Saturday, August 12, 2017

Foto By Chuckie

One thing I find particularly funny is the rash of "Professional Photographers" you see these days on social media. Everyone with a digital camera is now a "Professional" I see at least three new ones a day. It seems any pin head who takes one good baby picture or grabs a decent wedding photo immediately decides that they should work for National Geographic, American Bride, or Playboy.

What's worse is the iPhone and iPad crowd thinking they are the next Ansel Adams or Annie Leibovitz. Every where you go there is some dimwit with a selfie stick trying to look sophisticated while acting like a dumbass in front of his own phone. Ever been 10 rows back at a concert and a squadron of dipshits are holding up their iPads to take a picture or worse video? While the pictures turn out lousy they end up blinding the multitudes of guests who paid a lot of money to see the artist perform.

Let's get real for a minute here. Without trying to offend you, your thousand dollar cell phone is not a serious camera. It's the new millennium's Kodak Instamatic. Sure some great pictures can be taken with a cell phone but it's far rarer than you might think. Imagine the odds of a albino three legged midget winning the olympic pole vaulting gold medal while wearing a Speedo with a winning PowerBall lottery ticket tucked into his groin. Sure it could happen.......

While at a concert in Punta Gorda last March, I was approached by a "Professional Photographer" This 20 year old kid had a Nikon CoolPix camera. Pretty nice iron for an entry level digital camera to take snapshots of the kids at Christmas with. He told me he had a 1gb memory card installed and was really proud of it. He could take/store almost 400 pictures on that SD card. He looked like someone had punched him in the stomach when I told him my 128gb card held over 12,000 shots. He disappeared into the crowd, never to be seen again, or so I hoped.

About an hour later he came by and asked me to look at some of his shots. They were, in a word, terrible. The stage was oriented North/South facing East. The bands were playing in the afternoon so the sun was behind them blasting through the musicians from behind. Every one of his pictures was washed out as he stood directly in front of the bands and carefully composed his shots, LOOKING INTO THE SUN! I almost pissed myself! This "Professional" was shooting into the sun and worse he couldn't figure out what went wrong.

Once I regained consciousness from laugh induced hypoxia, I recommended that he might want to stand off to the side and take some shots without the sun directly in his face. He said I was a genius and that he would try that. Later I saw him about a hundred yards from the stage taking pictures in the twilight with his tiny little built in flash popping off. He then asked me the most brilliant question I have ever heard. "Should I use my flash when I try to take pictures of the Moon?"

Professional Photographer? I don't think so. He did give me a copy of his business card in case I wanted to see some of his work on-line. Yup, you guessed it. He had full color business cards printed up proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he was a professional.

And that's what I have done! My photography business is called "Foto By Chuckie" I even went to Vista Print and ordered my own business cards! My slogan printed below the card's title says, "Occasionally Good Photographs". I am listed as "Camera Pilot/Foto Stooge! My address is listed as Jacksonville Fl, Planet Earth. Next time I am at a function with my camera equipment I will have these cards for all these nitwit Paparazzi in training.

I just may post one on on my facebook page to judge the reactions!