# The Fauxtographer and the Daguerreotypist



## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

I wrote this short essay for my blog, but since it's partly a response to things I have read on here, I thought it would be appropriate, or at least interesting, to reproduce it here.

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In the mid nineteenth century there was a revolution in portraiture. The  Daguerreotype become widely available, and popular. Everyone, it  seemed, had their portrait made on a funny little grey plate by the  funny little fellow down the street. The people selling this service  were often hacks, hustlers, and charlatans. The Daguerreotypist was  likely selling patent medicines last year, and would be operating a  hypnotism show the next. The results, naturally, were a bit variable. 

The painters were enraged. The work was awful, by their standards. The  image was tiny, albeit detailed. It was not even colored! That marvelous  detail captured the subjects flaws just as thoroughly as their good  points. It had all manner of weird artifacts due to the long exposure.  The people making this things had no skills, particularly, there was no  craft to this process. Why, a man could learn to make a Daguerreotype in  only a few days! The work was, basically, crap. People loved them,  ignored the painters, and bought them by the millions. 

The Daguerreotype was not a painting, and did not pretend to be. It was  something the customer could not do for himself. It was quick. Something  that was good enough to suit the need or desire of the customer at the  time. It was also cheap and widely available. The result is, among other  things, a fantastically deep and interesting record of socioeconomic  classes that had never been given a visual record before. 

Of course, in the long run, photography won. Those hustlers and crooks  shooting tiny, bad, portraits helped to birth this new form. They helped  to set new standards, they contributed to the new aesthetic of visual  art and of portraiture which we see today. The painters had their say,  our modern notion of photography takes ideas from paintings as well as  from the hustling Daguerreotypist who had no idea about any aesthetic.  It's all in the mix. But almost nobody has their portrait painted these  days. 

Today we do not really have the Daguerreotype. We have instead the  consumer grade DSLR with a lousy, but cheap, kit lens. This camera has  an Automatic mode that is fairly decent. Why, a woman can learn to take  photographs in a couple of days! We now see the rise of down-market  part-time photographers, styled "fauxtographers" or "mom with a camera"  by the some. These are people who have failed to master the difficult  art of professional photography. They are hacks selling a cheap service  and providing results that simply are not very good. The results are  often very bad, by contemporary standards. Standards set, largely, by  the professional photographers. 

Why look, she's not even using off camera flash! The white balance is  awful! The megapixels, there are so few! The composition is.. I don't  even know what that is! 

All the criticisms are perfectly correct. The painters correctly  observed, albeit at excessive length, that the Daguerreotype is not a  painting. The irritated professional observes today that the Mom With A  Camera is not making professional-looking baby pictures. This is, the  attentive reader will know by now, true but irrelevant. 

What the down-market photographer does provide is a service the customer  cannot provide themselves, at a cheap price. The service is good enough  to meet needs of the customer. Every crime and fault that is laid at  the feet of the "fauxtographer" was laid, 150 years ago, at the feet of  the roving Daguerreotypist. If the same arc occurs over the next 10 or  20 years, and I see no reason to imagine otherwise, a new standard for  professional photography will arise. People will look at your carefully  posed photograph, with big softbox at 45 degrees camera left and a  reflector at 50 degrees camera right, the eyes lovingly sharpened ever  so slightly in post and the skin smoothed to perfection, and they will  say "That looks OLD, dude. What IS that?" and they will be right. 

I don't know what a new aesthetic of event photography will look like,  but I bet it will draw ideas from the current professional looks, as  well as from the on-camera-flash, spray-and-pray spontaneous look. It  will be a melding of Facebook snap with professionally smoothed skin,  and a bunch of things we can't predict. 

If you're a pro at the end of your career, don't worry about it. If  you're just coming up, stay sharp. Those damned MWACs are going to win,  in some sense, and you better be ready for it.


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## pgriz (Sep 16, 2012)

As long as the suppliers are fixated on the product or service, they will always have end-runs around them by customers who are buying a benefit.  The Daguerrotype was giving people images that they recognized, the day after they posed.  The painters were creating images that conveyed an aspect of the person, after several sittings, and perhaps several months.  Painters were selling prestige.  Buyers were buying a quick, recognizable portrait.  Nowadays, the very same dynamic is playing itself out because the suppliers are fixated on the process to deliver the product, whereas the buyers may have other ideas in mind.  It comes back to what was discussed in another thread - the seller must understand the motivation of the buyer, and deliver a service/product that costs no more than what the buyer is willing to pay.  That cost/benefit combination defines a niche in the market, and some are well equipped to exploit it, and some are completely incapable.  

To me, the issue for success of any business person, is how well does one understand the niche that they are working in.  If the fit is good, then the business person will make money and deliver to the customer what they expect, for the price they are willing to pay.


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## cgipson1 (Sep 16, 2012)

amolitor said:


> Those damned MWACs are going to win,  in some sense, and you better be ready for it.



Only because of mass exposure of bad photos on social media, that is becoming the new "accepted" norm by the morons willing to pay for it! (Not to mention the low prices they charge for shoddy work, resetting values even for good work!). It won't be an improvement... more like a major downgrade!


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## rexbobcat (Sep 16, 2012)

The difference though, is that the consumer CAN produce the same results that fauxtographers can, which cannot really be said for daguerreotypists. 

But since we live in a society now that believes that people with titles are more competent than people without, they buy the service anyways.

And hence Sunshiny Shutters Photography is born.


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## cgipson1 (Sep 16, 2012)

rexbobcat said:


> The difference though, is that* the consumer CAN produce the same results that fauxtographers can,* which cannot really be said for daguerreotypists.
> 
> But since we live in a society now that believes that people with titles are more competent than people without, they buy the service anyways.
> 
> And hence Sunshiny Shutters Photography is born.



Excellent point, Rex! You are totally correct.. Auto mode for a consumer is the same as Auto mode for the MWAC Pro's!


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## Overread (Sep 16, 2012)

I don't think its going to be quite like that. You're trying to link two different situations and concepts together and then saying that because both appear similar in some ways that things will turn out the same way in the end. pgriz has already outlined some of the big differences between a portrait painter and a photographer. 

This isn't a clash of two different mediums competing for different markets - this is the same medium and the same exact product spread over different markets. I don't think that will result in the removal and loss of the market for the quality product in the least - it might mean that that market has to upscale its pricing to meet demands or even downscale its pricing. 

Lets also not forget that many of the beginner businesses fold very quickly after they are formed because they charge too little to cover their expenses and are mostly just pocket money earners given the status of a "job" by way of the ease and cheapness of applying a watermark to a photo and getting a website. I suspect that as the economy recovers and jobs become available the widespread number of startup photographers will reduce. At the moment a great part of it is simply a reaction to the fact that many people are finding it very hard to get a job - in that kind of environment more people are willing to throw caution to the wind and start their own company - we've also a shift with social factors as well as more mothers get into employment, but possibly not wanting the same strict time requirements of a day to day job (essentially a new market of workers who need more flexible time so that they can build it around house/children as well).


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

rexbobcat said:


> The difference though, is that the consumer CAN produce the same results that fauxtographers can, which cannot really be said for daguerreotypists.



But they actually can't, at the very least, they need someone else to hold the camera.


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

cgipson1 said:


> amolitor said:
> 
> 
> > Those damned MWACs are going to win,  in some sense, and you better be ready for it.
> ...



[ Edited for immaturity ]


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

Overread said:


> This isn't a clash of two different mediums competing for different markets - this is the same medium and the same exact product spread over different markets. I don't think that will result in the removal and loss of the market for the quality product in the least - it might mean that that market has to upscale its pricing to meet demands or even downscale its pricing.



I think this is a quibble -- is it the same but different, or different but the same? Sure, everyone's using cameras in this case, but the result looks quite different. If you like, I will certainly concede that it's the same medium, and the same product, in different markets. It doesn't matter to the central point.

pgriz did a nice job of putting my remarks into the terms of a market analysis, and they're equally true in those terms. The MWACs are delivering a product that the customer likes well enough for the money, same as the tintype guys. It's sure not Anne Geddes, but it's definitely a picture of my baby, and it's better than the ones I take, and Sue's Baby Boudoir went out and got me a nice 8x10 print of it and stuck it in a frame, and it was $200, and I had fun, and I have a CD of photos for my facebook too. YAY!

Sure, not all the mom based baby photographers will succeed. Most will fail.

None of this changes the fact that there's downward pressure in the market. If you can't figure out how to deliver YOUR baby photo sessions for $200 (or whatever) you better go up-market and start scrambling for the decreasing share available up there, or you better figure out how to do something else for a living. This has nothing to do with the superior product you deliver, or your skill, or anything. It doesn't mean you're stupid or that you suck. This is the simple march of technology and the normal workings of the market. The portrait painters and the buggy-whip makers were lovely skilled people, doing excellent work in their day, and it sucks that their livelihood went poof.


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## Overread (Sep 16, 2012)

The downward pressure however isn't sustainable for a working photographer. As I said the market for the amateur "pro" is big because you've got large unemployment. Only whilst that remains will you have a regular supply of unemployed "fauxographers" willing to jump into the gap. Once you reduce that potential pool of people you'll fast find that all those small time companies close up and you won't get people rushing to fill the gap. The product price will increase yet again for the regular small time photographer company. 

Of course this is ignoring the effects of big time companies who might well push into the market, using mass marketing and mass sales to generate a low price product with a high turnover of cheap workers. However I would argue that whilst their product is generally fairly cheap and cheerful they do tend to set a standard way above the bad "fauxographer". 

In addition you're ignoring the facts regarding time; as said painters were delivering a totally different product in a totally different timescale. You really can't compare the rise of photography to the "rise of the fauxographer". 


Now at the big company level (ergo your journalists and stock photographers) there is a massive downward trend there; but its totally unsustainable. Even the big stock market company bosses admit that its basically just a ticking time bomb before that market collapses in on itself because it simply can't sustain itself having driven its own product down so far in price that its almost worthless to the point where photographers are nearly if not actually paying more than they get out of stock (if you factor in their costs to get each shot).


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## cgipson1 (Sep 16, 2012)

amolitor said:


> cgipson1 said:
> 
> 
> > amolitor said:
> ...



Is that your way of intimating that I am a dinosaur that is resisting change, in a feeble attempt to prove the point in your first post? You are being a little obvious, if that is the case!


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

Overread said:


> The downward pressure however isn't sustainable for a working photographer. As I said the market for the amateur "pro" is big because you've got large unemployment. Only whilst that remains will you have a regular supply of unemployed "fauxographers" willing to jump into the gap. Once you reduce that potential pool of people you'll fast find that all those small time companies close up and you won't get people rushing to fill the gap. The product price will increase yet again for the regular small time photographer company.



My experience in other industries with very low cost of entry is that the supply of hopeful lowballers is actually infinite. You might well be right, but I disagree with your prognosis at this time.



Overread said:


> In addition you're ignoring the facts regarding time; as said painters were delivering a totally different product in a totally different timescale. You really can't compare the rise of photography to the "rise of the fauxographer".



I can see where you might have gotten the idea that this is what I was trying to do, but it's not quite right. What I mean to do is compare the fauxtographer to the Daguerreotypist, specifically. The Daguerreotypist was the vanguard of a larger thing -- photography -- that most definitely was not just the Daguerreotypists. In the same way, I think it likely that the fauxtographer is, or at any rate might be, the vanguard of a style of photography which is likely to obliterate several kinds of professional photography as we understand them. In fact, I think it is well understood that this is ongoing right now, my intent is to supply some historical context, and to speculate on what, for instance, wedding photography might look like in 20 years.

No, it's not going to be out of focus pictures of the bride with a poorly shopped on "frame" of cartoon puppies. But I think that whatever it is will be able to trace its roots to both that picture, and the pictures the pros produce today. And it'll be made lot more cheaply than the pros of today are asking.


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

cgipson1 said:


> Is that your way of intimating that I am a dinosaur that is resisting change, in a feeble attempt to prove the point in your first post? You are being a little obvious, if that is the case!



[ Edited for immaturity ]


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## cgipson1 (Sep 16, 2012)

amolitor said:


> cgipson1 said:
> 
> 
> > Is that your way of intimating that I am a dinosaur that is resisting change, in a feeble attempt to prove the point in your first post? You are being a little obvious, if that is the case!
> ...



Thats OK.. all you ever do is spout opinions with little fact behind them... and I should have just let it go. So, this is me, letting it go - think what you will!


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## Overread (Sep 16, 2012)

Ok give it a rest you two - take it to private messages if you've anything further to say to each other - otherwise move along back to the topic at hand.


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

Overread said:


> Ok give it a rest you two - take it to private messages if you've anything further to say to each other - otherwise move along back to the topic at hand.



Sorry, you're dead right. I am edited my stupid remarks out.


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## 12sndsgood (Sep 16, 2012)

I blame the cell phone. As soon as cell phones got cameras, that became the go to for phototaking. they were eveywhere, id sit there at car shows and see 10 people in front of my car with cell phones, and then a few point and shoots. and maybe 1 dslr. people started immedietly passing around millions of crap photos and it became the accepted norm. Kind of like society being dumbed down to the lowest common denominater. the country became about lowering itslef to the lowest common denominater instead of raising itself to the highest point. mediocrity is not only accepted, its applauded. It's about what is easiest, not about what is best. When societies standards are set so low it doesn't take someone much effort to shoot photos that people love. 

I'd say the biggest diffrence between the Daguerreotypist and a MWAC is that the Daguerreotypist was working for a profit while most MWAC is working for a loss, Unemployment could have had a slight impact on people picking up the proffession. It was the reason I took the leap. Nor for monetary pourposes. but for the fact I wasn't working so I had the time to learn (well try to) learn the business side and tax and legal side while I had free time on my hands. Most people I see doing it are just merely doing it because the seem to think it's easy money.Not even knowing there are working for a loss.

At this point i'm problaby rambling having gotten way off topic, i'm tired lol.


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## Derrel (Sep 16, 2012)

Overread said:


> The downward pressure however isn't sustainable for a working photographer. As I said the market for the amateur "pro" is big because you've got large unemployment. Only whilst that remains will you have a regular supply of unemployed "fauxographers" willing to jump into the gap. Once you reduce that potential pool of people you'll fast find that all those small time companies close up and you won't get people rushing to fill the gap. The product price will increase yet again for the regular small time photographer company.
> 
> Of course this is ignoring the effects of big time companies who might well push into the market, using mass marketing and mass sales to generate a low price product with a high turnover of cheap workers. However I would argue that whilst their product is generally fairly cheap and cheerful they do tend to set a standard way above the bad "fauxographer".
> 
> ...



Smart move, bringing the macroeconomics analysis into this discussion, Overread! I agree--the widespread level of unemployment, and underemployement, and economic pressures due to rising costs for all types of commodities like food, gasoline,diesel,heating oil clothing, etc.. is causing MANY people to look for photographic services that, from an economics term, are "acceptable substitutes" for the former era's "Professional Photography". If the economies of the G-8 countries and the US, etc.etc., and indeed the "world" were to suddenly be relieved of this huge,widespread unemployment and all these ever-escalating prices on basic necessities, I feel confident that a MAJORITY of the MWAC and "daguerrotypist"-level sellers of photography products and services would simply VANISH, into the larger economy. Right now, in terms of marginal utility analysis, a HELL of a lot of people look at the most-affordable way to get the photography services they think they need and can AFFORD. And with the price of gasoline being $4.00 a gallon across the majority of the USA, a lot of parents are looking for $150-$300 "senior portrait" packages...fifteen years ago, an established professional right here in MY little town had $800-$1100 BASE-line pricing! And she did well! Of course, this was ALL "before" digital, and flatbed scanners back then were still $500, basically, and computers were nowhere NEAR what they are today, and so, she was operating under the "old" paradigm, of FILM-and-PAPER based image production, and reproduction. Times have changed markedly since then; the economy is worse. Commodity prices are sky-high. Gasoline costs are KILLING casual travel and day-trip tourism. Something's gotta give.

I used to make my living shooting portraiture; what REALLY CHANGED the paradigm was NOT the MWAC. Oh, no, no, no,no; it was the invention of film-less, and paper-less image creation and reproduction. The *computer and the SCANNER* are what killed photography as a lucrative business. The *SCANNER*, and the ability to easily *make a COPY *of an image, and then to be able to *handle/display/share* that image on a COMPUTER...THAT is what brought the house down. THAT was the dry-rot that brought the house down...NOT the "MWAC"...


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

Derrel, could you expand on how the scanner and film-less/paper-less killed portraiture? I'm not sure entirely what you're driving at here, but it sounds interesting.

I'm surprised that everyone seems interested in how "fauxtographers" affect the economics of the situation, but nobody seems terribly interested in my far far more radical claim that the aesthetic of the fauxtographer/MWAC work is likely to be an influence on whatever the aesthetic(s) are in play for weddings, babies, and so on in 20 years (or whatever). At least, I think it's a much more radical claim..


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## Overread (Sep 16, 2012)

Well its certainly a more bold claim. But the thing is if it were true, if it was really really true then you wouldn't have seen fine portraiture rise up ever. People would have stuck to stick men drawings because, well, eh its "good enough I guess and its pretty quick to get". 

Ok a bit extreme, maybe not stickmen; but if quality was not something people desired then you simply wouldn't see quality ever being produced, nor becoming a whole industry. But we do - time and time again you see quality products rise to the top. Yes there are other products that rise up and in todays world with mass marketing some rather cheap and rubbishy stuff can float nearly to the top too - but honestly people who can afford to want to pay for quality. 

Those who cannot afford to might still want the same product, but if they can't afford the quality they might make do with a cheaper "eh its ok" version. If you pitted two photographers, same prices, same operation methods, same time to get the product and same marketing and one was better than the other - the better one would always land more work and be more in demand. 

Now of course styles might shift a little, what is "hot" might change around, but I seriously doubt that many of the basic mistakes and errors that beginners make will become fashionable desirable features of photos for the masses. Yes the "heart of the tummy" baby photo will; yes many of those cliche shots will remain popular with new clients - but they'll still want quality if they can get it (heck just look at people who sue because they don't get quality!)


Also don't forget - just because I call myself a "pro" and have a website with loads of photos on it does not mean that I got paid for any of them - heck many "fauxographers" have very little actual work material to share, most of what they put up is "training" or "freebies" or stuff done of their friends for no cost. So its not always a representation of their "work" as such - its the product they offer yes, but it doesn't mean anyone paid them for it in the first place.


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## Derrel (Sep 16, 2012)

amolitor said:


> Derrel, could you expand on how the scanner and film-less/paper-less killed portraiture? I'm not sure entirely what you're driving at here, but it sounds interesting.
> 
> I'm surprised that everyone seems interested in how "fauxtographers" affect the economics of the situation, but nobody seems terribly interested in my far far more radical claim that the aesthetic of the fauxtographer/MWAC work is likely to be an influence on whatever the aesthetic(s) are in play for weddings, babies, and so on in 20 years (or whatever). At least, I think it's a much more radical claim..



Pretty simple. In the early 1990's, we were selling $17,000 to $24,000 of family portraiture PER WEEK, in a small town of about 35,000 people. Lots of canvases, busy,busy studio, images were shot on film, proofed, and PROJECTION-proofed and sold with the images NEVER LEAVING the studio!!! With 4 experienced, trained sales women, a $350-$385 per customer,per-sale average was normal. At that time, scanners were NOT in homes, and NEITHER were computers--of ANY kind. Sure, there were $4,000 Macintoshes, but for the most part, even crude computer graphics were NON-existent. "Desktop publishing" was NOT a reality....my wife and I used to get $4,000 an issue for a large industry newsletter we put out, because we had a Macintosh, and I knew graphics, layout, and paste-up. Printing was almost all done on web presses, and PHOTOS had to be screen-printed for printing. Photographs were printed from negatives, or slides, on photographic paper, and there was NO WAY for the "average person" to make a copy of ANY image....unless that person had a macro lens, lights, skill, AND a contact who would violate copyright laws. Now, as soon as the flatbed scanner was on the market, along with computers that could display in color, there was an entirely NEW way to steal photos.

"Proofs" that left the studio would be scanned, and the images printed "somehow, somewhere". Once inkjet printing became even halfway decent, there was no turning back. Again...$17,000 to $24,000 a WEEK on sales in the PRE-digital, pre-scanner, pre-computer era, in a PODUNK, working-class town of 35,000 people, perhaps 5,000 or more who were poor university students... Selling images as "enlargements" and "canvases" was lucrative. VERY LUCRATIVE. A canvas is a status symbol, a lasting memory, a "thing" to display in the home, for decades. It's like a painting, in many tangible ways. If it is shot on an old master's backdrop and lighted right, it looks like...what it is..a fine portrait. As in many, many areas of modern life, the old ways have been supplanted, and people more and more want their entertainment and pastimes brought *INTO THE HOME.*..we want music in-home, not at concerts; we want comedy, and drama, on TV or DVD, not in comedy clubs or theatres. We now want immediacy, and ultimate ease, and we want control over our "things"...

The computer and the scanner took away the over a century of Darkroom Magic that photography HAD BEEN predicated upon, and it brought image copying, and manipulation, and delivery, into the realm of almost anybody with a modicum of intelligence. Having been working during this era in the photo field, I am fully, 100 percent aware of what the arrival of the computer and scanner meant to creating,SELLING, and delivering IMAGES. The scanner was a simply HUGE development in the professional, for-money photographic work. The scanner and personal computer revolutionized the entire photography industry.


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

The thing about "fine portraiture" is that it's very much a product of the times. "Quality professional photography" includes a couple of objective measures (stuff is in focus, there's enough light so I can recognize Aunt Sally, a few other things) and then a vast array of stuff that comes under the head of "adherence to contemporary style" particularly in the matters of lighting, and posing.

I am definitely NOT claiming that "fauxtographers" are going to usher in a new era of out-of-focus bridal photography.  They may well usher in a brave new world that involves on-camera flash (we see this in fashion right now, from time to time). They might push the work toward different poses and different looks. You can't really predict what will get pulled out of the popular/common work and taken up by the next generation of "professionals" but you can pretty much rely on them picking up some things. And, I think you can rely on some professionals gnashing their teeth and wailing "BUT IT'S AWFUL!"

Maybe we'll see a whole new intensely technical and difficult to pull off set of techniques that produce images that are highly reminiscent of Facebook "I'M SOOOO DRUNK" snaps, while still getting everything in focus, and hitting all those objective "quality" marks, still looking "good" (whatever that means) but also capturing that Facebooky feel.

Think of how American Apparel co-opted the webcam/avatar "look" and made it into fashion. It wasn't crummy at all, it was pretty high grade stuff, but it got that "look" down pat. Imagine the same sort of thing, only stealing looks from MWACs for baby pictures, or weddings.


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## Derrel (Sep 16, 2012)

To me, "professional photography" means photography executed with high standards, in several areas. Of course, as times change, so does professional photography and there are trends, styles, fads, gimmicks, and conventions--all of which tend to "mark the era" in which professionally made photographs are made. We would not expect professional photographs of the 1880's to look like those made in the 1950's. The working methods and tools of each era mark the work created with a subtle form of time stamp, as it were. Again, to me, "professional photography" means photography that is executed with high standards, meaning if the image is supposed to appear "down-market", that it looks down-market. If the image is supposed to look "on-camera-flashy", it looks "on-camera-flashy". If the buyer wants and image that's shot with a ringlight, that's what the buyer gets. If they want location shots, that's what they get. AND...what they buy is done to high standards--no matter WHAT THE STYLE of the image.

Now, the thing that the scanner and computer did, is to remove image creation, delivery, and distribution from under the control of "photographers", and people who worked in the "photography industry", and gave the control over to people who were outside of the photography industry, to people who were removed from photography as a way of life. Quite simply, the computer, and the scanner, ushered in "*digital imaging*", which has since REPLACED "photography". Silver-based photography was one thing; digitally-created images are another thing entirely.


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## Overread (Sep 16, 2012)

"Throw enough against the wall something has to stick"  - Zack Arias from his film Transform


Honestly yeah some of those millions of styles of beginner photographers might make it into mainstream as a "look" clients ask for. Heck they generate enough material and not all of them are "bad" (a majority are but some are very talented). So yeah some of it might stick - some of it might be a short term or long term fad. 
But - eh - I get the feeling that the end result is still going to be more in the hands of those who know what they are doing over those who haven't got a single clue. 

Of course that view excludes marketing campaigns with regard to style - but that is a totally separate ballgame and operates under its own rules. In general its more about "who" than "what" and its also about copy-pasting something simple and marketing it big. In general they will be very short term fads - maybe darned rich making ones for those who make them and those in the right position, but in the end still very short term


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

Derrel said:


> Pretty simple. In the early 1990's, we were selling $17,000 to $24,000 of family portraiture PER WEEK ...



Thanks, Derrel. I have to say, you surprise me pretty often since you're not just one of the rantiest guys on TPF, you're ALSO one of the most articulate and thoughtful  Every time it's like 'oh there goes De.. wait, no, this is.. huh. I never thought of it like that.'


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## amolitor (Sep 16, 2012)

Overread said:


> But - eh - I get the feeling that the end result is still going to be more in the hands of those who know what they are doing over those who haven't got a single clue.



Oh, absolutely. The Daguerreotypists were supplanted by people who took some visual ideas from them, and some visual ideas from painters, and some visual ideas of their own, and created a new thing. THOSE guys knew what they were doing, and they delivered a thing that was not a painting, and not a Daguerreotype, but was fully professional. Their work (Derrel's work, for instance, just to nail it down to specifics) was informed by the Daguerreotypists, by the painters, by an intervening 100 years of invention and thought, until it arrived at modern portraiture, where it was definitely in the hands of those who know what they are doing.


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## Derrel (Sep 16, 2012)

amolitor said:
			
		

> I'm surprised that everyone seems interested in how "fauxtographers" affect the economics of the situation, but nobody seems terribly interested in my far far more radical claim that the aesthetic of the fauxtographer/MWAC work is likely to be an influence on whatever the aesthetic(s) are in play for weddings, babies, and so on in 20 years (or whatever). At least, I think it's a much more radical claim..



Influences in art, and photography, can be difficult to pin down as to origin. In some ways, "everything" has already been done, and "done to death". I dunno...the "fauxtographer" concept is so undefined, so broad, so all-encompassing, ans also at the same time, so broad as to be almost meaningless. I'm not sure I know how to differentiate between a "fauxtographer" and simply a poorly-trained "pro". I know what a MWAC is, at some level. But still...not every person is working in the same style, even though she might fall into the "mom with a camera" category by virtue of being a mom, and shooting primarily baby and child pics, with a mostly mom-centric clientele list...this is the 2007, *New York Times definition* of MWAC that I am working from here. I dunno...the "aesthetic" you mention being particular to the fauxtographer/MWAC groups...WHAT is that aesthetic? Is it Dutch tilt? EVERYTHING shot horizontal? TONS of unneeded top space left above heads in vertical shots? Excessively saturated images? HOT, almost-purely specular, almost-raw flash leaving hot highlights on both sides of the subject? Because, if the aesthetic you speak of involves those kinds of things--they have all been done before....and not by fauxtographers or MWACS necessarily, but by fashion shooters working for high-end clients looking for that edgy, offbeat, funky vibe.

I dunno a.m.--I think your so-called radical claim that the aesthetic of the fauxtographer/MWAC is likely to influence wedding, baby, and "so-on" photography in the 20 years is not really all that "radical" a claim. Why? Because almost any influence, good OR bad, elegant or gauche, can creep into the mainstream through sheer number of visual impressions. Once a person sees 1,000 chitty head-lopped-off, full-of-useless-dead-space shots, the fact that the overall visual impression is mediocre is somewhat muted. People are amazingly adaptable creatures; dentists report that they hardly EVER smell "bad breath", even from trenchmouth patients. When I was in my 20's, I had a couple buddies who worked as garbagemen...they said they hardly even noticed the stench. People from big cities walk by heroin junkies who have shat and pissed themselves, with hardly a second glance, while tourists from "the countryside" recoil in horror. Will the faux/MWAC/GWAC/hack aesthetic influence wedding and baby photography in the immediate future? I think it ALREADY HAS.


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## amolitor (Sep 17, 2012)

Derrel said:


> I dunno a.m.--I think your so-called radical claim that the aesthetic of the fauxtographer/MWAC is likely to influence wedding, baby, and "so-on" photography in the 20 years is not really all that "radical" a claim. Why? Because almost any influence, good OR bad, elegant or gauche, can creep into the mainstream through sheer number of visual impressions. Once a person sees 1,000 chitty head-lopped-off, full-of-useless-dead-space shots, the fact that the overall visual impression is mediocre is somewhat muted. People are amazingly adaptable creatures; dentists report that they hardly EVER smell "bad breath", even from trenchmouth patients. When I was in my 20's, I had a couple buddies who worked as garbagemen...they said they hardly even noticed the stench. People from big cities walk by heroin junkies who have shat and pissed themselves, with hardly a second glance, while tourists from "the countryside" recoil in horror. Will the faux/MWAC/GWAC/hack aesthetic influence wedding and baby photography in the immediate future? I think it ALREADY HAS.



Exactly so! We are in perfect agreement here. I don't actually think the claim is all that radical either, for precisely the reasons you outlined here. I think there are others on TPF who might consider it a radical idea, though.

One very specific influence which can, I think, be traced to exactly the Daguerreotype, is the "group family portrait". I could be wrong here, but I think this was extremely rare in painted portraits. This camera, on the other hand, doesn't care how many people are crammed in front of the lens, so let's get everyone in there, and let's have little Sally holding her teddy bear. A formally trained painter turned photographer might have recoiled at the idea (might not have, too, I am speculating here) but the jackass with the Daguerreotype setup neither knew nor cared. And lo, now it's a standard. I bet you shot that one a few times!


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## Animaniac888 (Sep 17, 2012)

That was a very interesting read, amolitor. Well written, too.

I highly doubt the MWAC "phenomenon" will completely eradicate the professional photographer, though high-quality, low-cost photography may render professional photography obsolete, in a sense. In the same way portrait painters have been all but replaced by photographers, the immediacy and low cost of consumer photographers may do the same to professionals. I guess in this case, cost, rather than time, is what till be the deciding factor when it comes to the obsoletion of professional photography.


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## pgriz (Sep 17, 2012)

The classic business response, when faced with the entry into the market of a competitor who can drastically undercut your price, is either to play their game and figure out how to undercut them, or if that is not feasible, abandon that market to the newcomers, and find a new one with less competition and where the margins one needs are sustainable/defensible. Which means, in essence, doing something your competition is not able to do.
If the conventional portrait business is being killed by MWACs and GWACs, then the smart business response would be to determine what people ARE willing to spend money on, and what requires enough skill and/or equipment that the MWACs and GWACs can't go there. Here are some ideas that could be opportunity for the enterprenurial photographer(s):

In no particular order:


High-end birthday parties (I'm seeing parents engage in more and more expensive birthday party extravaganzas, costing thousands of dollars)
House pictures and home-warming parties (Architectural Digest-style spreads showing the new owners' good taste)
People who want to show off their toys (Boats, cars, motorcycles, planes, etc.) and themselves using these
Well-done pet photos (yes this is an existing market, but I have a feeling it is not saturated, especially for larger animals like horses)
People at play (good actions shots showing motocross, racing, jumping, diving, waterskiing (a la Branson... )

The point is, the best opportunities are those that no-one else figured out, and if you can make it happen, you're making a mint before others notice and want to join in the fun.  Chrysler did it with minivans, Apple did it with the iPod, Blackberry did it with their original smartphone, etc.


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