Tasty_Comfortable_77

100% hobbyist here.

A shot I think was great ten years ago might look pretty average now. But a shot I took ten years ago that I still think is great? Then it's great.

I couldn't put an exact number on it, but it's certainly less than ten percent of the shots I've ever taken, and that's quite a lot of photos. That doesn't mean that 90-plus percent of my shots are garbage (those get deleted). They're OK, they may even be good, but just not "great".

Joe McNally has a great phrase. If I remember right, he called it the "pucker factor" (try saying that fast). It's the feeling you get when you absolutely know beyond all doubt that you've taken a real cracker of a shot, and by that definition it is rare.

And if you evaluate too many of your shots as "great", then you have to raise your game to make "great" harder to get...

Of the many combinations of words possible in the English language, I think "self-expression" must be the one that causes me to roll my eyes the most. It has absolutely no meaning at all, it's pretentious, and it's used as a cover for bad photography.

"This photo is exposed incorrectly, the horizon line is clearly slanted, the colour's off, and it's not even close to sharp"

"I don't care. That photo is me Expressing Myself"

"What do you mean by that exactly?"

"Just that. I'm Expressing Myself"

"Yeah, but how to you Express Yourself in a garbage picture?"

"Don't ask me questions, just let me Express Myself!"

I'll have you know that I have received many Awards for my technically breathtaking pictures of brick walls!

You could remove "photo" from your question and it would still stand.

In almost any place where people gather - virtually or in real life - it is close enough to a certainty that at some point, however well-intentioned, well-moderated and well-meaning the place is, people will start being a**holes to each other.

I can think of exactly one place where this didn't happen, and that was on Ming Thein's site when it was running. The comments section of his articles (which was the closest thing the site had to a forum) was for the most part extremely cordial, or at least polite and respectful. Trolls and other such types were rare in the extreme. I can only guess that people were responding to talent and good writing.

But as a rule, yeah. It's like that old joke: God gave man religion, and then Satan came along and organised it. In this case it's like Tim Berners-Lee and the US military gave us the internet / web, and then people took this world-changing technology and used it to belittle each other over petty nonsense that means nothing.

Anyway, everyone knows that Canon cameras are garbage, I'm sorry, I said what I said, GTFOH, etc :-)

"It means artistic violation, kid, which is what you're about to do with that camera"

An excellent argument for regulation.

But on the other hand there are few things more fun to see than watching them crash and burn when they really do try and pull of a wedding with a kit lens and wonder why their client sues them.

I have a few.

1. People with no discernible talent deciding that they're important enough to teach "workshops" and "seminars". Don't misunderstand: there are people I would happily learn from, but they probably constitute 5% of the photographers out there who have the hubris to think that they have what it takes to tell other people how to shoot.

2. People who pass AI generated art off as photography. AI generated art is a fascinating subject in itself, and should be treated entirely separately from photography.

3. Brand tribalism. It's pathetic and sad.

4. People who try to "buy skill". I remember this guy who had a photography themed blog for a while. He was clearly extremely wealthy (nothing wrong with that in and of itself), and he seemed to be of the opinion that if you have very expensive cameras and lenses, your photos will be amazing (he owned several Leica M rangefinders and the Noctilux 0.95). His own photos did an excellent job at disproving his theory.

I see where you're coming from, and the condescension from many people here is predictable. But another way to see it: if you can't compose to save your life, if you don't understand colour, if you don't know what makes a photo interesting...then 120FPS and global shutter ain't going to help you.

All these incremental improvements do is make it easier to get certain kinds of pictures which were previously difficult, if not impossible, to get. That doesn't mean those pictures will be any good. It'll just be playing to the gallery. However, when you combine a photographer's eye with the possibility to get previously impossible shots, that's what justifies the new technology.

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys, as they say.

It would be fun to troll them back.

"Thank you for your enquiry. As you intend to get married at a church, the weather (sunny, cloudy, rainy,) will determine the equipment to be used, as well as the use or not of off-camera flash; similarly, it may be necessary to use a high ISO, necessitating the correct use of noise reduction later. Depending on various other factors, a wide angle zoom lens may be suitable, or, for other shots, a moderate tele lens. However, as you just offered an insulting amount of money for this service, I suggest you get your phone out and do it yourself. Sincerely..."

I've used Zenfolio as a blog for over ten years now, and I have so much material on there that it's not worth the effort to change. During a period when their website was behaving very erratically, I considered switching to a different place, but before I could get serious about it, they sorted the website out.

I put up a blog post roughly three weeks in every four, share links to my various social medias, and then focus on the next post. The numbers aren't of particular importance to me.

I'm not much of an expert in terms of making yourself famous, but from the photographic side of things: look into the genuine "top tier" photographers of animals and the outdoors and compare your photos to theirs. Be as brutally honest as possible with yourself. If you still think you've got what it takes, then you have to make people aware of who you are.

Google the names David Yarrow (mainly animals), Nick Brandt (same), Andy Rouse (animals and others), and Jay Dickman (animals and a lot of outdoors stuff), for starters.

The real photography elite can get deals with camera companies (Yarrow works with Nikon, Dickman with Olympus, etc.). But to get that far you have to not only be among the best of the best, you have to create a name, and that's the hard part. Most of these guys have been at it for decades. You have to think in terms of the long game if you're genuinely serious about doing it for a career. Also be aware that many working photographers will tell you that they only spend about 20 per cent of their time shooting, and the rest basically hustling, chasing payments, and all kinds of other boring admin stuff.

So start with an honest analysis of your abilities, and go from there.

I like comments which both make a valid point and also stir up a hornet's nest!