Crappy eggs

May 20, 2008 by pmelcher.

I have to apologize. I really do. I usually do not do that. I respect other people’s opinion, as long as they are intelligent ones. But for a few months I have been reading the new blog launched by Photoshelter to go along their Collection. They hired a full time blogger, it seems, which is a great idea, and she has been steady at shooting out blogs at rapid fire speed.

And, as anything else related to photography, I pay attention. But after weeks on, I am still baffled. I do not understand a word she is writing and who she is talking about. Nada, zilch.

I thought I knew a little bit about photography being born in this business and spending most of my awake moments dealing with some aspect of it. I thought I had been a fortunate member of the human race because I have seen so many great pictures in my life that it would hard for anyone to compete.

But when I read her blog, I have no idea what and who she is talking about…really.. I had heard there was a “fine art” photography world out there created on Ansel Adams memory path but had never seen it so active. Didn’t know it was so intense. She even gets really excited when she sits on the laps of a photographer that takes close-ups of green stuff growing up in her garden.

See, in Europe, photography is not considered a fine art and there is no fine art school or courses. There is commercial stock and editorial, but nothing to encourage people to take pictures for wall hanging. Of course, there has been photographers like Jean Paul Sieff and others that have somewhat played around with the concept, but really, more exception than the rule.

But now I see the light. And I am baffled. Nothing against this person who appears to be a nice, smart, well educated and certainly photo enthusiast, but I am really, seriously baffled. The last shock was today when this image ( trust me, not the worst) was shown as part of her favorite :

I spend the day thinking about it and other images posted on that blog. I cannot make sense of why anyone would think it is a good, or great photograph. I might by unbashfully practical but it is a close-up of a badly cooked egg. The lighting is not exceptional, the subject is boring, there is nothing there for me to get excited. about. Not even shocked. Just plainly bored. Sure, for someone that has a big Loft in New York with a 20 Feet ceiling, this image on a really big big print my look cool for a while ( does it come with the smell ?). But to me, hooked on photography, it is just an egg.

Don’t take me wrong : I am really, really glad that there is not just one taste in photography. I understand that I might not like all that is liked by my peers. But that blog has published such a series of awful pictures, I had to say something. And, all this with an incessant name dropping of people I have never, ever heard of.

Every time I read the blog, I feel I open the wrong door and fell into the middle of a party I was not invited to. And for a good reason, I don’t know anyone.

Again, I have an incredible respect for the author of the blog. The only reason I bring it up it is because it is associated to Photoshelter, a commercial entity who is trying to  license images. I would have thought the blog would be related. But it is so off into another unknown direction that I read it with my jaw dropping thinking ” What the hell are they talking about?”.

And how long can they keep posting images of empty dark greenish fields with a dead tree somewhere in the horizon and a little paper wraps on the ground?

Is that what the Photoshelter collection is trying to sell ?

As that blog says…off they go to LOOK3… Hopefully for them they might finally make  it to Eggland !!!

Posted in focus, license, No sense, web 2.0, prosumer | Print | 2 Comments »