The bogan is a lucid and inventive reptile. It likes a considerable number of things. When it sees a potential synergy between two or more of these things, it has an instinctive feel for how to bring them together. After many years of it and its friends paying considerable amounts of money for fuzzy glamour photography and fuzzy photographs of it running red lights, the bogan realises that it has all of the necessary attributes to become a brilliant artist; probably the world’s best photographer. All that is missing is a short course on photography.
Four Thursday nights later, this missing link has been overcome, and the bogan is ready to bloom. Well, after it marches out and creates a fresh $3,500 of credit card debt on a digital SLR camera and whatever lenses, tripods, bags, software, and random accessories the guy in the camera shop gets the most commission for. At this point, the bogan spies another potential synergy. It creates a facebook group that it requests all of its friends to join. The facebook group boasts of the bogan’s expert skills in everything ranging from landscape shots to weddings. Its strident anti-intellectualism prohibits it from understanding why anyone would waste time completing a degree in something that is so intuitive and natural to the photographic bogan. “Finally, reasonable prices 4 great photography!”, one of its friends posts on the group’s wall, under instruction from the group’s creator. The bogan struts around with its new equipment.
After its first wedding shoot is complete, the bogan sits down at its computer to display its photoshopping skills. First stop is to delete all shots taken without removing the lens cap. Next, to make the shots sepia, like all good photos are. It then adds in a digital lens flare, a border, and then restores the colour blue to the photo, for max art value. Due to it knowing only how to use the default settings on its high quality camera, and the abovementioned four tricks on Photoshop, the process stops at this point. The bogan exclaims that it is “as good as the pros!”, and then concludes that it IS a pro. The wonky, tasteless, poorly lit photographs are then presented to the newlyweds. It quickly becomes apparent that the extra $400 to get a proper photographer would have been money well spent, and the happy couple informs the bogan of their lack of happiness with its handiwork.
The bogan’s creative ego is under siege at this point, so some form of tenuous scapegoat is scrambled for, and quickly located. Nevertheless, the customer demands a partial refund, which coincides with the camera equipment heading into the rumpus room cupboard for an indefinite period.
Things Bogans Like 
Remarkably accurate.
“I shoot with a 21 Mega-pixel Camera, It’s X-treme” ~ Uneducated Bogan
It’s a canon 5d Mark II, and all he has to mention about it is the size of the sensor -.-
Those 5d’s are fair mad. Dad has one, cannon make amazing lenses. I prefer hasselblad, but my account says no.
LOL. You should look right down the barrel of that cannon and press “click”. And soon…
Ultra high res eyeball comming up!
If I steal my dad flash I could get a nice shot of my retina.
LOL. You’re too stupid to post here.
No you. 😛
I win!
LOL. Please win by shooting yourself in the face with the cannon, as promised.
Will do, can do a nice black and white number (contrasted turned up to 11 to hide my skin imperfections) with my iris picked out in an electric blue for some class. I’ll even throw in a background of me fighting dinosaurs for free. 🙂
LOL. If you do as requested (and accepted), none of that will matter.
Oh dear.
Why?
LOL. Ugh!
Canon: http://photocrati.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/canon-eos-400d-rebel-xti.jpg
cannon: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TsarCannon.jpg
It’s just not the same when I have to point it out. 😦
But I don’t have any old military hardware, if you could provide an old bronze casting pattern, tin, copper (a bit of lead for good measure). I could make one 🙂
I’ll need a forge and a crucible made from some sort of refractory too please. 🙂
Bwahahahahhaahaaaa!!
I’ve got a pro-fotog friend who finished her Masters in Photography last year. She’s found it incredibly difficult to get established, and I totally blame El Bogue for this – the attitude and approach you mention above is spot on, and frankly, we’re all poorer for it.
I’ve also got a number of friends (none of whom are bogan, just wanted to save money) who chose the non-pro route for their wedding photos, and boy oh boy the difference in quality of composition, production, and design is stark.
I take about 4500 photos a year, could possibly print about 300 (mostly ok, some needing exposure adjustment by 1/3-1/2 stop), but there is NO WAY I would claim I’m in the same league as my pro friend. We got her to take some photos of our daughter when she was 6 months old – she took photos which I have matched perhaps twice in 5 years.
I can’t wait until Apple puts a DSLR into one of their products. Say, the next iPod or iPhone. Maxtreme bogasm will ensue.
Apple just unveiled at their latest conference how the iPod Touch can now do HDR photos, a realm that used to be only touched by competent photoshoppers and other voodoo science practitioners.
hahaha so accurate! I met one of these camera pro bogans on the weekend. The boguetographer having managed to justify the very expensive purchase of some superflashy SLR (extra expensive as you dont need the big lenses) due to their impending attendance at Bon Jovi…
My friend’s fiancé (now ex) invited himself to take “professional” photos (for free, thankfully) at our friend’s wedding – but this involved him trying to style and direct the bride and groom in a rude and intrusive manner, purely because he’d bought a “real” camera. If anyone hadn’t already been convinced of what a tool he was before…
Yeah, a friend told me off when I bought a professionally made video of my graduation after they had videoed it with their own camera. We saw why when we viewed the “just-as-good” film later.
It started off with the scene flying about violently, then pointed down at his feet, when you could hear him saying, “Is this on?”
I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m personally a bit excited by what I see as the first TBL entry (or at least the first in a while) that sits within the broader category of “things that bogans think they can do as well as trained professionals and fail miserably in attempting”.
It seems like a really rich vein that has been relatively untapped, despite the fact that we’re rapidly closing in on 200 posts.
Good show, TBL.
I’ve got a mate who makes good money out of the bogan photography thing. For a small fee he will display your pics on his website and sometimes even sell them. Yes bogans, maXimum return for doing nothing. Just upload your pic.
He does get a few disgruntled customers. Those who think reading the manual makes them a pro. Lucky it’s all on the interweb or there could be glassings a-plenty.
I was very close to signing up for a short course in photography and went very close to forking out a few bucks for a camera but then realized that I would most likely never do anything with it and end up storing it in the rumpus room cupboard for an indefinite period.
I think the bogue would use the camera in the bedroom before retiring it to the cupboard.
Here’s a ‘good’ example:
Shirley asked us to remove these links. They are now relegated to the digital ether. TBL
#2 in that album is ….
Ugh.
Tragic.
Yep. As is #8.
I think I just lost the will to live.
Maybe you shouldn’t click this link then:
And again. TBL
Why in god’s name would Eleanora like that? What is to like?
On the contrary, Shirley, that rekindled my will to live, so that I can track Eleanora down and ask her what she was thinking when she clicked that little thumbs up.
I’m pleased to have reinstalled purpose into your life.
I really should stop ratting out my acquaintances here.
I have an ex friend like this too. Started up some shitty photo/graphic design company where their “skillset” consists of using the default Photoshop filters.
That girl would scrub up alright if she lost the mouth piercing, maybe lost a few kgs and dumped that bogan pig of a man.
Thanks for ratting them out Shirley, I would too but it might get me into trouble. She was a nice enough person so I won’t.
Haha – it was the photography we were critiquing, not the people, Martin, tsk tsk.
Although… it’s rather difficult to look at those photos and not think the “photographer” ever stood a chance…
never*
Aha. Yeah right. 😀
This is why we have models. I’m now very grateful for the existence of models. Usually I just think of them as a bunch of idiots.
@ Shirl
“I really should stop ratting out my acquaintances here.”
No you shouldn’t. 😉
LOL. I am asking you to NOT remove mine.
Oh thank god.
I went to a wedding on the weeking and after reading TBL’s post this morning I became slightly worried that their photographer was one of these types. I don’t know a lot about photography so I wasn’t 100% sure(although having said that, I probably know a lot more about photography than many others, it’s just that I generally choose to be unboganly modest about it).
But clicking on the links has me confident they chose wisely – clearly a whole different ball park.
Meanwhile, has anyone seen this website?
http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/
I saw a book of it at the airport. I know that LOLing in the book shelves of the Cairns Airport Newslink is bogan, but I did it and I don’t care.
i love the port-a-loo bride.
GOLD! I want that ‘black holes are out of sight’ T-Shirt.
For someone who simply refuses to visit Facebook for a number of reasons, what lies behind the hyperlink?
That’s bewwwdiful Shirl…**spew**
LOL. What an attractive couple. I particularly admire how she was able to bring out the colour in his wonderful tattoos.
awwww……. lemme see… lemme seee…..
Reading this post I was pleasently surprised to see ads for ‘Harvey Norman Photo Centre’ appear- how fitting
As someone who has studied photography for 4 years, these people are the bane of our existence. It is amazing how many people ask me what sort of camera they should buy, then not listen to me and buy the big SLR. In the bogan world the amount of megapixels is commensurate with the skill of the photographer.
Try explaining to a bogan that more megapixels ≠ better quality shots and they’ll look at you blankly. An 8MP camera with a high quality lens and larger sensor will blow a 12MP with an ordinary lens and smaller sensor out of the water.
Hear hear: I use the same “obsolete” Canon EOS 10D I’ve had for six-and-a-half years; it’s “only” 6.3 MP, but the high quality lenses with a CMOS (copper metal oxide sensor) render the images as sharp and strong in tonality.
Unless you are going to perform maxxtreme enlargements (another thing bogans like), you really don’t require that much in the way of megapixels, nice as they are to have.
Mega pixels are like dicks, it’s all in how you use them.
@ Si GaA
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA
We had to replace our old digital camera after it went missing moving houses. My partner stupidly suggested we invest in a DSLR, to which I foolishly agreed. Needless to say, 18 months later, we’ve just purchased a bog-standard compact digital camera because neither of us could be arsed learning how to properly use the DSLR, nor could we be arsed lugging it everywhere we’d normally take a camera.
We did pay cash though.
The important bit is to never take it off the scene/picture settings, except to shoot the V8s at 1/4000th of a second
Its funny, anytime I mention to people that I am a (very) amatuer photographer the first thing they say is do you do weddings? Are you f%&*king kidding? I don’t need that sort of pressure. It gets worse when I reveal that I actually take photos with a camera that uses FILM. “Why don’t you get a digital, you can take 20 shots of the same thing & one of them will be perfect” How do get through to these idiots that the camera dosen’t take the shot, the photographer does. I have better shots from a point & shoot that I found in a pub than some arse clown with his $3500 job. It is classic bogan thinking that more money equals more talent.
How nice of you to keep someone else’s camera they lost. Help yourself hey?
I am not proud of my behaviour. I plead guilty due to maxXxtreme drunkeness & throw myself at the mercy of the court.
You could have called the pub the next day and told them your friend had mistakenly picked up a camera thinking it was yours and if the owner calls looking for it to let you know… then it’s finders keepers if they don’t and your conscience is clear…
What if said camera had belonged to a bogan before Panda got their mitts on it? Bogans have been known to own P&S cameras, although the role of a camera for drunken bogan happy snaps has been usurped by the iPhone.
@ Panda
Not guilty. We all do stupid sh!t under the influence of booze and bogans.
Standard Facebook photography fan site info I have been taking photos for years and my friends said I should have a fan page.
This one has the standard bogan color colorselection happening in a lot of shots
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rachel-May-Photography/103924399650824
Do people really pay for these shots? Even my mom said i bet they regret it in a few years
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Newcastle-Australia/Almost-An-Angel-Photography-By-Tamara-Coan/277534776627
Oh dear… Obviously mastered saturation/desaturation in photoshop, but haven’t discovered the grid or the straighten tool as yet.
FFS. My 3 year old takes better photos with the ancient Canon PowerShot we gave him as a hand-me-down than most of the tripe the alleged Facebook ‘photographers’ shit out.
Oh wow.
I knew I shouldn’t have, but clicked the link all the same…
Nothing like having people scrag fight & drop the C Bomb on your supposedly professional page….
Oh, and yes, the work was woeful.
Can’t even get the composition right, let alone exposure…. good grief. They have no shame…!
that was horrible
Interestingly, I had the same reaction to this post as I had the first time (of 1000s) I herd a photographer raise these exact complaints: Those concerned with the gear or technique of others are merely highlighting their own insecurities.
Although the meaning is quite different, I think this statement apples equally in both contexts. Interesting.
Oi! Me camera’s ace!
Don’t ever knock me photos
Or I’ll glass ya, c#$t!
a haiku! bravo.
here’s a contribution from me:
black and white for class
add some red for artiness
so profeshnul me
This is all well and good, but can you guys point me to any photo galleries that you think have quality shots? What qualifies them as “good”? I’m not a photographic genius, so a comparison between these bad shots and those deemed “good” would help me learn. Thanks
Google some real professional photographers and specify a type eg landscape photography, potraits etc. I would guess that most of the ones on facebook would not be good.
But… you guys seem to be professing to be knowledgeable on the subject. Simply pointing me to Google means that I run the risk of staring at a self proclaimed “professional” photographer (like a bogan) and not know whether the shots are indeed “good”. Please provide me something to which I can compare, just so I’m on the same page as you guys.
try here: that is what a good shot should look like http://jonjarvela.com/
Image Googling “Good wedding photography” turned up this result
http://www.shaunmurrayphotography.com.au
Are these good? What qualifies it as good?
I’m going with a no. Also I have zero qualification so what do I know anyway, they just look crap in my opinion.
Thanks Simon. If anyone more qualified wants to weigh in, I would appreciate the enlightenment. 🙂
@ Si GaA
Agreed, cheesy crap. I have no qualifications either. But maybe wedding pics are suppose to be cheesy?
If someone is going to do something as stupid, timewasting and mock-worthy as getting married, I don’t see how any amount of poor photography can make that any more ridiculous.
Left on the shelf Sibyl?
Not at all Simone. Stable relationship of 11 years, following on from one of 17 years. 3 proposals rejected. I don’t see the point in marriage, is all, and I’m surprised that, in this day and age, it’s still heralded as something important. Tis a mystery to me.
I’m with Simon.
These are pretty good:
http://www.gemma-clarke.com/
Thanks Shirley M
Framing the shot seems to feature highly. It’s not specifically about the subjects, but the entire shot and how the subjects are placed within it.
Again… as a layman.
However, i’m now detracting from the bogan scorn.
Yep, better. Given she had to work with rugby people she did well.
These guys are good. Framing and lighting are the keys. The big distinction between good and bad photography is the lighting.You can be lucky with context and framing, but generally only the pros get the lighting right. If the photographers also do product shots for advertising material they’re probably pretty good as product shots are notoriously difficult to do.
http://www.shootonsite.com.au/home.html
First of all emotion makes a good shot.
Then technically are they good (are there some “blown out” highlights, composition, lighting ratios, use of colour etc, etc)
Are they gimmicky? If so, is it in context? Is the subject obvious?
if you want to look at some of the best photographers in Australia, go to:
http://www.appawards.com/index.php?slug=2009-winners-gallery
Perfect DavidLa. Thank you. From what I can gather, emotion is either largely expressed on the subjects, or the emotion is conveyed through effective use of light, rather than artificial trickery. But that is my layman way of trying to explain it. Must learn more.
The examples on the link you provided do highlight a disparity between the award winners and the facebook examples that everyone here is deriding. Thank you.
My pro-fotog friend has a website with some of her photos up in a gallery: http://www.marxbentley.com/, and a tumblr site http://marbenphoto.tumblr.com/.
Sorry, Google aint perfect, but I thought you might be able to look at a few different sites and judge what is a good photo ie good framing, not overprocessed, interesting subject, good lighting etc, and what is poor eg burnt highlights, overdone greens and reds, faces in half shadow, the photographer’s shadow in the picture etc. But a good photo is in the eye of the beholder
http://www.jackiechan.com.au/works/works.html Check out “Kim and Tony” It is really cool. Thanks for the link.
now that is good shit- drama, emotion and capturing of little moments
That’s what I thought. Awesome photo’s and not a cheesy shot in sight.
I’m glad this issue has come up – it’s a bogan rite of passage to get a big digital SLR duty free and then take point and shoot snaps of their kids with it.
LOL. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! My eyes, they burn, they burn… http://tinyurl.com/2cx44ze
I would not be using that as proof of my skills. Methinks the mutton still looks like mutton.
LOL. I’ve missed interacting with all you lesser people. I feel I was becoming quite natural at it.
We don’t want you lessening standards. That being said some of us operate at a very high level.
LOL. Where?
We cunningly hide it amoungst conversations about cookbooks designed for the Arse etc.
LOL. I’ll let Chef know.
We are not published yet so if Chef has any of your favourite receipes we are happy to include them.
Oh f*ck me. I may never recover.
Fiona, one of her bogue friends has placed a link to this topic on the top of her facebook page. You have been named and shamed!
LOL. http://tinyurl.com/327sgwu
That’s hilarious.
LOL. Reported, by this fella: http://tinyurl.com/2frbluc
Im Tamara Coan im currently studying Photography i am still learning but loves what i do and loves learning new things
Not a student of the english language we see!
LOL. Tommy Coan certainly doesn’t have a higher degree in the Classics.
Did you like her change from first person mid sentence?
Looks like someone got their spray tan mixed up with Ovaltine.
Oh dear, you will get us in trouble Tone.
Tone… are you Shaunna Australia??
KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!
On the plus side, Tamara’s wide angle lens is obviously working fine.
Photo ranga not easy
Use wide angle and lingerie
F*cking broke eyeball
Fiona should post a photo of herself and let’s see if we bag her or we rub one out.
LOL. Ew. As if! Rub one out of course.
That’s so funny – I was just thinking last night: “Things Bogans Like: Photography”
I’ve mentioned this before, but this time it’s actually relevant…
My Beloved is a pro news shooter of 20 years’ standing, who also does commercial fashion shoots and weddings.
And words simply cannot express how much he enjoys receiving loud and unsolicited advice from the bride’s cousin’s half-cut husband, who’s a rooolly good photographer ‘cos he done a proper course over a whole weekend and he has a rooolly good camera that he bought duty-free on their last trip to Bali.
I’ve also lost count of the number of times he’s had tearful phonecalls from stupid brides who thought they’d save a few hunnert by getting their cousin’s alcoholic husband to “do the photos” on his roolly good camera. They learn the hard way after they see the loathsome finished product, then ring my Beloved who explains that Photoshop is a tool – not a magic wand or a time machine.
For this reason, he also avoids bookings from hambeasts or the truly, deeply unattractive. These women often refuse to accept that makeup, great lighting and composition and Photoshop can not completely eradicate the legacy of 1748 Big Whopper Value Meals, nor an old-fashioned drubbing with the ugly stick.
Where they realy making Big Whoppers that long ago ??
Definitely a win-win for the bogans; Bogans get hitched wanting to get the cheapest wedding photos possible meets delusional bogan with a BFC (big f***ing camera)…it can only end is tears…or a glassing…
Incompetent wedding photographers producing atrocious work are very common now, I think they’re so common that many couples who don’t know better actually expect it. The market kind of levels itself out that way.
Many people just want to be able to make out things and people on pictures, and when they’re able to do that they think they’re looking at a good photo. That typical wedding-cheese, soft blur edges, angled shots, coloured bouquet on b/w background, over saturation etc just tells them that it’s in fact a wedding they’re looking at.
To avoid booking an idiot, ask to look at his work first and pay a bit more.
More expensive isn’t always better value or better photos. Hell for my wedding, I got a friend to take mine and produce a nice matted album. Wife wanted this other guy to do one, he was charging an extra $1000 and all we would have got is a “magazine style” album that he sends away to apple to make.
Anyway his photographs were not $1000 better.
I can relate to that,
rellies getting married and they hired a flashy “professional” at gazillion cost. Most of the pics were trash. They ended up getting prints and enlargements from the three rolls that I took and a graphic artist friend did the airbrush work on the 4 special ones..I used to do three or four weddings a year and Apex and Labour party Balls and had grown up with an slr but they wanted the most expensive Bogan photographer they could get . I had the last laugh
Nowadays I have a panasonic G1 which is a semi pro camera but in the micro2/3 format so it is very small. have had lots of bogans sling off at it because it is so small. “gotta get a real camera” Flashing their canon digital slr wioth three lens. “Yep and you need someone to show you how to use that one ” is enough to get them fired up.
Hahahahahaha
LOL. My goodness. Posting here HAS been good for you James. That last missive, long though it was, was mostly literate.
But your knot.
Fi,
sorry, slip of the finger.
I think I have made a friend, at long last a friend. 😛
Oh, James Hunter, does this mean a new career for you? (Another)-one that brings you out of ‘retirement’?
I await your first show, held, no doubt, in Sydney’s Inner West – an area you wrote a song about because you’re so familiar with the place:
I’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere
I’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere.
Newtown, Newtown, Newtown, Newtown
McDonaldtown, Newtown, Newtown, Newtown,
Newtown, Newtown, Newtown
I’ve been everywhere!
Pete Babe,
Are you suffering from , delusions of adequacy ??…again ??
Pete Babe,
you do deserve a more thoughtful reply, to wit:
I was using film SLR’s with various lens and no light meter while you were still shitting yellow.
So you want to tell how to suck eggs? go stand in front of the mirror. !!
Er, Jim, I was developing & enlarging 35mm in both B&W and colour ++++ I also taught myself how to process Super-8 films. I had a fully set-up & stocked darkroom and the skills to work in it. Sit down, tryhard…
Well, *I* started with architectural shots using drying asphalt on sheets of tin! Then the Prussians attacked Paris and I fled while the Communards were all sitting about writing house music, oh, those were the days….
Oh F#cking lovely. That was my song you son of a biatch. Just take and give it to your next boy crush Peter. Go on!
Do a search for Brisbane Wedding Photography, they have on their website they are the #1 wedding photographers in QLD. #1 at taking shit photos
He has been buried, and seems he thinks people are living off his name looking at the rant on the front page. I would think anyone would be entitled to use brisbane wedding photographers as that is what they are if they are shooting in brisbane
http://www.brisbaneweddingphotographers.com/
I too did study photography at a professional level back in the late 90s, of which was a most fascinating time to learn this trade, as it was smack-bang in the transition period of film and digital: I still learned much about monochrome and colour film and paper processing, hand retouching and worked with all formats from 35 mm to medium and large format (those 4″ x 5″ cameras with sheet film and bellows are cumbersome, but produce unparalleled results that justify fully the time and care involved), while being introduced to Photoshop 4 on the Mac platform (which I continue to use) and scanning techniques, for digital cameras were the last frontier to overcome in order for digital to dominate the professional sphere, only doing so by early last decade. Interesting times indeed.
Anyway, in the meantime, my confidence—already somewhat tenuous in those days, mid 20s I was—had began to erode in how I perceived my place in the industry, of which I found to be rather hyper-competitive, ergo precious and bitchy, especially in Perth, with corporate and commercial clients drying up due to business mergers and centralisation of advertising resources to Sydney and Melbourne, if not overseas.
However, I hadn’t completely thrown in the towel, by tumbling one last roll of the dice in 2004, finally investing in some half-decent equipment (previously making do with a pair of old Canon A1s and a second-hand studio flash), including a DSLR and a Hasselblad film camera, as well as pro lighting equipment (Bowens), PowerBook with Photoshop CS1 and associated accessories, to the tune of $25k. I began to work freelance and accompanied an established pro wedding photographer for practice and experience. In spite of this investment and seeming success, I further sunk into disillusionment: Not only did I have a sense of conflict regarding my nascent social conscience railing at the fakery of commercial photography (’tis the name of the game in both working for Satan’s own spawn, advertisers, and Bridezillas who desire to look like something they ain’t), I could clearly see the digital writing on the wall: to call yourself “pro” until 2000, you had to lay out at least $30 000 (and then some), often on a personal loan, upon equipment and spent at least a few years at TAFE becoming conversant with materials and composition (you had to get it right, as not only would you burn through expensive film if you didn’t, you couldn’t access easy post-production beyond enlarger or processing tricks and hand retouching), thus the hurdles of entry were quite high; in other words, you had to be very much dedicated to the craft.
Nowadays, you need not spend more than $5000 on a middling DSLR camera-and-lens package, some cheap lighting and any late-model computer with a pirated copy of CS4 downloaded onto it, and call yourself a pro photographer. No doubt this digital democratisation has been most beneficial to students seriously pursuing this field, but has allowed so many rank amateurs who want the patina of purported glamour of being a shutter jockey to rub off onto them.
If only they realised that not only do they look like the precious prats that populate the profession of photography, in having a tiny fraction of their skills they also come across as shoddy charlatans.
TBL—you’ve done it again. Bravo. Thank [deity or expletive of choice] that I work in something the very antithesis of glamour, which is both nourishing to the spirit and very useful.
Yes, I spent 2 years studying photography back in the days of darkrooms, enlargers, and film. Where the most one could do to a photo was lighten area’s using manual techniques, and each time you pressed the “take photo” button it cost $1.50 in film, paper and chemicals.
I also cringe each time a bogan tries to explain how they take maXXtreem photos with either their phone, or their $3000 (brought on 40 months interest free) “professional” (in name only) camera’s. They then try and explain how their photos are just as good as any photographer, ignoring the fact that “uncle bill” has a huge tree sticking out the back of their head and that a signpost is covering half the front of the image.
I’m a pro photographer, who hasn’t attended a short course (although I do know quite a lot of people who have). I refuse to do weddings, formals, baby photos simply because the market is filled with hundreds of “Tamykah-Rae Photography” types who somehow think it’s skillful to remove the Green and Blue channels from images to create pure white skin B&W photos.
The wedding/glamour/baby photos market is the most lucrative, so it attracts the vultures. Thankfully other markets (the ones that aren’t as “glamourous”) rely on skill, building good customer relations and effective Business Development, which is something the “flash and burn” bogan photographer does not understand.
I loev photography and would quite firmly place myself in the complete amateur category. I am interested in learning about it and it does annoy me that people seem to think the camera makes the shot, nothing is further from the truth. Someone with a good eye for the composition of a photo will take a better photo with a cheap camera than somone who thinks an expensive camera is automatically better and acts as some kind of magic wand.
I use a dSLR but to get better you need to practice. Does the bogan do their short course, buy an expensive camera and assume that is it?
When you see some of the photos they pump out how can they be happy to present them as professional in any way?
at least twice a week i ignore a fresh suggestion to become a fan of this pile of dogsh!t.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=718036392#!/pages/Penrith-Australia/Natural-Lights-Photography/47891439307?v=photos&ref=ts
Dear me,
There is not one ‘Blair Scott likes:’ that I am even vaguely interested in…
Starbucks ffs!
A bucket of boiling hot milk that was in the same room as a few coffee beans does not pass as coffee…
Dont think the link works properly, the full website is here -http://www.nlphotography.com.au/
The content can basically be summed up as “overweight, future domestic violence cases smiling at each other. And babies”
Gosh. Words fail me.
Oh dear God.
The real kicker about the whole digital uber-mega “high definition” pixel camera craze is that film formats with superior resolution have been around for over a century.
Consider these photos that were taken pre-russian revolution:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.htm
My Father isn’t a professional but he used to take some great shots with his old school 35mm Pentax of our family back in the day. Looking through all the old albums, the images are much more honest and lack the pretentious vanity of modern facebook “arsty n’ shit” photography. He even got some photos printed onto big frames and the image quality is just amazing. That same camera still works to this day and takes photos just as good as it came from the factory 30+ years ago. My Dad can’t be bothered using it anymore but I did shoot a roll of Fuji slide film a few months ago with it. Looking at the frames behind a light, digital just does not compare. Wasn’t cheap though and getting it scanned properly to a digital file to do justice to the original is not easy.
While digital is much more convenient, the consequence is that you can carelessly take thousands of photos and saturate the market with mostly mediocre photos. This appeals to the bogan quantity > quality mindset.
You’re better off getting a retired relative to dust off their old 35mm and get them to shoot a few rolls of ektachrome than to get a $1000 Maxxxtreme shazza and jaxson photo package. Nobody wants to shuffle through 1000s of photos.
Your link is broken Anoymous.
Anyway, I recently saw on a website some photos taken in America in the Great Depression. These were black and white outdoor photos that displayed real emotion through awareness of lighting and composition, without the Maxxxtreme equipment.
These must be some of the worst black and white photos I have ever seen….
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12621&id=103924399650824&ref=mf
Where is the contrast between the bride’s dress and her skin? What the hell is that red thing? And surely they could stage another photo that doesn’t have the groom’s hand with his wife’s boobs in the background.
Copy and paste this into the address and it should hopefully work:
boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html
This is an excellent link. Give it a look! TBL
AMAZING photos! Thanks for posting.
FOF!
For those having trouble accessing that link, like me, the arse end of that link has fallen off. It should finish with
……century_ago.html
FOF!
FOF!
Full set. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?st=grid&c=100&co=prok
FOF!
No way!! Awesome photos, Nonny Mouse.
awesome…
I want that blue dressing gown in pic 28.
What’s with this one? F*** you Pixiephoto
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12621&id=103924399650824&ref=mf#!/photo.php?pid=189268&id=103924399650824&ref=fbx_album
Shit, I’m starting to think I could be employed as a “Professional” to rock up at weddings with my Canon IXUS P&S and make some money.
Ewww
Off Topic TBL peeps, but did anyone else see the bogan god Max Markson on Media Watch… BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I got a good giggle out of that.
It does all remind me of the beautiful Ed Hardy Boyz series.
I just love that all of the new ‘Pro-sumer’ Canon cameras now feature a full auto setting. It’s the trademark of the bougetographer.
TBL twitter feed: “We wrote an “are you a bogan?” quiz for @CosmopolitanAU. Will the mag give its readers the full TBL experience?”
Surprisingly the readers of Cosmopolitan found that TBL was about them.
Where can I see this quiz? Besides Cosmo magazine?
Shirl, did we get you in trouble yesterday?
No, I just got an attack of the guilts (and a fear of being glassed).
Ok, cool.
Tone’s comment about Ovaltine was repeated on the album comments by “Shaunna Australia” – very distateful indeed.
is tbl watching the independents’ news conference?
Amusing that everyone in Australia just wanted them to stop waffling and say which tribe they had chosen. TBL
Nope, not interested in what those mercenary fucks have to say. But glad the Mad Monk has finally been vanquished, hopefully never to rise again.
Sten,
Gone, but unfortunately I doubt we have seen the last of him.
I suspect he does not know how to be a gracious looser and will go bonkers trying to get another election ,whilst trying to make it look like someone elses fault.
What an ugly little man, looks like Billy McMahon with hair.
considering abbott’s promise of ‘kinder, gentler’ politics lasted as long as it took him to say that sentence, i don’t think he’s at all capable of graciousness.
Agreed, pb. He just pinched that line from David Cameron anyway.
One of my mates is frothing at the mouth about how Labor “won”, using the old Left = Bad For The Economy chestnut. The thing he doesn’t seem to get is that having Pope Benedict’s marionette in power would be even worse. What’s the point of having a smooth-running economy when your social policies alienate so many people?
Sten,
It is not even true from an economy point6 of view. people who make statements like that should not be allowed out with their own lunch money.
I’m well aware of that, and fired the full broadside to that effect last night.
I hate to say it, James but I have to agree. All the Liberal Party is good for (Abbott in particular) is buck-passing and scare-mongering.
Guess I’ll have to dig up my gun now, to defend myself from all the nasty brown people who want nothing more than to blow me up.
Sten,
As I say to Simon from time to time, .243 and a 6X scope. works wondersin the 150/300 mtr range very flat trajectory
Nah, give me a good old Lee Enfield any day. We beat the Germans with it twice, so it’s good enough for me.
Sten,
We still had Lee Enfield’s when I was at the Rifle club back in the 60s .They certainly pack a thump and with the barrel and sights set up right can be very accurate.
You still see ’em around today, and often they’re worth quite a lot of money. I saw an ad for a pair of them, WWII vintage, with sequential serial numbers. The asking price was in five figures.
Sten,
Its already started, Joe Hockystick today. Man o man , give him a bag of marbles and send him out to play.
Yeah I thought that initially. But then I thought it might be a good thing that they were taking their time and therefore sowing the seeds for people to possibly getting used to a more diverse government.
No more rubber stamping of policy and legislation, a term I picked up last night from Q&A, for mafiaso dickwads from the major parties. Well lets hope so.
Short attention spans is all I can say-maybe people would have preferred had Oakeshott tweeted “The Oakeshott has spoken and says yeh”.
I thought O had every right to spell out his thought process, lengthy as it was 🙂
PS: Wiki informs me twitter has 141 employees – is that even allowed?
$400 for a proper photographer? You’ll likely only get a student with a DSLR (so therefore a pro) or an IT person who has invested in the latest EOS and longs for a business out of the IT field where they can get creative.
The phrase was “extra $400”. By this, we mean $400 in addition to the price charged by the bogan. To rephrase, “extra $400” means “$400 more”, or “an additional $400”, or “b+x, where b = bogan, and x = $400.” TBL
Caught the snapper bug as a youngster and saved for three months to buy my first SLR – a Praktica MTL3. 1/60th flash synch, 1/500th fastest shutter speed, but built like a bloody tank. Spent countless hours in my homemade darkroom learning burning and dodging techniques and even invested my hard earned in the old Cibachrome colour system.
Been fortunate enough with my work (autos – magazines and now in PR) to sit alongside some of the best in the world and watch them work. And most of the people here are spot on – it’s the eye of a photographer that sorts the wheat from the chaff.
Take a look at the work of Peter Watkins at http://splitimage.com.au/#
Personally, I think he’s the finest car photographer in the world, and his portrait work’s not bad either
Andrew,
I had a Praktika LTL seems like forever. Couldnt kill it with a stick Only still learning the ropes on a Panasonic G1, great camera but bet it wont bounce like the East German stuff.
google MichaelHall he is a Kiwi based in Sydney I model for him sometimes but dont hold that against him. He does some great environmental work
Seen a few minutes ago: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/weddings/the-key-to-beautiful-wedding-photos-20100909-152dp.html
Sadly, no mention of TBL in there 😦
Hehe, y’all are most welcome to spam the “comments” section of any news article that covers ground we’ve already dealt with! TBL
Photography is easily accessble…in the sense that anyone can puck up a camera, point, and have a resulting photograph. I believe this gives people a false sense of being accomplished in the skill, or indeed, a “photographer”. Conversley, people are not likely to proclaim themselves to be an “artist” in the traditional sense of being a painter for example, because peope will expect tangible proof of a pretty good painting.
Just a little analogy, and something I have thought for some time. Many people saythey can “play the piano” because of course, any a three year old can press a key and an audible note can be heard. It is accessble. An instrument like the flute needs skill to even make a noise…and if you tell people you play the flute, they will expect to hear an actual song.
In summary, I believe this photographer craze stems partially fromthe accesability and also the ambiguity of photography. Most people do not know what makes a good photograph…and this way the bogan can be an “artist” without having to paint a picture and have people say “dude ….that is shit”.
I was forwarded this a few days ago. Retro Kabul is pretty impressive, eh!
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan
Single page version
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=full
Posting from Fishermans Beach, Collaroy, heartland of my drug-crazed youth. Presently I watch as a pro photographer snaps a bogue couple toting 2 sprogs. Unified concentration appears to bean issue however as individual representatives of 2 Generations of ADD each attempt to art direct the shoot. Priceless spectacle, although it does remind me precisely why I sought oblivion. With the jetskis, surf “schools” & assorted idiots screaming for attention, this place, where I still occasionally spend spare time, has had it. What next? James Hunter & his traveling circus?
Pete Babe,
You may be in luck, we don’t have a clown.
If only we had killed of the bogans before they bred, slowly digging into the structure of society. Now they’re almost impossible to remove. We need the number of a good exterminator before they eat away all the supports…
What about Foney Rabbit? He leads a destructive group that burrows into our society wherein to eat away our social fabric.If he can do that the bogans should be a snap for him. He can start with bribes and if that does not work he can trick them all at the surf club. while everyone is watching the budgie snuggler he can lure them into the showers. We all know what happens to the helpless ,once in the “showers”
im actually more worried about julia gulia and her little green friends-not too mention the travelling wilburys from the Central Coast
This article reminds me EXACTLYY of these two people I know
Check out for lulz
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Tumbling-Dice-Photography/129090267130113?ref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Oriana-Aprico-Wister-Photography/74534934587?ref=ts
The worst kind of Bogan is one with traits of a wanna-be-gangster (as a classify them) It’s truly sad that so many fail to realise the menace to society that the Bogan has become. Yet hopefully, someone with intelligence will come along and wipe them out once and for all (but first they’ll need the general Bogan support).
Though the sacrifices are heavy, I fight them knowing that a single spark of courage can ignite the fires of hope, and restore peace.
Three questions will sort out the Bogue-wannabe-photographer from the competent amateur or the pro:
1 How many prints have you made?
2 How many people have requested prints of your work?
3 How many prints have you sold?
I’m sure you all can work out the categories for each of these.
I actually find it quite hilarious that the bogan photo-pro will go to the effort to individually watermark all their photographs with their name and a big, fat COPYRIGHT symbol. Ha
Omg! I’m a bogan photographer! *hangs head in shame* 😦
I’ve seen this one in action – the professional lines up the photo and she shoots it too.
http://jallenphotography.vpweb.com.au/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/J-Allen-Photography/118020751568786?v=info#!/pages/J-Allen-Photography/118020751568786?v=info
This one’s truly beyond the pale.
Shit shooting, shit spelling, shit grammar.
I am SOOOO glad I got out of NQ while I still had half a brain and my own teeth.
She has about 3 teeth in her head!!!
Outstanding.
Surely worthy of some sort of “Excellence in Boganology” Award.
O The Horror.
mine eyes…
Interesting reading. I for one unashamedly admit that I wish to be a professional photographer, and I have spent many years reading, practising and, dare I say it, attending many short courses in an effort to build my knowledge and skills. I too started by developing black and white negatives taken with a Praktica SLR, until it was stolen on the night my American Footbal team asked me to take the team photo. I then progressed to a Pentax P30, before discovering the versatilty of digital photography with the 0.3 megapixel Kodak EZ200. I have since progressed through an additional 5 cameras before finally coming to my absolute base model Nikon DSLR, which is used almost exclusively in full manual mode because cameras of this type are completely wasted if used in Program mode only.
Through patience, persistence and the goodwill and generosity of many people, only now am I starting to make headway as a photographer. And it is in the fields most prized and covetted by bogans everywhere, motorsport and swimsuit photography. Even if this does make me a maxtreme bogan, I like to believe that what little success I have achieved has as much been through integrity and professionalism as it has through creativity and photographic skill.
Although I am a little disheartened at being confronted by my essential boganness, I will still persist at my ambitions of being a motorsport and swimsuit photographer. Apart from general photojournalism, I won’t pretend for a second that any other areas of photography interest me. I certainly will not touch wedding photography with a barge pole, even though I have completed a short course on that as well. If you want to see further examples of bogan photography, take a look at
http://www.modelmayhem.com/1278870
and then decide for yourself if all bogan photographers are of equal low-brow standard.
Dear God this is horrendous! Who takes these photos??!! This one looks like a Thai Mail-Order bride catalogue: http://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/2135091/viewall
Probably should file that under ‘Inspiration from Thailand trip’