Anyone can do this?

Theo Sulphate · Jun 9, 2015

railwayman3 said:
I think my point is that it will be a very long time before machines and computers can replace all human creativity ?

Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but you might as well know the truth: none of us are real here. That's right - this website is an artificial intelligence simulation with thousands of bots playing the individual roles of quirky "analog photographer" personalities. Just follow a few bots for a while and you'll figure out the algorithms. Surely you didn't think all this was real?

MattKing · Jun 10, 2015

Theo Sulphate said:
Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but you might as well know the truth: none of us are real here. That's right - this website is an artificial intelligence simulation with thousands of bots playing the individual roles of quirky "analog photographer" personalities. Just follow a few bots for a while and you'll figure out the algorithms. Surely you didn't think all this was real?

Who developed the algorithm for Umut?

Ken Nadvornick · Jun 10, 2015

MattKing said:
Who developed the algorithm for Umut?

Anonymous.

baachitraka · Jun 10, 2015

He/She may learn, why pros charge so much of money, after an assignment or two ;-)

pdeeh · Jun 10, 2015

ohnewton35 said:
This is someone who clearly is in it for the money and the experience unfortunately that's what it's come to

My God ... this is shocking stuff.

Next someone will be telling me that in the olden days, professional photographers occasionally took money for their work ...

removed account4 · Jun 10, 2015

pdeeh
thats "ye olden days"

fotch · Jun 10, 2015

At least he is being honest. How many pro's in any field are really rank amateurs who claim to be professional ________.

Steve Smith · Jun 10, 2015

fotch said:
At least he is being honest. How many pro's in any field are really rank amateurs who claim to be professional ________.

How are you making a distinction between them?

jnanian said:
thats "ye olden days"

That should be þe olden days (using a thorn character - not y).

Steve.

tomfrh · Jun 10, 2015

I don't see what's so bad about it. He's honest about what he offers.

pdeeh · Jun 10, 2015

Steve Smith said:
That should be þe olden days (using a thorn character - not y).

Steve.

you've been watching too many repeats of QI on Dave !

eddie · Jun 10, 2015

I don't know how many members make their living doing portraits, but I doubt that any would want the kind of clients this ad attracts. I used to do a lot of hand-colored children/family portraits. The kind of clients I wanted weren't looking for low cost photographs, and my pricing wasn't set up to attract them. I know Blansky does portraits, and I doubt he'd see this guy as competition.

removed account4 · Jun 10, 2015

Steve Smith said:
How are you making a distinction between them?

That should be þe olden days (using a thorn character - not y).

Steve.

thanks steve !
the only thorn i know of is on a rose, didn't realize it was a language too

eddie said:
I don't know how many members make their living doing portraits, but I doubt that any would want the kind of clients this ad attracts. I used to do a lot of hand-colored children/family portraits. The kind of clients I wanted weren't looking for low cost photographs, and my pricing wasn't set up to attract them. I know Blansky does portraits, and I doubt he'd see this guy as competition.

hi eddie, you are right, it attracts bottom feeders and people looking to get cheap work done.

but this cheap is good mentality overflows into the professional world as well. i have bid on jobs where my competition
charges what seems to be only gas money to get to the site, even driving lets say 6 hours ( 12 hours round trip )
so, someone charging a living wage, who pays his taxes ( the typical 48¢/dollar to taxes ) with nearly 30years experience
and has to spend 2 days doing the actual shooting, drive 6 hours back to the darkroom, spend another 4 days hand processing film
8 sheets at a time ... and then another 3 or 4 days printing, labeling, writing descriptions, drawing maps and overnighting the work to the client 3 states away ...
well, the guy charging the living wage gets hug out to dry because cheaper gets the job, no matter the quality ...

while i have no problem with the CL guy having a good time, it is the world we live in ...

blansky · Jun 10, 2015

eddie said:
I don't know how many members make their living doing portraits, but I doubt that any would want the kind of clients this ad attracts. I used to do a lot of hand-colored children/family portraits. The kind of clients I wanted weren't looking for low cost photographs, and my pricing wasn't set up to attract them. I know Blansky does portraits, and I doubt he'd see this guy as competition.

The perfect storm of events kicked the shit out of the portrait photography business. And it has massive repercussions. Digital, while a great tool for portrait photographers, had the rather unforeseen affect of allowing the moms-with-cameras that existed in the film days when automatic cameras came out, to expand their work and their ability to mimic what pros could do, with their computer programs. The affect of this was they dug into the children business, since no massive technical skill was needed for kids.

Then they started in on the high school senior market because they could retouch with photoshop and mimic to a lesser extent what pros were doing. Still they had no real technical skill on lighting or "posing".

Weddings have always been under attack by amateurs and when the whole photojournalistic approach to them took hold in the 80s and 90s they too began to slip away from the pros more. Then digital added to that progression.

But in all these cases people that really cared still turned to the pros, except for kid pictures usually.

But how the amateurs really hit the pros was with the fact they would give people all the files, and then people could get cheap prints at costco. Then every time a pro did a sitting people started asking them for the files. And many gave in and gave them to them because they were afraid they would lose the business. This trend also brought down the prices. Amateurs have no overhead. All this whittled away at the pro business, a bit here a bit there and soon, pro studios were dropping like flies. Hundreds went out of business, many moved back to work out of their homes and the industry from 2008 to now is unrecognizable from before.

The recessions took away a large client base, snapshot styles were in vogue, and with all the cheap cameras and camera phones, people no longer needed professional photographers anywhere near as much.

Lots still do well. I do well. But the industry changed a lot. As I wrote in another thread, a photographer, one of the best in the field, lost his studio in 2009, and killed himself this year. He was a great photographer, had massive recognition amongst his peers, massive award winner for his work, highly regarded teacher, etc etc. Another one stated he used to get 150 calls a year to do weddings, now he gets zero.

So to answer the question, does this guys ad affect anyone. No, not really. But the trend of these types of freelancers, with the advent of digital had a major effect.

Sirius Glass · Jun 10, 2015

MattKing said:
Who developed the algorithm for Umut?

The two letter troll who used to dwell here and moved to photo.net after he got himself booted out of APUG and Hasselblad Info.

Mainecoonmaniac · Jun 10, 2015

What I've seen in the past decades, people hired photographers for their technical abilities for the most part. As photographic technology became easier to use and democratized, there's less of a need for technicians. A lot of technicians and bad business people went away and what's left are the more tenacious business people and artist that offered something beautiful. Of course there are the constant stream of photographers that come and go. One of them is me. I quit the business because it was too tough of a business. I think those professionals that have been doing it for a long time are admirable. But I wouldn't work for cheap nor free. It's part of the problem with the photographic profession.

Theo Sulphate · Jun 10, 2015

jnanian said:
thanks steve !
the only thorn i know of is on a rose, didn't realize it was a language too
...

The thorn and edh characters represent the voiced and voiceless sounds of "th". The "th" in "think' is voiceless; the "th" in "the" is voiced. These two characters exist today in the Icelandic alphabet, but have disappeared from the orthography of other languages.

pentaxuser · Jun 10, 2015

I know nothing about portraiture being it digital or analogue nor anything really about wedding photography but in both cases the question arises in my mind that if you do not know what you are doing or have not got the correct set-up then wouldn't it be the case that the time you might need to rescue a poor portrait or wedding shot with PS might take the kind of time that means that the digi amateur loses the cost edge that he/she has over the professional well equipped analogue shooter who produces good prints straight from the expertly made negative?

pentaxuser

blansky · Jun 10, 2015

pentaxuser said:
I know nothing about portraiture being it digital or analogue nor anything really about wedding photography but in both cases the question arises in my mind that if you do not know what you are doing or have not got the correct set-up then wouldn't it be the case that the time you might need to rescue a poor portrait or wedding shot with PS might take the kind of time that means that the digi amateur loses the cost edge that he/she has over the professional well equipped analogue shooter who produces good prints straight from the expertly made negative?

pentaxuser

Firstly quality dropped. Good enough became good enough. People don't seem to care.

Secondly these types of amateurs gave the files to the customer and walked away. There was no after work. They shot, they handed the people the files and walked away. Or they did batch plug in retouching, balancing, exposure and handed them files to the customer.

So the people with limited income, which there are a lot of now, just settled for what they got.

And the people with money still use pros.

Mainecoonmaniac · Jun 10, 2015

So market to the right clientele?

blansky said:
And the people with money still use pros.

You're right. There's possibly no middle ground here. Photographers should either offer a high level of service and quality for folks that have money, or go the Walmart route where low quality and low prices are the norm.

blansky · Jun 10, 2015

Michael R 1974 said:
Why do you assume low price = low quality, and vice versa?

In this case because everyone prices themselves to the extent the public will pay. The busier I get the more I charge.

So from that point of view, the more in demand, which could imply (but perhaps not necessarily, could just be good marketing) the better the product.

So then your prices are just a reflection of your "quality".

I have X number of hours I want to work, I have X amount of money I want/need to make. Therefore I charge what gets me there.

Why would I want to make a high quality product and charge a low amount of money for it and work my ass off.

This is not Walmart. There is only me, not a village of slaves making the product.

blansky · Jun 10, 2015

Michael R 1974 said:
I put a lot more of it onto marketing. That and the mindless herd mentality.

Not always, of course.

I'm sure it's a factor.

But marketing costs money and unless you bring in a lot, you have a hard time doing it.

And to bring it in, you as an individual supplier of the product, have to charge a lot of money.

It's a tricky cycle.

Mainecoonmaniac · Jun 10, 2015

Photography is customized work

Michael R 1974 said:
Why do you assume low price = low quality, and vice versa?

Due to the nature of photographic work, photographers for the most part, can't take advantage economies of scale. You can go to Kinko's and Xerox your face as a portrait for $1, but the results might suck.

Sirius Glass · Jun 10, 2015

pentaxuser said:
I know nothing about portraiture being it digital or analogue nor anything really about wedding photography but in both cases the question arises in my mind that if you do not know what you are doing or have not got the correct set-up then wouldn't it be the case that the time you might need to rescue a poor portrait or wedding shot with PS might take the kind of time that means that the digi amateur loses the cost edge that he/she has over the professional well equipped analogue shooter who produces good prints straight from the expertly made negative?

pentaxuser

A poor photographer does not know that the photographs are merely poor snapshots.

Sirius Glass · Jun 10, 2015

Michael R 1974 said:
Why do you assume low price = low quality, and vice versa?

Because it usually is with all the gwcs around.

pentaxuser · Jun 10, 2015

blansky said:
So the people with limited income, which there are a lot of now, just settled for what they got.

And the people with money still use pros.

So in the "old days" everyone had to use a pro and pay pro prices but in the old days I'd have thought that by and large there were more limited income groups than there are now. You might argue that by and large people were richer in say the 60s than they are now but statistics wouldn't seem to back that up. So we haven't really regressed in terms of disposable income.

So is it the "more is better and hang the quality" philosophy that has changed? I don't want 30 great shots for X dollars of my wedding, I want 300 for X dollars and I'll decide what should be rejected or I'll keep the lot even the bad ones because more of mediocre quality beats less of great quality

It might be that the "throw-away society" where nothing lasts is the real "spectre at the feast" and the new breed of "buy a digi and supply your services cheaply" simply reflects society's change. It is an affect rather than a cause?

pentaxuser

Anyone can do this?

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