Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Professionalism, other Redundancies, and the New Meaning of Life…

We are told by those who study such things, that the meanings of words, and interpretations of concepts drift and change over time, and our language becomes richer for it.

The realm of photography is no exception becoming richer as it evolves and adapts.

u narelle copy

Calm down dirty old men! According to the New world order this IS NOT a photograph containing Implied Nudity! Why?

  • The model was in fact fully clothed
  • It is not a full figure nude picture digitally manipulated to eliminate the clothing, or even to create and enhance the girl’s  “naughty bits” by retouching.

Remember for example when that otherwise indefinable term coined and used almost exclusively by the amateur fraternity  “implied nudity” meant an ambiguously clever camera technique where a photograph of a fully and discretely clothed woman left the viewer wondering wether she was nude or not?

( Camera technique? Wow..ya can do that in the camera? Lot easier after in Photoshop!)

Now though, as I was emphatically told recently by a “widely respected professional” – well he did have a small but efficiently tamed gang of facebook likers to back him up – that he worked to the “accurate and only definition” (?) that implied nude means full figure nudity achieved by removing nipple covers and  g string from a model by digital retouching…

It seems therefore that the model does not need to be payed at the nude rate, because she is not nude in the original photo…just g string and falsies (???)

Woops forgot: Pay a model !!! Who is stupid enough to pay a model??? tfp rules right!

Well obviously “accurate definition” wins out over subtlety and art every time in the vast, murky depths that is creative internet photography!

But there are three words used on a daily basis which have drifted in meaning so far from their original concept to warrant a review of the “accurate” (?) dictionary definition

NB: If the New World Meaning of Life has not reached your particular neck of the woods, it soon will…it is certainly firmly established in my region.

and more importantly New Meaning of Life definitions do not in any way apply to legitimate, or real world photography.

Definition:

Professionalism:- this is the divine right of those with a modicum of ability, a lack of talent, a tenuous control of their gang of disciples, but a thorough mastery of schoolboy bullying techniques to denigrate, discredit and vilify anyone outside of his immediate gang, who disagrees with his beliefs, or threatens in even the smallest way  to expose the fraudulence of his self proclaimed importance , or the pathetic and derivative quality of his “work”

Those with “opinions”( see below) are the obvious natural targets of the “professional”

Definition:

Opinion:- A belief or knowledge of traditional techniques, concepts, ideas and ideals, well proven theories; real knowledge especially when gained from  long experience, education, and the ability and willingness to advance learning and skills through reading and research ( as opposed to knowledge gleaned from your mates, and  religious worship of “internet experts” on forums and YouTube.); reliance on actual proven facts and the immutable science of light and photography

Definition:

Hater:- anyone who adheres to, holds, believes in or makes the mistake of publically expressing opinion (see above)

anyone who has deliberately opened a camera instruction manual, and …god forbid!…gone to the extreme of actually reading a photography book, irredeemably brands you as a latent hater.

 

Additional Notes:

Legitimate or “real world” Photography: a phenomenon which it seems is merely an out-dated figment of the imagination and, if it ever really existed, is an historical insignificance when compared with “where true art and creativity is really happening” Nevertheless it’s influence was long ago and long forgotten, having occurred in the real “old days”, of …well…wow…five years or more ago.

Professionalism: has absolutely nothing to do with earning a living from your creativity ,or that “dirty” word used by those who have sold out;  money. True professionals not only exude a fuzzy good guy feeling about their “ethical treatment of others and their approach to life in general”, but also far too much “artistic integrity” to have ever earned a cent, or the likelihood of ever doing so: that would not only sully their ”work” drastically reducing their  natural to bully, intimidate, exploit and be fully exploited by their “collaborators”

 

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Interesting Links:
My Photography Webpage
Facebook page for Professional Photographers and Models
The Definite Article Photography and Video on Facebook
My Pond 5 Page
The Definite Article at Publicise Me