aka two. aka i got another one. i joined the budding photographer only social network Shuttrr the other day, which, since it is invite only, i had very little idea about what it was until i got in there. well apparently a big feature of it is having your own shuttrr blog. it's totally an optional feature, but me and my wordpress virginity got all excited and created a blog without even thinking about what the fuck i could possible have to say on it!

i played for a bit, and then promptly got distracted by some other something or other (did i mention the photo section of my site has been redone?). i didn't touch it for another couple of days, which was great, due to a discovery that happened in there somewhere. the discovery of the wordpress iphone app! i should have known. it should have been my first thought, but no, i stumbled upon it randomly. now technically this doesn't actually differentiate that blog from this one, as i could update this on my iphone, but i have made it a habit to format and polish and think through these entries. which i love. however, i also love the idea of blogging somewhat uncensoredly and as quickly as ideas come to me. which a quick little wordpress blog sounds like the perfect place for, doesn't it? welcome to my new Shuttrr blog - BLGG

PS. if you are on Shuttrr, add me! 

so according to flickr here are my top 25 most viewed photos of 2009. what i have to say about them? you guys are dirty pervs. and apparently are madly in love with the heat! 

i feel like this rant is long overdue. i just read a blog by kirk tuck about flickr trends and it reminded me that i have been meaning the write this all down for a good while now.  i am here to stick up for trends. or at least not trash them. i have spent so much of the last year reading about why this trend or that trend is just that, nothing more than a trend. and that people who are really inventive wouldn't succumb to the allure of rim light, or HDR, or whatever else is getting attacked by the masses - the same masses that create the trends. GET THE FUCK OVER IT. everything you want to do has been done. every lighting technique, every DIY, every photoshop process. i use all that shit all the time. HDR is a reality of the future, so get over it. backlight or rim lighting adds a great amount of depth to photos, so get over it. using photoshop to get the dave hill, jill greenberg (and now annie leibovitz) look is what people want to see, so get over it! learn how to do it all, because everyone who wants to hire a photographer or buy a photograph wants you to at least know how it's done. and they want you do something new with it. and really, who draws that line? if i use HDR in one photo, does that rule out everything else? or do i have to do more than one of the techniques-that-shall-not-be-named? was it any different in the film days? i feel like often people attribute this phenomenon to digital because everything is so accessible, but have you seen how homogenous everything looks when it's all in black and white?! if all you're looking for is similarities that's all you're going to see and none of these things make or break a good photograph, and you know it.

(also, as a side note, can we stop attributing so much brilliance to photographers like leibovitz. there's a whole team of people who do so much of the work for her. i'm not saying she's not brilliant, i just don't think that when you start passing off a shit load of the decisions, like lighting and photoshop and shit, that it is still your image. that, my friends, is called collaboration and more photographers should own up to doing it.)

i have spent the last year learning as much as i can. i read the blogs - chase jarvis, strobist, zack arias, david duchemin, joe mcnally, etc. - and you know what i've taken from all of them? knowledge. that same  knowledge that i get when i look at a photo i like on flickr that has all the lighting information below it, or when i try a popular processing technique through kelby training, or when i over HDR a photo. i'm not saying these guys don't drive me nuts sometimes (even just by the fact that they are all men, because women's voices are greatly lacking in the realm of popular photography) and that i don't find them to be hypocritical and homogenous (stop telling me gear doesn't matter when you're sponsored by nikon, k?), but that doesn't change the fact that they are some of the most influential voices in photography today, and that  doesn't mean they don't all use the same techniques sometimes. it doesn't matter that they (and i) use HDR techniques, or take photos of their subjects jumping, or whatever. what matters is that they are good fucking photographers that are willing to share their knowledge (which if i had a say, everyone on flickr, and every photographer, would do). and what matters more is that they know how to do it all, and for each image that they (and i) create, the tools, lighting and processing that they feel is right is used. and that feeling, not the technical decisions that come from it, is what differentiates a great photographer from a crappy one.

i am so tired of hearing people talk about photography trends that make people less creative. if people are choosing to not be creative with their photography, fuck em and don't waste you're energy complaining about them (they might even make it easier to get a job, so keep it up, i say). but seriously, stop assuming that because a certain technique was used that that person didn't make a creative decision, and stop assuming that by looking at a one photograph you can miraculously know what all decisions behind it are. and stop claiming to be any better than the trends, cause you're not, and i'm not, but i'm still fucking brilliant :)

I Made A Book!

at first it was mainly for portfolio use, but people have expresses an amazing amount of interest, so i've made it publicly accessible!The title comes from an old english slang term that was used to mean friends. so it's my favourite pieces from my group of peeps (i have the prettiest friends!). check it out through blurb (which if you didn't know is an amazing self publishing resource for all manner of books)... 

Good Geniuses

By N Maxwell Lander

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