Are we all just geeks?

Nikon_Nick

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...or is it just me? Genuine question :)

A few evenings ago, SWMBO and I were watching a movie...a really rubbish movie with sharks in. One of the actors referred to a shark as a Tiger Shark. 'No its not', I said. I then explained the difference in shape between a Tiger Shark and what was on the screen. It looked to me as though the special effects team had made a job lot of Mako Sharks and painted one of them with biegey (?) stripes. It didnt look anything like a Tiger Shark. I would have assumed that the makers of a film primarily about sharks would have at least done a bit of research. Anyhoo, this prompted SWMBO to call me a geek and laugh at me for being so annoyed by such a mistake.

This got me thinking. Does the fact that we have chosen photography as a hobby/profession make us all geeks to some degree? Do you already need to be a bit of a geek to have an interest in photography? Has photography turned you into a geek if you dont think you were one to start with? I appreciate that there wll be different levels of geekiness, as some people enjoy the technical/specifications side of things more than others, and some enjoy the post processing side more than others. There are of course some of us that prefer to use minimal PP and get the shot as correct as possible in camera....are we the most geeky? Are film photographers bigger geeks than digital users? I use both, so if what I say about levels of geekdom are correct, its amazing that I ever met a woman and had a Daughter.

Personally, I think I was always a geek to begin with, and never really ran with 'the crowd' when i was at school or indeed after I left school. I enjoy heavy metal, and absolutely love the Star Wars movies (im currently wearing a t-shirt that only a Star Wars fan would 'get'). I could probably recite word for word the scripts from movies such as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. One of my favourite tv shows ever was Spaced, and probably my favourite movie ever is Jaws. I love '24', and had the ringtone on my mobile for a while, and I love photography of course.

I dont mind being a geek, but will the rest of you admit it? ;):D
 
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No!!
 
Believe it or not, it wasnt a Syfy channel movie....although they are fantastic. Ghost Shark is a personal favourite, closely followed by Sharknado :D
 
I had to use Wikipedia to discover what "geek" actually meant - so my reply is based on assuming that that definition is correct. Based on it, the answer has to be no; I don't believe everyone here is "intellectual" or "heavily involved in" or an "expert" in photography. I'm sure there are people here who are none of the above.
 
Thanks Stephen.

The use of the word Geek in my original post was only intended as a general term. I didnt really expect that anyone would go and research the Dictionary meaning of the word. It makes your reply quite ironic really :p
 
:D
 
I think the fact that you used SWMBO says more about you than your knowledge of sharks.

Don't mean to offend, but it's one of those terms that writes a little paragraph all by itself. :)

Like those people who sit in meetings and take ten minutes explaining why you shouldn't say 'brainstorm' :confused:

One of my best mates used to refer to the number of different 'anoraks' I had, and that I could bore on a variety of subjects. He could spend an evening on anecdotes about Barnsley FC's 1984-85 season.:p
 
No offence taken, but for the benefit of the thread, would you mind sharing that paragraph with us? :)
 
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I don't think you *have* to be a geek at all to be into photography, for me whether you're a bit geeky or not really depends what area of photography you're into and what it means to you. If you spend more time talking about gear than going out taking photos that's more on the geeky side to me, if you're happy just having a decent camera and spend most of your time taking photos that sits more on the artistic side to me. If you're somewhere in the middle then maybe you're a partial geek. :p

I'm a sound engineer, I need to have a reasonable amount of technical knowledge so I can set sound systems up well to allow me to mix properly, it's a combination of technical knowledge and an artistic understanding of the music. Similarly I like learning technical stuff in photography that I think will help me take better photos. I'm sure some people would call learning the technical stuff geeky but I don't think of it as being that way; it isn't technical talk for technical talk's sake, it has a specific purpose which is actually to improve the artistic side of things.

I am, however, a massive plane geek. So yeah, I'm a geek, just not really in photography! :D
 
I'm what my other half refers to as an Uber-geek, and was even before I got into photography. I do enjoy the technical aspects of photography though and like to research equipment thoroughly

For your consideration, I shall present my geek credentials
1) I've read comics for years, and now own a fair amount of the original art used to print some of my favourite series, in fact I now count many comic artists as close friends
2) Before I went to university, I worked for Games Workshop (role playing and wargames shop for those who don't know) as one of their figure painters.
3) I've read syfy and fantasy books since I was old enough to pick my own reading material.
4) My PhD is in biomedical engineering
5) I now work in the film industry supplying CG effects for blockbusters.


Luckily for me, my industry is full of geeks (we even have office nerf gun battles to relieve deadline stress) and my other half is a very understanding woman. In fact she has bought me a fair amount of the aforementioned comic art.
 
you cannot be a photo "geek" unless you are also a "twitcher"
 
Personally i'm concerned when geeks come bearing gifts
 
Everyone does something which will make other people think of them as geeks.


Steve.
 
I suppose photography can be as geeky or not as you please. My daughter takes excellent photographs - she has an eye for capturing the moment and composition - but has absolutely no interest in photography as such.

Spotting errors in books and films isn't really a geek thing. A lot of people do this if it's something they're interested in (cameras, cars, guns, aircraft or whatever) without thinking about it. Ian Fleming was a master of mistakes, even when he got advice from Geoffrey Boothroyd (firearms) and Dennis Wheatley (wine). Getting too obsessed about this sort of thing is probably pedantic though. I'm interested in history and guns, and I'm guilty of this!
 
Better than being a nerd :)
 
From Wikipedia, "a person heavily interested in a hobby" , so I guess a few TP members must be, "Geeky".
 
Are trainspotters, "Anoraks".............?
 
Probably guilty as charged for me.

I like photography.
My other main hobby is making plastic model kits.
I work in IT.
I am partial to Star Trek & Star Wars.

Just relieved with all this geekiness to have found someone that loves me how I am lol.
 
I don't think that being a 'geek' has anything to do with liking sci-fi.

Being a geek is usually regarded as having a enthusiastic knowledge of something a bit specialist. I wouldn't say that photography is specialists, but you might have geeks *within* photography who have their areas.
 
When any hobby develops its own jargon it can get a bit specialist and geeky. Take the recent University Challenge questions on photography - the team who were asked the questions didn't get one of them but I'll bet that a majority of people on the forum would have got at least one, if not all 3. While we may consider it fairly normal to know that full stops increase by 1.4x, laymen may not which probably makes us geeks to the uneducated :) majority.
 
Nod said:
While we may consider it fairly normal to know that full stops increase by 1.4x
Click to expand...

Well, the number representing the aperture increases by 1.4 x but a stop is an exposure factor of 2.


Steve.
 
And that's exactly the sort of knowledge we as geeks have!
 
Duplicate.
 
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