Am i being jealous

woody12 said:
I've been thinking you have to get loads of likes, comments on such like social media sites to be a good proud photography.
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LOL... no.
 
woody12 said:
Thanks for all the advice. I think I've been looking at my photography in the wrong way and you guys have opened my eyes a little. I've been thinking you have to get loads of likes, comments on such like social media sites to be a good proud photography. I've been tying to impress others when I need to stay true to what I like and why I'm actually taking the picture, not thinking Fred's wife be impressed with this. From now on I'm going to shoot just for me and only post for top photography's like yourself to advice and improve my skills so having a moan has helped me and pushed me in the right direction. Thanks again and here's to many top shots in the future
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That's called retreating into accademia.

Logic goes like this:
People dont apreciate my pictures.
So I must be showing to them to the wrong people
So I shall show my pictures only to people who will apreciate them.

Now you will be showing ever more masterful photo's to people who are ever more critical of them, chasing an accademic perfection, that you are unlikely to ever truly achieve...

And who will you please, trying?

And will ANY-ONE actually 'enjoy' your pictures?

Follow the logic, and it points to ever higher standards of technical excellence, for a deminsihing number of viewers gaining ever less real pleasure from them......

Persuit of excellence ought never be denied.... BUT.... to what purpose is that excellence ever to be put?

There is room for all in photography; the interest ought not come from what is behind the lens, but infront.

Lesson should be, to look at what in your Brother-in-Law's snaps make them 'interesting' and win popular acclaim...... and learn THAT lesson, and develop THAT skill, of making photos that DO interest people who aren't necesserily photo-geeks, as WELL as those who are, AND that you enjoy taking!

Nothing stopping you go take photo's that only please you or a rarified clique of camera nuts AS WELL, as an accademic excersise....

But retreating into that eschelon? "Its MY ball and if you dont let me win, I'm going to take it home!" isn't it?

Go explore popular photography, and take pictures with popular interest, and try doing it better.... and learn from THOSE, as well.

Rise to the challenge, dont shrink from it!
 
Offer to take photos of your sister's kids and post much better in-focus photos.


Alternatively, ignore him and move on. Facebook audience doesn't appreciate a good landscape.
 
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Photography doesn't have to be about pleasing other people - unless you're doing it for cash.
 
Are they liking the photo or liking the child? Completely different and Facebook users will like and say what a good photo no matter how bad if it includes a kitten or a child.
 
So there's the solution then, you need more animal/child photographs :p

Take no notice, i've got a "friend" at the moment on holiday sending tonnes of instagrammed iphone images to Facebook, they are truly awful, but everyone is liking them.....

One of my recent FB statuses asks what's going to happen in 10 years time when these people look back and wish they hadn't ruined all their family snapshots.
 
POAH said:
I'd be more concerned with using the word brought to describe a purchase lol
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Have to agree with you

Happening many times all over the place including "in real life"!

Puzzling on the matter leads me to wobdering if it is happening due to "predictive" text.

Brought instead of BOUGHT - ?????

S
 
Just go on flickr and join one of the many mutual back slapping groups and you will soon have plenty of (albeit meaningless) likes.
 
I have not read all the posts so this may have already been said. But unless you are planning on making any money out of your images, then it's only really important that you like your images. You are taking them for your pleasure and its only what you think of them that really matters. Just enjoy what your doing and don't worry what others think.
 
I like this thread, does that count?

Don't do farcebook so can't really commenton what gets the likes and what doesn't.

I don't post many photographs on here not because I am brilliant ( I am certainly not) nor am I cr@p (well not all the time) I take photographs mainly for me and I know enough, mainly from seeing what people do on here, to know when I have and haven't achieved what I want. To be honest I don't give a monkeys what others think.

In the words of the song Carry on regardless
 
Teflon-Mike said:
Go explore popular photography, and take pictures with popular interest, and try doing it better.... and learn from THOSE, as well.
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Why? Could just end up taking pictures of things you are not interested in and not enjoying photographing them. It is supposed to be an enjoyable pastime isn't it?
 
ernesto said:
Why? Could just end up taking pictures of things you are not interested in and not enjoying photographing them. It is supposed to be an enjoyable pastime isn't it?
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Bit of a perversion of what I was trying to say; I never said go take photos that dont interest you, what I said was dont retreat into a comfort zone.

Woody said he wanted to continue to evolve his photographic skills......

Abandoning all photography but the specialisation of 'photographic excelence' in the single arena of Landscape photography, is a cop out, and ignoring and refusing to learn some pretty useful skills that COULD be applied in the persuit of better landscapes.... is not all that useful to his stated ambition, isn't it?

Rising to the challenge, and learning to recognise what other people find interesting and 'like' in a picture IS a useful skill..... and could be applied to taking better, and more interesting, and interesting to a wider audience, landscape photo's, as well as 'better' and more interesting family snaps, or anything else really.
 
Teflon-Mike said:
Lesson should be, to look at what in your Brother-in-Law's snaps make them 'interesting' and win popular acclaim...... and learn THAT lesson,
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It's Facebook! It will be pictures of kids.. liked because of the kids, and nothing to do with the photography.

Not a lesson I'd recommend... pandering to the lowers possible denominator.


Shoot for yourself.
 
Teflon-Mike said:
Rising to the challenge, and learning to recognise what other people find interesting and 'like' in a picture IS a useful skill..... and could be applied to taking better, and more interesting, and interesting to a wider audience, landscape photo's, as well as 'better' and more interesting family snaps, or anything else really.
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Yes, I do get what you were aiming at but what I question is if trying to mimic what is popular actually gains any skills or knowledge other than skills or knowledge in making a popular photograph.
Instagram effects are popular, selective colouring is probably still popular and so on.

Difficult not to be snobby or elitist when talking about the likes and opinions of the masses but let's just say I don't want to be in the same boat as them!
 
Agree with all of the above. One question that hasn't been answered though is "am I being jealous?".

No, you're not, he is, and he's dealing with it by trying to diss your camera and your skills; he's trying to destroy its worth in his mind, not yours (very few people are that vindictive), so that he can convince himself he no longer has anything to be jealous of.

Do you think he has anything you should be jealous of, other than a few more completely unrelated and uninformed Facebook comments? You have a better (or at least more flexible) camera, more skill, more interest, more experience, more understanding of what a photographer can do that auto can't, and above all, better manners. And all of that is why he's jealous of you, not the other way around.
 
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woody12 said:
thanks for all the positive comments some of which made me lol literally. Cheered me up no end. I was just a bit depressed and will never allow bigots like him to control what i do. Actually asked him down to our local lake to teach him how to come out of auto mode and take some sunsets. His answer? Auto mode does all the photography for you, whats so hard to learn about that. Laughing i went on my own and took some lovely shoots. Sorry cant stop LOL.
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Maybe try doing things differently.
Instead of always offering the guy help and saying you'll show him what to do or you'll teach him how just ask him along with you.

I might be playing devil's advocate a little but is it possible he's dissing your photo's because he feels that you keep trying to tell him what to do and that like many people he dislikes that (yes, I know you're trying to help but some people just like being left and will ask when ready) ? If you go together and he feels that you're doing better then he might end up asking for advice.
 
I`ve been a guilty party to being sometimes jealous aswell, but really you just have to concentrate on what you want and are happy with, try not to worry what other say.

As for facebook people on there dont have a bloody clue, i know a lad who gets loads of `likes` on his photos, thats probably due to the fact he has like 1500 friends, not all are friends though, also he told me the a handy trick the other day, say your fully booked up doing weddings until a certain month even if you arn`t, just so its makes you look popular and busy, i just couldn`t believe what i was hearing lol
 
Pookeyhead said:
It's Facebook! It will be pictures of kids.. liked because of the kids, and nothing to do with the photography.
Not a lesson I'd recommend... pandering to the lowers possible denominator.
Shoot for yourself.
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Yes, it's face-book that has brought the question to the fore; and yes, people could be rating photo's for many reasons other than photographic merit.
BUT.. they are LOOKING
That's a photo's whole reason for being; to be looked at.
Why are people looking at them?
- Because they know the photographer?
- Because they know the person in the picture?
- Because the Picture is otherwise 'interesting'.

Take the debate away from Face-Book.... same sort of arguments apply to most published photos.

Sat in the car last night waiting for the O/H and my teenage daughter was sat in the back with a teen-mag.... lots and lots of photo's. She wasn't looking at them because they were photographic masterpieces; she was looking at them because they were of boy-bands, media darlings, or fasion ensembles to inspire her dressing-up.

Photographically; an awful lot were pretty mediocre shots. Party Snaps, with horrible shaddow lines and unflattering angles... some of the best pictures in there that I glimpsed were actually very 'boring' and on the flip-page to the one she was reading..... the adverts... I mean even she wasn't particularly interested in a bottle of sun-tan lotion! But hey! GREAT bit of macro-photography and photo-montaging! I can really apreciate the skill that went into making the immage.... but guess what? I still have no great interest in a bottle of coconut oil!

I have hoards of magazines and books knocking about; lets pick up a photo-book. Flip though it, and most are pretty ancient; but lets see, Kodak's 'Photographing Buildings & City Scapes'. Every photo in that book has been selected from a pool of excellence, and technically they are all 'great' pictures, BUT? Not all THAT interesting, a lot of them. In context, a book offering advice and inspiration to other photo's, they have some 'added' specialist interest; but on thier own? Some, well, if it's an iconic land-mark... something you can make a connection to? Yup, stands out and gets a little extra attension. But most of them? I could be flipping through an in-flight-magazine or House & Country; some Spanish Colonial Villa in New-Mexico with an expensively lit swimming pool? Yeah, it might give me a moments, "Oh! To be somewhere so idylic!" bit, over the page a second later.

Lets pick up another; "Techniques of the worlds Greatest Photographers"... here you are, this picture is actually in the book.
images

It's a NICE photo... and either genuinely old, or antiqued, it has a certain charm. Shoule we care to critique it? Well, the highlights are a bit thin and lacking detail, and I'm not sure what's going on in the top right hand corner, where its going a bit soft. Doesn't look like selective focus, as detail in lower right seems pretty sharp and at the same distance? Slow shutter speed? Bit of motion blurr? Or a bit of low rent post processing to blurr out a biit of distracting detail in composition? I don't know... and I'm not really that bothered. IS it an interesting photo?

Little girl I dont recognise; posed in a garden, or garden studio set, I have no idea, there's little in the picture that makes an imediete and personal connection. Costume is intreguing.... expression is a bit wan... yeah, its 'interesting'... because it's old or made to look old..... and yes, it does actually make me want to know more..... but... without any more context offered... I'm flipping the page, its interest is brief.

So, lets offer the context; put words around it, and see if that helps make a connection, and if that makes it any more interesting.

Yes the picture is genuinely 'old' taken circa 1858 - does that make it more interesting? Photographically, I guess it does; it was taken with antique equipment and very hard to get anything, let alone something that good.... but is the SUBJECT any morte interesting?

OK, the little Girl is Alice Liddell... does that make you look again? Does that make it more interesting? Do you know who Alice Liddell was? OK... Alice in Wonderland.... the book? She was the little girl the author made up the Alice stories for. AH! We have a celebrity snap! YES suddenly interesting isn't it! But more.... the phot was taken by some-one famouse.... Lewis Carrol, author of the Alice stories, and no mean snapper.

JUST like Face-Book, that picture, charming as it is, is on the net, and in my book, NOT because it is a technically 'great' photo, or particularly interetsing. Charming, yes. Interest comes from WHO took it, and WHO is in it, the story that goes with the picture, and the context of where it is published. If that snap had been taken by I dont know, the wife of some obscure provincial parson, of the daughter of the local black-smith.... it would be just another antique portrait, and of little interest to most people.

Back to Face-Book.... people liking snaps, becuase they 'know' the photographer, they 'know' the subject..... People will rave about famouse photographers pictures, JUST because the person that took them IS famouse.... regardless of any interest IN the photo. People will look at pictures of famouse people or famouse places, or famouse incidents, again, MERELY because they are famouse. Its the same motivator, regardless of where the photo is presented for viewing.

So.... we set that to one side, and look at the interest IN the photo. What makes people look at it, or want to look at it? And we have to ponder, that 'context' I mentioned; the 'Story' that goes with the picture.

Here's one of mine.
104_0247.jpg

Photographically? Forget it! OK... you want details. It was taken with a 'Premier' 5Mp lensless compact, with on-camera-flash, on auto, on a tripod, on self timer... and thems my fingers in shot... yes, its a semi self portrait! Probably gets my best features actually! (Ie most of me NOT in shot!)

Critique it? Well, its all in reasonably good focus, lighting isn't too bad for on camera flash, and as a close up, lack of stark shaddows is quite good. But What on EARTH am I looking at?! Its cluttered, messy and makes NO sense what so ever! Is this some bizare attempt at 'abstract'? Context needed: OK, well, itsthe piston from a small Honda motorbike engine and some of it's piston rings, and I am pointing to where on the pistion the rings go, with the scalpal. Make more sense? Make it any more interesting? Well, if you want to get intimate with the insides of a small honda motorbike engine... maybe very much so. Other wise probably not. Was actually shot as part of a sequence for a photo-how-to guide to overhauling an engine, and in context, with the words around it, and the other photo's illustrating other parts and jobs, it makes a lot more sense, and gains an awful lot more 'interest'... to people into DIY motorcycle mechanics!

It's on my web-site that significantly panders to other petrol heads; and that section, containing the motorbike photo-how-to's; gets about 150 views a month; people are looking at those pictures, and finding them interesting and helpful, and I get e-mails from folk thanking me for writing them, they obviouseky apreciate them.

Totally different specialisation of photography, technical illustration, BUT, shows how its not just what is IN the photo that necesserily makes them interesting, context is important, the back-story is important. But giving the photo a PURPOSE is all.

Who & Why.... and building on that. Not just enough to answer the questions, and say "Me!" and "Because I liked what I saw", thats photographic masterbation. Brief, self gratification, and nothing else.

Here's a Landscape:-
dsci0792.jpg

Not particularly wonderful; and that one was taken with a cheap Jenopic 1.3Mp compact, and probably not at very high resolution.

On its own, as presented; its LOST. WHY did I take that picture? Who did I take it for? Well, its a Family Happy-Snap. Answer to my own questions; Me & My Family... and then, well, I was impressed by the drama of the scene I saw; the bowl in the hills and the mist sinking into it, with the hills 'stacking' in perspective behind. Critically? I could have made that shot a heck of a lot better had I had my fancy cameras with me, and the time to set them up, and do the job a bit more carefully. Better Landscape photographer, probably made even more of it.... BUT. Back-Story; we were on a Land-Rover Expedition around Lake Vynwry in North Wales, and as part of the set of pictures taken on that excursion, and with a few words of explanation around them..... suddenly the picture aquires new interest, as part of the story being told, and we are into yet another realm of photographic discipline, the photo-essay or travelogue.... and trying to explain to people what 'Green-Laning' was and what you do and what you see, it got published to web, as an example, and gets about 40 hits a month, again, the pictures, are fulfilling a purpose, and getting looked at, and people obviousely find them interesting.

I'm not talking about pandering to the lowest common denominator.... ultimately you can't please all of the people all of the time... but it is about recognising WHAT pleases them, and looking at the bigger picture, not just what you pack in the veiw finder.

ernesto said:
Yes, I do get what you were aiming at but what I question is if trying to mimic what is popular actually gains any skills or knowledge other than skills or knowledge in making a popular photograph.
Instagram effects are popular, selective colouring is probably still popular and so on.

Difficult not to be snobby or elitist when talking about the likes and opinions of the masses but let's just say I don't want to be in the same boat as them!
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Getting there.... but still not quite where I'd take it. I'm not talking tricks or gimmikery or pandering to fasion with 'technique'... I'm talking about sticking 'technique' to one side and looking at first principles.

Before we get 'in' to photography we 'just' take pictures, and they are very often quite interesting, because we are just doing stuff, that is interesting, and have a camera with us to get a picture of it.

When we get 'in' to photography, we can very easily fall into a trap of introspection, and rather than a camera accompanying us and capturing images of interesting stuff going on around us... we take the camera and try and FORCE stuff into the lens, regardless of how interesting it really is. Then we get dissapointed and dissolusioned, because the only 'interest' these pictures have is technical merit.... so rather than looking around us again, and rejecting the 'boring' subject... we look in, and try and improve the boring subject, chasing ever greater technical merit.... and getting more and more furstrated that our photos are STILL not all that interesting!

You can take 'interesting' photo's that have a wider appeal, WITHOUT elevated technique or techo-trickery pandering to fasion.

THIS is the lesson we can learn from Face-Book, from the popular media, the magazines and other published photo's.

And rather than chasing an ever elitist ideal of technical perfection, back up to first principles, look at the bigger picture, and consider the audience, content and context, and make pictures that ARE interesting to a wider audience, and that people will want to look at, in ANY discipline....

THEN you can start making them better with better technique, better tools, and if you have to, tricks of the trade.

And if there is a pointer here.... it is that a picture may be worth a thousand words.... but without ANY words, a picture may be worth nothing.... as my shot of the piston.
 
woody12 said:
Hi, really annoyed at the moment because after three years of trying to learn, improve and capture the art of photography my brother-in-law has brought a camera - bridge camera which he brags will take better shots than my beloved nikon 3100. That's not really the issue. What is, is that he disses all my shots and after taking a few shots of his daughter, which are like all first pictures blurry, no real thought in the shot. Tried helping but he won't listen because he's posted to Facebook and he's got lots of lovely comments which my boring landscape shots don't generally get. I feel like giving up because I thought my hobby was a skill that you honed not sticking a subject in front of the lens and shooting. Am I being jealous ? Should I just ignore people like this? Really feel giving it all up.
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Wherever you enjoy something you will always get haters. Here is my 2p worth. Get into a habit of entering competitions, get people to look at and critique your photos. Anybody can take a photo, but only a few can take a good photo and even fewer take an amazing photo. Facebook is a way to show your photos. Dont worry about what other people say unless they can help you, negative people try and bring you down, positive people will help you improve. Stay with the hobby you enjoy and you will get better. Ignore him, he's just jealous.
 
Some people are quite happy for them to be the only person looking at the photos they take. Vivian Mayer can't have been the only person to keep her photos private - we just know about hers because they turned up in an auction.

Other people take photos as way of helping them see the world. The photos are less important to them than the looking.

Taking photos primarily so that other people like them is probably the worst reason for taking photographs. YOU have to like them first and foremost. Unless the other party is paying for the photos, of course. If your photographs don't satisfy you they have failed. ;)
 
redddraggon said:
Facebook is a popularity contest, it's nothing to do with the quality of the photos.
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well said- I never use FB my daughter lives on it :eek:

DO NOT give up-just go out and take better shots than he does, who care what his minions on FB say :bang:

Les :thumbs:
 
OP - do yourself a favor and look at photographers facebook pages. I don't think you'll see a correlation between good images and likes.

Can't speak for others but I only have 104 likes... or maybe I'm just rubbish lol.
 
Ed Sutton said:
Some people are quite happy for them to be the only person looking at the photos they take
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There's some pretty big leaps between 'Privacy', 'Popularity' and 'Interesting' that you are compounding.

Learning what gives a photo 'interest' from photos that are public, and popular, doesn't mean that you have to make public and seek popularity from the more interesting photo's you take. But.... if you DO they are more likely to be more popular.
 
Teflon-Mike said:
There's some pretty big leaps between 'Privacy', 'Popularity' and 'Interesting' that you are compounding.

Learning what gives a photo 'interest' from photos that are public, and popular, doesn't mean that you have to make public and seek popularity from the more interesting photo's you take. But.... if you DO they are more likely to be more popular.
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:thinking:

I'm not so insecure in what I do as to need to make pictures which are popular. The only reason I'd have for looking at popular photographs would be to see what NOT to do. :D
 
Ed Sutton said:
:thinking:

I'm not so insecure in what I do as to need to make pictures which are popular. The only reason I'd have for looking at popular photographs would be to see what NOT to do. :D
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NOW where are you trying to take this?
Lesson is that popular photos are popular, because they interest people; hence considering what it is that makes them interesting, hence popular, and applying THAT to your own photo's can help you make your own photo's more INTERESTING, has bog all to do with whether you then choose to show them to any-one?!?!?!? and even less whether showing people your pics is in any way connected to psychological insecurities!?!?
 
This is the internet. It's where people have pointless discussions. :D

Popular photographs are popular because they conform to people's preconceptions or indoctrinated beliefs of what they should like - either as subject or means of representation. It's nothing to do with them being INTERESTING.

Any mug can make popular photographs - put some kittens in a box with a sunset in the background and snap away, or photograph naked ladies.

Better still, naked ladies holding a box full of kittens at sunset! :lol:
 
I will never understand what makes things interesting to the masses and I don't need to understand as it is not interesting to me. I still don't get why I would want to take photos that fit the popular interest and what I would learn from doing it.
Not sure how I would be learning any new skills or knowledge?
 
Dave you're sadly so right about a lot of people, but I think there are plenty of interesting photos that are popular, and plenty of people who like interesting photos not cute'n'cudly.

So yes, popular doesn't mean interesting, and interesting doesn't mean popular, but you can still find plenty of interesting popular photos.

Also Mike's right that despite all that, you can still learn by working out why a photo's popular. For example, work out why selective colour is so popular, then work out how to offer the same in a more interesting way.

I take photos for me, but it's also very nice to have other people apreciate them. Part of the skill is in communicating something, and you can't do that solely for yourself because you already know what the message is!
 
If you like your pictures and you aren't trying to make a living out of it then who cares what other think?

I really like some of the pictures I've taken and posted them a couple of places on the web and nobody has really commented on them but so what I like them!!

When I look at some of the shots I take now, 6 months from when I started, I'm happy how things have progressed

You only need to worry what others think if you go pro!!
 
RichardtheSane said:
Ignore it.

People are not commenting on his photos, they are commenting on the subject. Sure, they might say great shot etc but it is because of the subject primarily.
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I think thats spot on... most the likes are probably for the content of the photo rather than the actual photo
 
Ignore him, photographs of kids always get lots of comments and likes on facebook usually by women thats just how it is. Tell him to post some of them on a portrait group and see what happens.
 
Southdowns said:
Dave you're sadly so right about a lot of people, but I think there are plenty of interesting photos that are popular, and plenty of people who like interesting photos not cute'n'cudly.

So yes, popular doesn't mean interesting, and interesting doesn't mean popular, but you can still find plenty of interesting popular photos.

Also Mike's right that despite all that, you can still learn by working out why a photo's popular. For example, work out why selective colour is so popular, then work out how to offer the same in a more interesting way.

I take photos for me, but it's also very nice to have other people apreciate them. Part of the skill is in communicating something, and you can't do that solely for yourself because you already know what the message is!
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Fair points. I reckon selective colour is popular for the same reason overcooked HDR is - it looks 'clever'. A lot of people mistake technique for quality.

I agree it's satisfying when other people appreciate your own photographs. But it matters to me who it is appreciating them and why.

I would dispute the notion that I (speaking for myself here) know what my photographs are trying to communicate. I often make photographs to try and understand why I made them!
 
Ed Sutton said:
I would dispute the notion that I (speaking for myself here) know what my photographs are trying to communicate. I often make photographs to try and understand why I made them!
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I think I understand that, but I can't be sure!!!

Re selective colour, I'm not sure you're completely right. I think to people who aren't looking at and analysing photos all the time, it adds interest. It, like overcooked HDR, makes people look again because they're not used to seeing it. So the learning for me there would be, how can I do the same without making an ugly or cliche'd photo.

Big Nick said:
If you like your pictures and you aren't trying to make a living out of it then who cares what other think?

I really like some of the pictures I've taken and posted them a couple of places on the web and nobody has really commented on them but so what I like them!!

When I look at some of the shots I take now, 6 months from when I started, I'm happy how things have progressed

You only need to worry what others think if you go pro!!
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Obviously some pictures can be just for you, but I find those tend to be the ones that simply look nice or record an event etc. The ones with a message or emotion surely mean far more when someone else gets the meaning? Few people write songs or poetry just for themselves, because it's a means of communication, and I think photography can be that too, even if you don't intend to make money from it.

I guess it depends what you're trying to do with your photography; there's no right and wrong.
 
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