Cliches: I was in one of the big box stores. There was a person there selling her large prints. Most in the 4x3 or so configuration. I looked carefully at them and they were really...

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

I was in one of the big box stores. There was a person there selling her large prints. Most in the 4x3 or so configuration. I looked carefully at them and they were really bad. Every one was a cliche. The bright orange sun setting with silhouettes of a skyline, or ocean water, or. . . extreme saturations of trees. I've seen that photograph a hundred times. It is easy to take and easy to use PS or something. There were about 1/2 dozen other main themes, the Golden Gate Bridge, part in shadow and part bright shining in the sun, an early nightscape of San Francisco with lots of lighted windows, etc. All of it was heavily manipulated--and, frankly, not very skillfully.

This stuff was not art, it was hotel room hangers. But I don't know a hotel manager with such bad taste. It was far beneath the quality I have seen shared here on this forum. $3-400 a print would be very reasonable for better work. But I see this kind of cliche all over the internet.

Not sure in what forum this rant belongs, but I'm sure I'll find out.

twowindsbear

How were those pix selling??

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

The venue explains why they sell. Most people cannot get even a cliché shot on their own. It is the same reason postcards sell. They would rather buy someone else's cliché than learn how to do it on their own. Don't knock it, it is the bread and butter of the advertising business and the business of those who sell to hotels. Mass market art is common, but I'm not such a snob as to think it is useless. At least some art and photography is getting into the hands of people to make their lives a little brighter.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Reinaldokool wrote:

I was in one of the big box stores. There was a pe... (show quote)

Very often, cliche shots are popular because they are beautiful or eye-catching. How many thousands of sunsets have members posted here? I see nothing wrong with that. It would be difficult to find a type of shot that no one else has done.

As for selling photos, that's very difficult. You can have a beautiful shot, beautifully processed, but is someone going to want to hand over money for it? I would bet that this woman will not make a career of trying to sell her prints in big box stores.

insman1132 Loc: Southwest Florida

Well, as they say so correctly, Reinald, "one man's meat is another man's potatoes!" "In the eye of the beholder . . . "

BebuLamar

Stop complaining people trying to make a living. They don't care what you think as long as they could make some money dealing with other customers.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

I was recently a judge in a sanctioned international salon competition of photography and was expecting to see great work from around the world. But to me and everyone there's surprise the quality of the images was fair to middling at best. Yes, the cream of the crop rose to the top and the winning images were outstanding but the great majority were actually poor. They looked like they were submitted straight from the camera with no thought to cropping, level horizons, sharpening, and balanced exposure or color. And people paid good money to enter this event.

My only theory is that in this day and age when everyone is a photographer because they own a camera, and camera club membership and organizations offering education is dwindling to nothing, Cell phone cameras are just fine, and shooters receive their only feedback from friends on social media who see and proclaim their work as great that we have a subjectivity bubble around everything everybody does. Next to shots of the food people ordered at restaurants, shots of a friends sunset posted on FB is high art.

cuckoobob

I wouldn't know where the rant belongs, being a newbie here, myself! I'm not a professional photographer, but do try to capture my travels around the country, and have recently moved up from a K1000 (actually three of them) to a DSLR. I do minimal processing, trying to capture in the image, what I want. I guess that's a hold-over from using film! I'd rather learn the essentials of PHOTOGRAPHY, rather than learn to manipulate images in PS! I really don't like those "over-processed" pictures! I'm also a musician, playing organ accompaniment for silent films. I'm learning MIDI, but feel the same way about over-processed music as I do about over-processed photographs! A caveat for the movie organist is that he should ENHANCE, but never ECLIPSE the picture! I'm sure there's a similar warning for photographers.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

What you are saying assumes a sophisticated and thoughtful look at your art. I think this philosophy is missing in the great majority of "photographers" out there.

cuckoobob wrote:

I wouldn't know where the rant belongs, being a ne... (show quote)

cuckoobob

--SIGH--
You're probably correct...

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

Lord save me from the cliche' in photography. But! How can we avoid an image that hasn't been done before? For example how many different ways can we shoot sand dunes or the pier jutting out into the water. For over 150 years people have been taking pictures. Today whatever we do has probably been done before. We can only hope to make our version as good as we can and maybe once in a while capture an image with something that will set it above similar ones.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

A good philosophy.

Rich1939 wrote:

Lord save me from the cliche' in photography. But! How can we avoid an image that hasn't been done before? For example how many different ways can we shoot sand dunes or the pier jutting out into the water. For over 150 years people have been taking pictures. Today whatever we do has probably been done before. We can only hope to make our version as good as we can and maybe once in a while capture an image with something that will set it above similar ones.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Rich1939 wrote:

Lord save me from the cliche' in photography. But! How can we avoid an image that hasn't been done before? For example how many different ways can we shoot sand dunes or the pier jutting out into the water. For over 150 years people have been taking pictures. Today whatever we do has probably been done before. We can only hope to make our version as good as we can and maybe once in a while capture an image with something that will set it above similar ones.

In photojournalism and some nature photography there is still some chances for something original. But even in those realms there is lot of chiche.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Here's 51 pictures and no cliches. Of course this is photography at a higher level than most will ever achieve. This was posted in an earlier post about Laurent Schwebel, a French photographer who was murdered in 2012 , at the age of 52, in Buenos Aires, Brazil, while taking pictures, when someone attempted to steal his gear. If you download the attachment and save it, it is a .pps file (Microsoft Powerpoint Slide Show). Or you can see many of them if you google "images of laurent schwebel"

Attached file:
(Download)

Photographer Jim Loc: Rio Vista, CA

Reinaldokool wrote:

I was in one of the big box stores. There was a pe... (show quote)

I'm not sure I understand the purpose nor what is accomplished by such rants. Be they cliches or over-processed, or poorly done, it will be up to consumers to decide if the images warrant their spending their money on them, and up to the photographer to decide if the number of sales justifies continued efforts to sell her work. My attitude has always been that if you enjoy an artist's work, great; consider making a purchase. If you don't like the work, fine; move on and enjoy your day. Beyond that, it's just making noise.