On our feature “An analysis of LOSER/LIAR Ryan Dyar’s fake interview in Aperture Academy, Part one” (available here), we got a comment from a user called “Corey”. It’s quite long, so we won’t reproduce it in full here. You can see it at the link above. However, he raises some points (many of which are designed to denigrate our work, actually) that we’d like to address. Basically, the whole thing is a potshot at us, while being designed to seem fair and even-handed, even curious.
Part 1 of a multi-part series.
“I was just wondering, and I’m assuming whoever writes this blog sees themselves as a professional photographer, or someone dealing in the creative industry, how exactly did you gain this title? What training or education did you get? Because in other articles on here you bash those who are recently out of college, those who have any money whatsoever and everyone using a digital camera”
First of all, asking about my/our education or standing in the photo industry is a red herring. It has no bearing on what is being discussed here. This sort of argument is preposterous. Do journalists need to have degrees in every field they cover? Of course not.
Furthermore, what education we do or don’t have isn’t relevant, especially in light of the fact that the LOSERS we talk about don’t have any training in the arts either (!). THUGS who have graduated college should be seeking a career in the field they studied, not running around with cameras, tearing down the photography industry.
In regards to “those who have any money whatsoever”, we refer to LOSERS who are typically middle to upper middle class. These MORONS do not appreciate the value of intellectual property. That is why they spend thousands of dollars stealing other people’s images to throw them on microstock sites for pennies, or selling large prints for $50 or $100.
“Large and medium format cameras cost a lot, not to mention all that film, especially if you’re working 10x8 or later. How are you / were you able to afford this?”
This is a ridiculous argument. Digital cameras are far more expensive than film cameras. Let’s look at a Pentax 645 setup. This is actually a medium format film body that’s been used to create entire books.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Body: $300-400 (645N autofocus body, manual focus is cheaper).
Pentax 45-85mm lens (excellent, versatile all around lens): $1000-1500, depending on version.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Or maybe a large format system:
Many body choices, starting as low as $400 and going up from there. $750 will buy a great body that will probably last for the rest of your life.
Lenses are more expensive for large format. The great thing, however, as a real professional format (35mm is not a professional format for any serious landscape photographer), is that these lenses have been made for years, are all excellent performers, and can be picked up used cheaply. You can start out with lenses that are a couple hundred each. For the $1600 cost of a single Canon or Nikon pro zoom, you could easily get 3 large format lenses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now let’s look at a digital system, especially the Canon 5D Mark II loved by so many THUGS & LOSERS:
Body: $2500
Let’s say a 24-105mm lens: $1000 (by the way, this isn’t even a very good lens, certainly not up to the performance of the Pentax medium format mid-range 45-85mm).
And you’re already up to $3500 with just one body, one lens, and nothing else.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We won’t consider printer, scanning, or film. Any real pro should first, be able to depend on any picture he’s taken. He shouldn’t have to take 20 images to get one with the correct exposure or composition. Losers who shoot only digital and check their LCD’s could never imagine this. This is how every competent pro used to work. With a professional working behind the viewfinder, only excellent images are taken, and only the best are scanned, reducing costs. And for the cost of ONE digital body and ONE lens, you could easily have an entire medium or large format system.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“In relation to the digital rage, do you feel the same about 35mm? Or darkroom work?”
35mm is not a professional format, except for sports and journalism. It’s the reason 35mm was basically invented, for people who didn’t want to carry heavy large format cameras. Comparing darkroom work to Photoshop is not a valid comparison. The adjustments possible in the darkroom are limited and well-defined. An image certainly couldn’t be cobbled together from 7 different film frames, in the darkroom.
“It seems that a lot of your rants deal with either wealthy families, inspiration and appropriation, expensive websites or photographer led workshops”.
Not wealthy families, but well-to-do upper middle class families, actually. And copying someone else’s image, especially when one goes out of his way to create an exact copy (as many THUGS do) has nothing to do with photography. It’s theft and copyright violation, pure and simple. Expensive websites such as the bogus Wide Range Galleries websites were purchased merely because Marc Adamus has one. And workshops are not a valid method of teaching photography. The great photographers did not become great by taking workshops.
“Almost all of the first professional or artistically accredited photographers were from wealthy families. Fox-Talbot, Niepce, Daguerre, all of these people were exceedingly wealthy. Cartier Bresson? His wealthy heritage gave him a basically unending source of income.”
No one has claimed that the wealthy cannot be artists. In fact, it is easier for the wealthy to develop artistic talent, since they don’t have to worry about funding.
But this isn’t really relevant. Marc Adamus doesn’t come from a wealthy family. Neither does Ryan Dyar, Miles Morgan, Kevin Mcneal, or any of the other douchebags exposed on Marc Adamus LIES 2.0 or Loser Photographers. Thuggery and stupidity in photography is strictly the territory of the middle to upper middle class.
For example, a wealthy individual will still demand a reasonable price for his images or prints. He will not throw them on Istock photo.com for 25 cents or sell a 30x40 print for $100. He understands that his work has value. He does not copy the work of other professionals, but often invents and entirely new genre. LOSER, THUG middle-class idiots do not. They are the ones who steal (copy) the work of real professionals and throw them on Istockphoto.com for pennies, and print out copies for pennies on the dollar. The rich always recognize the value of work, money, and property. LOSER amateurs do NOT.
“Your argument over stealing images must mean that everyone who has taken a landscape photograph must be stealing the work of people like Ansel Adams? Or anyone who has taken a low key portrait is in fact a fraud for using a similar technique to 17th century painter Rembrandt?”
It’s very simple. Stealing a copy of a unique, recognizable image is theft and copyright violation. That’s the law. Trying to dance around with bogus explanations doesn’t cut it.
It’s even more of a violation when the entire intention is to create an exact copy of some composition, as many THUGS do with Marc Adamus images. That is a copyright violation by any standard. If these LOSERS who quote Galen Rowell would have actually read his books, they would have found out that Galen was constantly involved in legal battles with losers who stole his compositions. It’s one thing to apply techniques and ways of seeing to new perspectives. It’s a whole other thing to create an entire army of losers who run around with the goal of exactly duplicating professionals’ images. These losers are not photographers; they are just walking Xerox machines.
Part 2 coming soon.
