a thousand words

i'm not a photographer nor am i an expert in photography. im not even sure if they're the same thing. but i do know shit from gold. also, i hate trends. so when this picture-taking trend exploded, i saw shit everywhere. suddenly, every person with a dslr hanging from their neck is a photographer. suddenly, they're watermarking their snapshots and offering their services online. it's like these people bought a sword from the store and started calling themselves warriors. well, money can buy happiness but it can't buy talent.

sure there are workshops and trainings out there, but those can only do so much. oftentimes, these gatherings produce only by-the-book photographers who can't think beyond what they've learned. as i've said before, true talent is inborn and it can't be replicated by wannabes.

so what do these incompetent buffoons do? they turn to photoshop. what their photos lack, photoshop provides. didn't have proper lighting? tweaking curves and levels will do the trick. boring background? add some royalty free clouds. lines on subject's face? airbrush that crap out. airburshing gets the most abuse as some magazines have covers sporting mannequins. what is wrong with these people? great photographers plan and prepare for their shots. they don't just push the shutter button and let photoshop handle the rest. a little color correction and editing some unwanted stuff is okay. but beyond that is a subtraction to the photographer's credit.

i knew someone who photoshops every picture taken and actually proud of it. they'd add grunge effects, filters, textures and the like just to make the photo "better". they'd take a picture and then make it black and white in photoshop. why not shoot it in black and white in the first place? what's the dslr for then? it's acceptable to do all of these digital manipulations on a photo from a point-and-click digicam. a dslr is expensive for a reason: there are things you can achieve with it that you cannnot with a digicam and you should spend time to learn them instead of depending on software to cheat and fool your fans/clients.

so to anyone who owns a dslr, print this and stick it right below the viewfinder: great photographers don't rely on photoshop.



p.s. there are only 373 words on this post.
p.p.s. christopher lao: if you are so goddamn smart as your allies say you are, you should have admitted your mistake of turning your car into a buoy instead of being a total douchebag idiot and blaming others for not telling you what's already obvious. fuck you.