet/nearside wing.. feet off the ground.

I'd love to go to Goodwood... too far away though. I'm 'oop north :)
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Does my bum look big on this,i take it the answer would be yes :)
 
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People who don't understand that email and a variety of other methods exist for sharing photos. It's the crushing inevitability when a group photo gets taken on a holiday (usually a ski trip after you've already wasted 20mins with everyone taking consecutive bathroom trips) that after the pic gets taken someone says "ooh, could you take one on mine too?!"

"and mine!"

"I'll have one too!"

ITS DIGITAL. EMAIL THE PHOTO.





phew
 
barratt1988 said:
I think digital is better than film but its my opinion
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Steve Smith said:
And you're perfectly entitled to have an opinion which is wrong!!


Steve.
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PMN said:
I'm guessing you've never drum scanned a frame of medium or large format film? ;)
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PMN said:
I have to admit, I have no idea how you interpreted it like that! :p
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Implying that film is better than digital, But you've suggested converting to Digital to get the best out of it.
 
Pookeyhead said:
sat full on the bonnet/nearside wing.. feet off the ground.
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Trespass!! I'd be fuming at that.

On the subject of cars and photographic annoyances, I have all but given up taking personal photos at these events because I've got quite sick and tired of attendees then sending me an e-mail demanding a copy of any photo containing them or their car, as if my role is to provide free professional photography to complete strangers. Their argument is often that they get given free pictures by other photographers - so to add to my list of gripes:

* photographers who give their work away for free to any chancer who asks
 
The whole copyright/watermark thing. I see a lot of ordinary (not necessarily poor) portfolios (mainly on Flickr), that for some obscure reason are either watermarked, copyrighted or both. As if anyone would steal or pay for them. Really. It just seems pretentious. (But when I say "ordinary", I mean in an objective sense - they are likely very special and meaningful to the photographer - just not to others). If you happen to catch a really special shot, treat that differently, but just copyrighting/watermarking everything? Not necessary.
 
Lindsay D said:
Trespass!! I'd be fuming at that.

.....so to add to my list of gripes:

* photographers who give their work away for free to any chancer who asks
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Well, that would be me, then. I am flattered by the request and that's all the payment I need.
 
StephenM said:
More seriously, as others have pointed out, the lack of EXIF data may simply be that none is supplied by the equipment. And I rarely post details of what equipment I used, because in most cases the image could have been made with almost anything - given that we're talking about a very small image on the internet.
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To be honest, EXIF details are nobodies business but the photographers and the photographer is under no obligation to provide this to the public at large. It's also pretty irrelevant. I do however leave the EXIF in the pictures because it helps to prevent e-mails asking me about it.
Winkyphoto said:
Well, that would be me, then. I am flattered by the request and that's all the payment I need.
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Neil, are you saying you would give copies of your work to a wealthy stranger, or a multinational corporation who wanted to use your output to promote their services and gain profit? Whilst you remain the only person in the chain who's unrewarded? That's a far cry from passing your pictures to your friends for their own enjoyment - I just want to be clear that isn't what I was referring to because we're all free to share our work with the people who mean something to us (and I do that quite often). I'm talking about strangers who intend to benefit from photographs whilst showing us so much contempt that they offer nothing in exchange. If you bow down to that then you're doing yourself (and the industry) a great disservice in my opinion. I think in order to appreciate this you have to depend on photography to an extent for your income. In the last week alone I've had two very high profile organisations approach me wanting my work for their advertising - one was a very well-known camera manufacturer and the other was a household name. Neither were prepared to even consider giving me anything in return, and as usual one of the reasons is the fact that they feel photography should be free because so many photographers also see it that way and can be 'flattered' into parting with their assets. I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm having a go at you, it's nothing personal, it's just that some of us deal with this quite often and it can be unpleasant at times.
 
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Lindsay D said:
To be honest, EXIF details are nobodies business but the photographers
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..and the client. I often include client details in the EXIF for cataloguing purposes, so anything commercial gets the EXIF nuked if posting online. Also... film has no EXIF.. people still use that :)
 
Pookeyhead said:
..and the client. I often include client details in the EXIF for cataloguing purposes, so anything commercial gets the EXIF nuked if posting online. Also... film has no EXIF.. people still use that :)
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Yes of course, but I thought we were talking about the curiosity of other photographers (as in 'the public'). You would be mad if you passed images to a client or agency without all of your details in the EXIF.
 
Lindsay D said:
* Aspiring photographers who show no interest in learning the basics, but will insist they don't need to because they are an 'artist'. Therefore the blurred photos, blown highlights and poor white balance is deliberate and part of their creativity
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... so true. I appreciate that not everyone wants to research and study but I tell you what, the best photographers out there I know of never stop learning and always make sure they get the basics right. I know people don't like to be told that there are 'rules' of photography but you know, the basics are there for a lot of good reasons... because they make your photos more appealing!!!
 
Lindsay D said:
Yes of course, but I thought we were talking about the curiosity of other photographers (as in 'the public'). You would be mad if you passed images to a client or agency without all of your details in the EXIF.
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althiugh that said i'd usually strip out the exposure details on wedding shots if provided digitally - my experience if you don't you get uncle bob saying things like "oh he only use f2.8 on that shot, i wouldnt have done it like that, i'd have used f8 and then your shots would have been much better" - to the happy couple (in the example concerned they were shot in a very dark church without flash and with the iso cranked up to max - if I'd shot that at f8 all i'd have got was a blurry mess, but that didnt stop the bride from emailing with "my freind says....")

since then all exposure details etc get nuked during final PP
 
nass said:
... so true. I appreciate that not everyone wants to research and study but I tell you what, the best photographers out there I know of never stop learning and always make sure they get the basics right. I know people don't like to be told that there are 'rules' of photography but you know, the basics are there for a lot of good reasons... because they make your photos more appealing!!!
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Quite often if you point out the problem they'll blame their equipment - insisting there must be a fault with it, when in fact it comes down to a simple understanding of focus for example, or how to set the right white balance.
 
big soft moose said:
althiugh that said i'd usually strip out the exposure details on wedding shots if provided digitally - my experience if you don't you get uncle bob saying things like "oh he only use f2.8 on that shot,
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I think this is a really good point - I've heard of overzealous relatives or clients who are into photography scrutinising the information and deciding its "wrong", even though it's entirely appropriate for the conditions. How much EXIF data I leave in depends on who the recipient is. If it's my personal archives on my blog then I'm quite happy to leave everything in, but if the work is going to a social or domestic client then it's my contact information and copyright details which will remain and most of the technical stuff would be removed. For magazines they tend to require everything because if the article is a technical one they can draw the information they need from the image without me having to list it in a document. I think stock agencies would also require that everything is intact.
 
Lindsay D said:
I've never seen those attitudes expressed by genuine/knowledgeable/established professionals. Instead I think you're more likely to see that from aspiring photographers who have failed to achieve their goals and need to big themselves up. In other words, insecurity!
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that - what you do see is the attitude that protogs are grudging with praise being expressed by people who have had work critiqued and didnt like it that the pro was the first not to blow smoke up their arse
 
Lindsay D said:
Quite often if you point out the problem they'll blame their equipment - insisting there must be a fault with it, when in fact it comes down to a simple understanding of focus for example, or how to set the right white balance.
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either that or insisting the 'problen' was deliberate - "no its like motion blur innit, gives a sense of movement to the image - its not that i buggered up the shutter speed or anything"
 
big soft moose said:
either that or insisting the 'problen' was deliberate - "no its like motion blur innit, gives a sense of movement to the image - its not that i buggered up the shutter speed or anything"
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A good one I had recently was "those are not dust spots, it was spray from the weir I was stood next to!" Really, I think not?
 
MWHCVT said:
A good one I had recently was "those are not dust spots, it was spray from the weir I was stood next to!" Really, I think not?
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well i suppose if he changed lenses while stood next to a weir it could be spray on the sensor :LOL:
 
Lindsay D said:
To be honest, EXIF details are nobodies business but the photographers and the photographer is under no obligation to provide this to the public at large. It's also pretty irrelevant. I do however leave the EXIF in the pictures because it helps to prevent e-mails asking me about it.


Neil, are you saying you would give copies of your work to a wealthy stranger, or a multinational corporation who wanted to use your output to promote their services and gain profit? Whilst you remain the only person in the chain who's unrewarded? That's a far cry from passing your pictures to your friends for their own enjoyment - I just want to be clear that isn't what I was referring to because we're all free to share our work with the people who mean something to us (and I do that quite often). I'm talking about strangers who intend to benefit from photographs whilst showing us so much contempt that they offer nothing in exchange. If you bow down to that then you're doing yourself (and the industry) a great disservice in my opinion. I think in order to appreciate this you have to depend on photography to an extent for your income. In the last week alone I've had two very high profile organisations approach me wanting my work for their advertising - one was a very well-known camera manufacturer and the other was a household name. Neither were prepared to even consider giving me anything in return, and as usual one of the reasons is the fact that they feel photography should be free because so many photographers also see it that way and can be 'flattered' into parting with their assets. I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm having a go at you, it's nothing personal, it's just that some of us deal with this quite often and it can be unpleasant at times.
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It is somewhere in the middle. I post all my decent shots (and plenty of others besides) on Flickr. I upload the full-size files and place no restriction on anybody using them, other than CC licence where I seek simple attribution (but to be honest, I don't even really care about that). People are usually kind enough to seek permission before using them. The users are typically not big companies but people just doing simple, small-scale things. I have a photo used on a fridge magnet, for example. They sent me a couple! Another use was in a first aid guide somebody was writing. Another was a travel information website - but all very low key.

I also like to shoot whippet racing (my wife's hobby). I like it because it is a real challenge (fast little buggers!). I post the photos on Flickr and send a link to the club email list so the owners of dogs can download a picture of their dog if they want to (and they do!). There are a few (semi?) pros who come to some events. What I do may eat into their business of selling shots to dog owners. I also shoot some local cyclocross - same thing. Post photos and place the link on various forums and MBs so people can download photos of themselves or friends.

I don't think anybody makes real money from my shots (never seen one used in a significant commercial context - but who knows, I guess?), but do acknowledge that I am "white-anting" people trying to make a buck from their photos. They just need to be better than me if they want people to pay them, I guess.
 
Pookeyhead said:
"Photographers" who treat expensive cars at car shows as "props" for them to use as they wish. Yes... I'm talking to YOU the "Photographer" who is a TP member (Despite being tempted... I shall not name... you know who you are) who saw fit to have their heifer of a model sit on my Mustang and scratch my paint the other day... you know who you are. The invoice for repair will be with you shortly.
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**makes mental note to keep eyes on people forums for that one**

In all seriousness some people just leave me shaking my head.
 
PMN said:
No I haven't, I never said anything of the sort. Get your facts right before quoting me!
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Ok in that case I apologise. As a noob can you explain what you meant then.

Cheers
 
Oops can of worms on EXIF data there I see.

I don't consider it a right of mine to know how someone shot but it just irks me.

Not because I'm going to critique it or say it was wrong, but to learn for myself.

Purely selfish in my irk, but then I did caveat it with understanding in some fashion that it's appropriate.

Part of me thinks some do leave it out to hide things but some just don't want to share.

Saying - for want of a better expression - that the EXIF data is "none of your business" is a bit direct IMO, but that's just how I consider it.

Personally if someone likes the shot, don't complain, don't entertain the people who tell you it's wrong. More so if you're a professional - surely ignoring the know-it-alls is par for the course?

So yes - an irk for sure (for me), but then that's what this thread is - annoyances, not factual issues with photography as a whole. But at least I garner some rationale for those who don't choose to share it - I just never consider it much of a secret and have let people use images from crappy compacts up to DSLR without anything more than copies of finished goods/articles and recognition. I don't consider any of my work worthy of income at this point in time - maybe one day!
 
thesilverfox said:
I don't consider it a right of mine to know how someone shot but it just irks me.
Not because I'm going to critique it or say it was wrong, but to learn for myself.
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There's only so much you can learn from EXIF anyway. Knowing shutter speed, aperture and ISO won't enable you to recreate someone's lighting for instance. The full metadata may contain some aspects of the post processing at the RAW stage, but anything done in Photoshop won't be logged. It won't explain if any filters (real filters) have been used. If the image is a composite, then you've no idea what part of the composite is providing the matadata. I've just taken some images for a local theatre production, and the shots of the actors were comped into a shot of a forest. The forest image was taken by me ages ago on a D2x, but the actual images of actors were on a D800E. After comping in Photoshop and saving out the final TIFF for print, the EXIF of that TIFF says it's taken on a D2X with a shutter speed of 3 seconds or something. So what would THAT have taught you? :)


thesilverfox said:
Part of me thinks some do leave it out to hide things but some just don't want to share.
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Or as I've already said, it's removed because many professionals use the metadata to also log client details for cataloguing and there would be stuff like client phone number, address etc all in the IPTC... so if a job for a client gets posted online, it gets ALL metadata removed. So YES.. sometimes they ARE hiding stuff from you :)


thesilverfox said:
Saying - for want of a better expression - that the EXIF data is "none of your business" is a bit direct IMO, but that's just how I consider it.
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It is though... you have no right to it, and you can't complain if it's not there.
 
Pookeyhead said:
There's only so much you can learn from EXIF anyway. Knowing shutter speed, aperture and ISO won't enable you to recreate someone's lighting for instance. The full metadata may contain some aspects of the post processing at the RAW stage, but anything done in Photoshop won't be logged. It won't explain if any filters (real filters) have been used. If the image is a composite, then you've no idea what part of the composite is providing the matadata. I've just taken some images for a local theatre production, and the shots of the actors were comped into a shot of a forest. The forest image was taken by me ages ago on a D2x, but the actual images of actors were on a D800E. After comping in Photoshop and saving out the final TIFF for print, the EXIF of that TIFF says it's taken on a D2X with a shutter speed of 3 seconds or something. So what would THAT have taught you? :)




Or as I've already said, it's removed because many professionals use the metadata to also log client details for cataloguing and there would be stuff like client phone number, address etc all in the IPTC... so if a job for a client gets posted online, it gets ALL metadata removed. So YES.. sometimes they ARE hiding stuff from you :)




It is though... you have no right to it, and you can't complain if it's not there.
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All valid points and in fairness, I recognised most of those issues in some form in my reply - you just quoted certain elements. I understand (as I've already said a few times) that there are valid reasons - none more so than personal data for instance.

I still like it to guide me - as I'm sure others do. Where something has been obviously manipulated, well, the surely I'd imagine common sense prevails!
 
ChrisGilbert said:
For some of us our internet connection is so rubbish that we habitually strip out all info when saving the shot to reduce the amount of time we have to wait to upload stuff.
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Again another valid reason.

I ought to restate (as per previous) that my personal irks are not "salient fact" and therefore I expect all and sundry to agree. That's unreasonable. It's just mine alone to be irked by (unless folk do agree) ;)
 
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