Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/01/31
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Just grit your teeth and maybe the nightmare will fade away. We have a local so -called Bird Photography expert who is in the same category. A Real Gem. Gene ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Herr" <wildlightphoto at earthlink.net> To: lug at leica-users.org Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 9:41:03 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central Subject: [Leica] Rant! I went to a talk on Friday night on bird photography by a well-known wildlife photographer who is sponsored by one of the Big Two camera makers. I won't mention names. What a friggin waste of time & gasoline. If I'd had to pay for parking I'd have demanded a refund. His approach to wildlife photography is buy-the-longest-lens-you-can and buy-the-newest-and-fastest-(sponsor brand)-body-you-can, and he came across as the sponsor's paid spokesman (which he is). He said NOTHING about light except for how to use more flash, NOTHING about composition, color (except more is better), NOTHING about bird psycology or bird identification, except for hiring a bird guide (more on this after I stop seething). His photos were compositionally shallow and bland: no use of color or forms to give a sense of depth or to draw attention to the bird, hardly any discussion of the foreground or background except how to obliterate it. The best I can say for his photos is that they show what the bird looks like. Nothing about how it relates to its habitat. Empty, shallow mainstream photos. And the camera maker pays him to promote this and "teach" it to the unsuspecting wanna-bes. I'm still seething but I gotta get this out of my system: He can't identify some really obvious western birds - and he's lived in the west most of his life. He got Great Egret, Mountain Bluebird and Williamson's Sapsucker right but he showed a couple of captive raptors side-by-side, photos made at a rescue facility where he was TOLD what they are and he thought the birds in his photos were the same individual, when one was obviously a Prairie Falcon and the other was obviously a Buteo, probably a Red-tailed Hawk. They didn't even have the same eye color. He couldn't identify a Rail in one of his photos (fullframe, good light). He had no idea if it was a Virginia Rail, a Clapper Rail or a King Rail. This is the crap that a major camera maker is promoting as wildlife photography. This is what the sponsor has trained the unsuspecting consumer to think of as good wildlife photography. Buy our stuff and you too can make these great photos. Grrrrrr grrrrrrr grrrrrr grrrrrrr grrrrrr grrrrrrr. Doug Herr Birdman of Sacramento http://www.wildlightphoto.com _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information