XtremeCamera

A serious question, one not so easily answered. Sure, in its most basic meaning the definition of photographer is anyone that uses a camera to make a photograph. But if that were truly accurate I suppose I could pick up a knife, attempt to cut out the appendix of a neighbor, and call myself a surgeon. Nonsense of course, but so is the basic definition of ‘photographer’.

How about the person that drives down to Best Buy, plunks down $300 for an inexpensive point and shoot and starts taking pictures of their garden, the kids, dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, and the family car? Is this person a photographer? Well, if I drove down to Home Depot and purchased some gardening tools, spent half the summer working in my backyard could I then call myself a landscaper? Thought not. We got a problem.

I could spend a million dollars on landscaping tools and it still wouldn’t make me a landscaper, so what is it about photography that allows anyone, with no training, no skill, and a camera that takes photos of birthday parties of the kids, or graduation photos, call themselves a photographer? And today more and more people are spending a sizable amount of money on a good dSLR, remain ignorant of what an aperture or shutter speed is, and they make a few photos, and think themselves bona fide photographers.

Why is “our” field so easily manipulated like this, so easy to enter, throw up a shingle, and start a business? More importantly, why are Nikon, Canon, and other camera makers producing top-shelf dSLR’s with various programmed modes that entice those with disposable income to buy a D3 or the Canon equivalent, and who never see any other mode but Program? (Do you know the default setting of a brand new, out of the box; Nikon D3 is set to Program?).

I’m not trying to stir the pot this morning, honestly. I suppose I’m venting a bit over a conversation I had last night with an old friend over the phone. During the conversation it was made clear to me that my friend considers his wife a photographer, and wanted me to check out some of her photos. Using Apple’s iPhoto and its ability to create a web gallery of those photos, he took his wife’s camera, hooked it up to his Mac and created a gallery, then sent me the link to take a peek. So I did, and now I don’t think he or his wife will ever speak to me again.

You see, his wife was getting bored this summer and decided to buy a Kodak Easyshare and take pictures around the house. She knew nothing about photography before she bought the camera, still knows nothing about photography, and yet she’s so proud of her photos she’s bragging to the neighborhood that she has found her purpose in life and that purpose is to be a photographer.

The problem with all this is that upon examination of her pictures I discovered that she never took the camera off Automatic, and she centered everything she photographed, knowing nothing about composition. Yet, because the light meter is so good on most new P&S cameras that none of the photos were terribly exposed. You could tell that the photo of a rose was indeed a photo of a rose, that her kid on the bike was actually riding a bike. You get the idea; her exposures weren’t a problem because camera makers have made digital cameras stupid-proof and taking a well-exposed photo is pretty easy when you let the camera do the heavy lifting. Her contribution to the actual photographs was nothing more than aiming the camera at the subject and pushing down the shutter release.

Now, trying to be a friend, I guess I could have done what most friends do and leave comments under the photos and say things like “Awesome shot!” “Wow, how did you do that?” and “You are so good!” But I didn’t. I tried in a polite way to point out all the things that were wrong with the photos. Since she never professed to ME that she was serious about photography before now, I didn’t feel I was obligated to be harsh in my critiques, only honest. She picked up the extension phone during my conversation with her husband and told me to really critique her photos. “I’m no pro John, at least not yet, but I think most of them are terrific! I think I found my talent!” I politely told her I would take a look and let her know what I thought. She told me to be honest and made me promise I would. So I did. Big mistake.

My friend is an accountant, and I wish I had been fast enough on my feet to tell my friend while I had him on the phone that I had taken over the bill paying at my house (we have a guy for that) and I thought it was fun, and that I managed to balance my checkbook with ease. I wish I had said something like, “Hey, I’m an accountant now, I could hire myself out and make some extra cash!” I wonder how he would have responded.

Anyway, I went through her photos and politely pointed out the problems, and afterwards I wrote her an email and recommended a couple of books for her to read, even offered her a membership to XtremeCamera and a spot in the class coming up. About 2 hours later I received a response that proceeded to tell me in no uncertain words, that I was a cruel SOB, that I wouldn’t know a good photo if it bit me on the ass, and this; “How you ever made a living taking pictures is something I never understood anyway. Anyone can take a picture, and I happen to think I’m good at it. As good as you are, maybe even better. You’re an elitist ass. Screw you!” I honestly think she thought I was jealous.

What a sad way to end a friendship, and what a lesson I learned about people.

I have no problem with casual snappers (snappers are what I call people that own a camera, know nothing about photography, and still like to take pictures.) My wife is a snapper, and she loves it, but she’s also smart enough to realize that she is not a photographer. I’m thrilled for them that they have found something that gives them pleasure. My problem is that those of us that have spent our lives learning photography, and how to create the image we see in our mind’s eye and make it real, sharing the term ‘photographer’ with those that snap pictures. It’s semantics, I know, but with good photographers becoming more and more rare, and mediocre photography being accepted as ‘good’ photography, things need to change.

Photography is not for the thin-skinned. At some point you’re going to be critiqued, and there will be those that do not like your work, not matter how good you are or how good you think you are. It’s time to champion new definitions for certain words photographers use everyday, like ‘Photographer’ for one, and ‘Amateur’ and ‘Pro’ for another. With the advent of the Internet where confusion in communication is running rampant, words in every language have power. New definitions are needed to bring some separation between the snapper and the photographer. Perhaps we need to create a few new words to add to our lexicon. What do you call someone with no talent, no skills, a lot of conceit, and a camera? How about ‘Deluded Snapper”?

Tying this into XtremeCamera so it was worthy of being posted to the Daily Snapshot blog wasn’t very hard because I’ve been thinking about our place in the Internet universe a lot lately. Our recent ‘struggles’ with certain people that we allowed to participate in our little experiment we call XtremeCamera illustrates the problem with my friend and his wife really well. The number of people that know nothing of photography and are members of supposed photography websites is alarming. When this type of snapper started signing up for free memberships here, with no intention of learning anything because they were happy-go-lucky snappers it through us for a loop. Never having even thought about the possibility that it happen we had no immediate answers on how to deal with it. We fumbled the ball quite a bit until one of us (it wasn’t me) had the guts to do what was needed. She literally saved our collective asses.

It was never my intention to allow anyone to sign up and post photos for free. Nor was it ever my intention to allow happy snappers join the site because this community was going to be about becoming better photographers. If you’ve seen our original site you saw that we offered four different membership levels based on the feature set we offered, and the skill level of the member. None of the four were free memberships. I allowed someone close to convince me that allowing anyone to sign up for free was the only way to build exposure in a universe where there are billions of websites. It never entered my mind that there were happy snappers that would even want to sign up here. So I relented thinking that it would be good word of mouth and as these members learned more and more about photography they would see the value of upgrading. But if you are happy taking snapshots on Program mode you aren’t going to spend time learning things you think you don’t need to know. It wound up being a huge mistake in any case and probably stopped many people that did want to be among the ‘hungry to learn’ from signing up altogether.

I have had discussions with many people over the years about photography and what it takes to be good. Some people believe as I do, some don’t. Seems that everyone that takes a view other my own have a tendency to call me an elitist. I find that funny, akin to me walking into a hospital and demanding that I be called “Doctor” because I can own a knife, and insist that I be allowed to operate on people because I’m handy with it. “How hard can it be? You cut out what’s going bad, sew it back up. Nothing to it! If you don’t let me operate you’re elitist pigs!” Ridiculous, I know, but its relevant.

What this comes down to with respect to XtremeCamera is this; is there enough people that use the Internet, have a serious interest in photography, and will eventually find us and decide that our supposed ‘elitist’ attitude is something they want to be a part of? Are there enough people that own cameras with the desire to learn about photography and become good shooters? To be honest, I beginning to think not.

Despite my involvement with my other websites and the time I spend on them, XtremeCamera is the place I spend the most time, and the one I care most about. I’ve read the complaints about the lack of comments and critiques lately, and I’ve seen some thin-skinned kneejerk reactions to some of the honest critiques, and I’m still reeling from the whole debacle of the dark days of May and June. With a membership this small nothing goes unnoticed by anyone, and with the move to an all paid membership, our site is smaller than tiny, it’s downright minuscule. But at least the members that remain have a real desire to become serious photographers.

I’m not deluded enough to think that one day I’ll log on and see that dozens of new members had signed up while I was asleep. Or think that someday soon all these snap shooters out there will wake up, realize they aren’t ‘photographers’ at all, not in any sense of the word, and they’ll seek us out and yell ‘Teach me!” It isn’t going to happen that fast. It may never happen.

XtremeCamera has been a part of my life for 11 years. It began in 1997 as a photo-centric online magazine like some of my sites today ( they are Mac-centric sites however), so I’m not about to close up shop and walk away. It’s not that I have too much invested, even though I do, it’s because XtremeCamera, in its current form, is the personification of everything I’ve ever wanted in a photography site. It represents who I am and what I believe. Working hand in hand with Sean, I’ve been able to create a place that I wanted, a place like no other on the net. Poised to begin to change the way many people view the art and craft of photography.


There are still many things that I want to do with XtremeCamera, and plenty of work to keep Sean busy, not to mention the Admins and other staff members. I’m not going to slow down development, and once this site is fine-tuned enough, I’ll even buy some advertising in select magazines. Maybe we’ll seek out those few remaining people on the net that knows good photography takes commitment and hard work, and bring them in as part of a Critique Team. With a team of good shooters all working together to educate the novice shooter we’ll hopefully be found by those that want to be educated about photography.

More importantly, I am hoping that for the sake of photography people begin to understand what it takes to truly be good at something.
In the end, I have to have some optimism left, because the members we have now, the one’s that hung on through the madness that permeated the site a few months back, seem to get what we’re trying to do. And right now, today, that’s enough for me. I hope it is for them as well.

XtremeCamera isn’t going anywhere if I can help it. The good stuff, some very cool new features, new galleries, and more, is yet to come. Even if there is no one here to see it but me. So hang in there, the best is yet to be, or something like that.

John Manzione