I recently had a a collaborative job with another photographer for my full time employer. He handed me over files to bundle our photos for handover and his work was awful. Bad colours, out of focus and banding in the skies. Bad framing etc. Just all round sub standard. I spent a full day editing his work because we split up the work i had to use his photos too. I had a look through his online portfolio and connected on LinkedIn and he constantly posts bad photos with his logo on them. However he’s good at business and has been a professional photographer for 30 years and does so many jobs freelance. I just can’t believe how confident he is putting out substandard work. Its something we can all be guilty of but this was another level of bad.
I started out in photography straight from school and by the time I was 22 I thought I was amazing. I look back now 16 years later and laugh at my mediocre photography and cock sure confidence. I’m now 10 times more skilled and experienced but with only half the confidence. Has anyone else cone across photographer like this at professional level?
In short I worked with a photographer who’s bad but doesn’t seem to know it.
I’m not a professional, but I do gigs for friends and family because it’s fun. I do them free because I can’t guarantee I’ll get anything good.
But what is the bare minimum quality a professional photographer needs to provide? Arguably, portraiture should be in focus to the point that you don’t think the photographer is visually impaired. Whether the photo is as sharp as it could be, well…I think customers can forgive slightly out of focus photos if they’re sold as “soft” or “dreamy.”
As far as composition/framing/lighting, most customers won’t really pay attention or notice. Or, they’ll think it was a style choice. After all, they have paid a “professional” and he selected the “best” photos that he took.
I’m not doubting that his work may not be up to your standards, but it sounds like it may meet the bare minimum expectations of his clients.
I’ve been hobbying for 4-ish years and just had the absolute worst “shoot” of my life a couple of weeks ago. I still got some amazing photos, but I was fighting against my skill level the whole time. It’s possible with this dude he’s just phoning it in. He gets good enough photos and doesn’t think twice about it.
Lastly, I’ll say that I’ve seen some professional photos that I just don’t get but they’re praised anyway because the photographer is highly esteemed.
Yeah i think that’s it. He’s just good enough for the jobs he goes after. Photography is a wide genre too. He’s a generalist at a certain price point. As i said I believe most of his customers are happy. I’ve seen some terrible photography in my time and alot of it in my own camera. We’re not all perfect all the time. We have off days. Average customers look at subject matter and won’t get hung up on colour, contrast or exposure like we do. I started oit studying photography in college. It was all fine art photography. I loved it. Alot of technically imperfect photography in art but alot of emotion and depth. That’s subjective. I now work in a commercial setting where technical perfection is very important.