Tuesday, April 7, 2009

How not to Photograph

How not to Photograph is a series on Colin Pantall's blog about some blatantly terrible and other seemingly artful photographs, and why they are ALL crap.

Much of it is snooty prose that makes any non-photographer feel like an uncultured brute for not noticing the obvious inferiority of said photographs. In other words, it's delightful.

He goes on for paragraphs and paragraphs. My favorite bitch-tastic comment:

"As Howard and Mittelmark put it: 'There was a time when a book could be sold purely because its author had been to distant climes and had returned to tell of the exotic sights he had seen. That author was Marco Polo, and the time was the thirteenth century.'

...

So just because you can go there doesn't mean that you should, or that your pictures will be interesting. This applies to undergraduate documentary photography students in particular. Photography is not a competition to see who can go to the most obscure destination, even if you are minted and have a trust fund. "

Ouch. Enjoy!

(From Kottke Kottke)