Attention, bloggers with cameras

Put your pretensions aside and do a favor by admitting, “I’m a snapshot taker”. Or, “Here are some snapshots of my garden-kitchen-children-best friend-vacation-new shoes-sunset-some guy walking down the street” ... that would be refreshingly honest.

Please, stop calling yourself photographers ... that’s as wrong as saying, because you put a band-aid on a cut, you’re a doctor.  You are not photographers.  You are not making or taking photographs.  You’re mobile copying machines, responders to minutia of the moment, you’re fish attracted to brightly colored lures ... you’re the target audience George Eastman had in mind when he sold the first box cameras ... you are snapshot shooters. 

Most of your snapshots are attempts at “beauty shots”.  But yours are saccharine, cutesy, boring and devoid of staying power, they're Hallmark Card rejects.  Ramping up the image density or saturating (or de-saturating) the color doesn’t mean it’s a photograph. If your goal is being derivative, fine, at least make an effort to copy the real stuff.

Forget Flickr, that's just a dump site of mediocrity. And you don’t have to study the past masters (although it might help). A good start point is to look at the work of contemporary photographers:  Henik Knudsen, Erwin Olaf, Florian Ritter, Art Wolfe or Alexey Titarenko.

It wouldn't hurt if you took a few minutes and figured out the relationship of light, ISO, f-stops, depth of field and exposure time.  Cameras set on auto hardly need humans for picture taking.

To pound the nail a bit more ... digital cameras are easy and using it as a machine gun is fun but that has little to do with pre-visualization, composition and story telling.

If cats and camels had thumbs they’d be taking the same snapshots as most bloggers.

Dear Fake Narcissist...

Despite the fact that we only "know" you from your blog, we can tell that you're not really that nice.

You see, it comes through in your narcissistic constant posting of photos of yourself making that oh-so-attractive (NOT) pouty mouth at the camera. And your entire "me, me, me, look at me" demeanor.

Here's a newsflash for you, you're not that pretty. Your hair is fake. You don't know the difference between your and you're and it's and its. You need a nose job. And those big-stupid looking flowers in your hair look ridiculous.

Get over yourself.

Not Going to Take it Anymore

And I'm Jeckle R. Rook. As my partner Heckle says, we're here to destruct deconstruct not only the blogosphere but also the world around us - nothing and no one will be safe - from dumbass politicians to the media to home schoolers who can't spell to "reality" television, those pouty-mouthed self-portrait-takers and mustaches on sticks.

It's time someone started telling the truth.

Because there's an awful lot of bullshit out there...

Greetings

I'm Heckle R. Rook but you can call me Heckle.

Here's what going to happen, my good friend Jeckle and I are going to critique, analyze and thoughtfully deconstruct various things that ruffle of feathers. Did I say thoughtful? Sorry, what I meant to say, we're going to toss eggs (never Rook eggs) at stuff that pisses us off.

Amongst the topics on the table for review - bad blog poetry, maddening photographs, insensitive corporations, self-indulgent dribble, over the top weepiness - and whatever else we spot on blogs which riles us.

That's it, this will be fun.