To,
The (Over) Enthusiastic Photo Uploader
29/09/11
Hi,
You probably would know me. I'm one of your innumerable friends on Facebook(a year or two ago would have said Orkut). I know that you love to take photos and own a very good camera too. But then this is the age of Digital Photography and anyone with a 20000+ quid can get a decent DSLR/SLR (if I ask you to expand DSLR/SLR, you would give me a blank stare). And as everyone wants to be a Jack of all trades, you want to become a photographer too. You might know Photoshop too. Oh Cool, The better. But what bothers/irks me are the throngs of photos that you upload on the social networking site. Trust me it’s a virtual eye sore. Not many
of your friends would say this but this is just my opinion/view and a humble plea, from me and few other that a bugged of this "Upload Your Photos" phenomenon.These days I open (the new)Facebook and find that the inhabitants have made it a photo sharing site(the enlarged pics don't help either). The self confessed photographer has come up in all of us and we have been clicking away and hoping that some jobless soul will like and comment on it and you can proclaim "Hey, I'm a good phtographer."
You had gone on a trip to Timbuktu. Ok, we know that already. You had updated your status as "Rollicking in Timbuktu". And then you come back and put up a heap of photos of what you did there. Gleefully Facebook says "XYZ added such-and-such-number of photos in the album Rollicking in Timbuktu"... Everyone goes W.O.W, G.A.G.A... 5 photos into the album and they are already brain dead, cos all they see is the same thing posted over and over again in different angles and different tones that would help anyone, with a image manipulation software, build a 3D image of the same without missing any bit of the scene, if they had access to the album.
Entire lines in an album are dedicated to leaves, trees, sand, lamp, cows, cow dung (you get the point). Ya we know you took it. But is it really necessary to flaunt them? And with the new FB uploader it is real easy to upload. Select the whole folder --> Upload. Leave the rest to you superfast internet connection and Go have a cup of coffee, come back and voila it's up. And then you have the whole world drooling on your "well taken" photos (well, at least you think so). 300 odd photos and half of them are useless. What’s the whole point of uploading so many photos? A few are fine but 300? Are you ok? We, Ok I, aren’t that curious and mostly not interested to wade through all of them. Upload selectively.
And did you forget something after you uploaded? Oh, Not the wait for the comments. Think again. Need a clue? 5 letter word starts with and ends with L. Yeah, Label. Pls do that. You might sometimes get lucky and get a truly good shot, but then the world doesn’t know what it’s looking at. Do that if u want to avoid questions like "where is this?", "is this XYZ place?” But then you would be happy, cos you are getting the comments that you wanted, ain’t it? Let sense prevail.
About Photoshop. It’s a great tool. Used sparingly can make your photo better. Used excessively it can do the opposite too. A picture would say what 1000 words can, but with excessive editing you end up removing the 999 words. BTW what happened to those good ol’ original pictures?
Come on people. Be realistic. A horde of photos on Picassa is just fine. But on Facebook, think again. No one has that much time to shift through the entire collection. Most would view a few pics, like/comment on them and get back to work (yeah, we are all busy people you see). Most of them don’t care. Some comment just for the sake of it or sometimes to follow the conversation which is happening below the photo. Basically, the joke is on you. Better thing to do would be to put it on Picassa and share the link on FB (Real tech savvy). You will know how many are actually interested.
And as Ernst Haas puts it
“There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.“
The Camera is a powerful tool in the hands of the capable. Use it well.
Regards,
A Guy on your Friend List
