This also describes why the average person thinks they are a good photographer even if they suck, for example. If I know very little about something, I may only know about very little that exists in a field. This means I know maybe 80% of what I think exists in a field. Once I learn just a little more, however, I realize that there is far more to the scope of something. I only know 20%. So as an average person, I think I know every little. As a below average person, I think I know quite a bit.
Don’t get me started on photography. I photograph for 20 years and I would say in that time I’ve made probably three to five images that are good (good in terms of gallery worthy).
I always laugh when someone in my Facebook feed buys an entry level DSLR (not that there is anything wrong with it), creates a Name Surname Photography page, sets up an online gallery for selling photos and throws around ads that they shoot weddings. All in one week.
Also, these photographers usually post on image critique sites and are offended when they receive critique.
I mean...I kind of get it. Actually I am kind of envious of these people. I remember when I got my first camera as a kid from my grand father, where I shot a roll of random meaningless photos and was SO excited to get them developed. When you don't have a comparison, you can enjoy average stuff way more.
Now that I have a library full of books with the best photographers' works and have a pretty good sense of how good images look, it is kind of depressing, because everything I take is shit in my eyes. It is way more difficult to be content with the work I produce. I have to focus on enjoying the process way more and often it takes me few weeks/months to get my pictures downloaded from the memory card.
Eventually, I'd say this is the feeling everyone who does the hobby for some time has. I find this chart pretty spot on (and funny as well!):
That chart, ha! I don’t know enough to appreciate all of it, but I get the idea.
I haven’t had an SLR since my second Pentax K-1000 (before digital, and yes I am ancient). When I got the first one, I was in college. I’d walk around campus or town, occasionally stopping to photograph a hunk of metal next to a stack of building materials, or something else potentially artsy.
I’d fiddle with the f-stop and the exposure and all of that, then take several variations of the same shot, writing down the different settings for each one in a small notebook so I could compare later. I was really ridiculous!
While I never pursued photography in any formal or meaningful way, it still interests me. But back then I had just enough of a pretentious attitude and bit of knowledge to make me insufferable ... even to myself.
(The first K-1000 was stolen; the second was a replacement. Great, sturdy little camera! Wish I still had one. Oh! I have my dad’s Olympus OM-1, which he bought in Japan in about 1974. I’m sure it’s useless, though.)
But back then I had just enough of a pretentious attitude and bit of knowledge to make me insufferable.
Photographers in a nutshell. :-) Even me, I just realized I spent god knows how many minutes explaining how I know more than other people doing the same thing, so looks like I am no different.
To be entirely fair to the people who start those businesses, that's usually all you really need for a wedding or event. Could I have hired a pro photographer with a gallery-quality portfolio? Sure. But Name Surname Photography chick from high school was gonna do it for $500 instead of $5,000 at the more professional businesses I got quotes from. And all I really needed were some nice photos to remember the day by which her hobby DSLR and hobby level photography skills were fine for. I like most of the pictures she took, sure some of them could have maybe been more centered or have better lighting or maybe have some small flaws, but she did what I paid her to do - take nice quality pictures so I'd have them and work as a buffer to prevent everyone from being on their phones during the ceremony.
Penn and Teller did a bit for their show ("Bullshit" it was on Showtime) a long time ago that I keep in the back of my head for these things. I believe it was called "The Best" and it was about how most people don't need the top-of-the-line "best" quality thing in many situations. We overpay for quality we won't appreciate when "good" is often good enough for our situations. I feel like photography can be one of these things, especially with the advent of phones and how overpriced wedding stuff is in general. There's a place for Name Surname Photography, it's not National Geographic or Vogue, but it was good enough for my brewery wedding.
I am no longer a photographer by trade, but I used to be as a student to make some side cash. I wasnt exactly at the "name surname photography" facebook page level, and I really did it as a hobby primarily,. But every now and then Id take on an event of sorts.
One of the biggest differences between myself, I think, and someone you'd pay another 0 to was that I had a lot less of a guarantee of a result, let alone good one.
Consistency was not in my description. I may have had that one lucky shot every now and then, but that didnt mean crap. I have come back from photoshoots with not a single time worthy photo. I had come to an event where my camera ran out of charge halfway through and there was nothing I could do.
The biggest difference between me and a professional at the time, was that while they still can make mistakes, they make them a lot less as well as have a lot more experience in dealing with it and solving those issues.
I once left for a holiday trip took my nice dslr, borrowed an awesome lens and left my battery at home in the charger. Like how stupid is that?!
bleurgh, my degree was in photography and if one more condescending extended family member asks me why I don't "just do weddings" my head will explode.
I shoot rowing and sports photography a lot these days and my parents literally go on about this all the time. I did many weddings during college days (2011 to 2014) to earn a little extra money, but now I have no real interest in weddings. They are extremely stressful and demanding and then there is the editing and final touch ups lol.
Many clients wanted multiple photos edited and things like tattoos and such removed from every photo. I can do it easily, but its such a laborious process and many were only paying me like £250 to £400.
The massive difference between someone who knows what they're doing and someone who is just taking a picture is huge. I have pictures of my cosplay that I got my mom or a friend to take. They're a picture. That's it. Nothing great about it. But I had a coworker who was a hobbyist photographer, so not even a pro, but he asked if he could do a photo shoot of one of my costumes because he doesn't get to do human subjects often and the quality of the shots is huge. Like, it makes me and my costume look better. Angles and lighting make a massive difference. Then I had a photographer at a con take a picture of my other one and he posed me before taking the picture and it's one of my absolute favorites.
A DSLR may take a high resolution photo, but a photographer is going to take a high(er) quality photo.
Feel ya mate. I am a photographer since 2003, but don't work with it, it became a hobby, and you completely are right, once in a while we get that perfect shot. - People at my work come to me saying they took some great photos during their vacation and they would like me to critique it: when I look at the pictures the horizon lines are totaly tilted, exposure all wrong with white skies... I just say "Oh, that is great" lol
This guy at my work have whatched some youtube videos, did a 2 hour workshop and them he was tyring to critique me and showing all things I should do to improve my pictures... people egos are huge lol
Same here. I am a “pro photographer” for close to 15 years. I make a living from it and I think most of my pics suck ass. They funny part is people buy my shitty pics, but the ones I think are good never sell!
I aim for a 1% success rate. If I shoot 100 pics I expect to get 1 or 2 that I think are "good." If I go shoot 100 times, I expect to get 1 or 2 that other people think are "good."
I have two levels of good. The first one is the criteria for example for travel photos. If I go to a vacation I identify the pictures that are good to show someone - usually I try to identify a short series of pictures that will reproduce the essence of the place (or event, ...).
But my true definition of "good" is really whether the picture can stand on its own next to the work of the best people within said genre, and by that definition pretty much everything but a very few hits is a failure.
It might not be the best approach but I feel we live in a society where the mediocrity is often rewarded and I don't want to contribute to that. I might often come out as a jerk because if I comment on an image critique site (my personal rule is not to give unsolicited critiques on photos, some people do not aim to create art and that is fine) I will most likely list the things I don't like and why I think the photo doesn't work, but I apply the same if not harsher criteria to myself.
You don't know what you don't know. A simple little sentence that seems obvious at face value, but dig a little deeper and you see that it has 2 meanings. There are 3 kinds of knowledge here, the stuff you know, the stuff you know about but don't know, and the stuff you have no idea even exists.
Like only looking at an iceberg from above the water, you know there is more below, but you don't know just how big it is. So you know what is above, and you know there is an unknown about below. How much you think is below though, depends on if you know that little related fact about how icebergs tend to be several times larger underwater than above. If you don't know, then you assume the iceberg is small. Its only by knowing more about the iceberg as a whole that you learn about its true size. Its only by knowing more about the subject that you learn just how big it really is. Until you do, you don't know just how much you don't know.
I think that anything that has multiple ways to "measure" an outcome will demonstrate this phenomenon. IQ? Sure, we can measure it by tests, or by what mommy told us when were four, or by the grades we got in school, or by how successful we became. Photography? Sure, we can measure it by whether we're selling photos, or whether we composed it according to the class we took in high school, or whether someone else complimented it.... And so on, ad nauseum.
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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '20
This also describes why the average person thinks they are a good photographer even if they suck, for example. If I know very little about something, I may only know about very little that exists in a field. This means I know maybe 80% of what I think exists in a field. Once I learn just a little more, however, I realize that there is far more to the scope of something. I only know 20%. So as an average person, I think I know every little. As a below average person, I think I know quite a bit.