I had typed up a 3,000 word blog but realised that all that information was not really necessary.
Yesterday while browsing online I spotted an image it stood out to me... because it was absolutely terrible given it had a big logo on it saying xxxxxxx portfolios I was intrigued to find out more about xxxxxxx portfolios. Wondering if they charged for models to have a shoot, i though 'no way this is criminal'. Anyway I found his page and his bebo page and in there I looked at at least 200 images, about 40 pictures per album all unedited of different young girls dreaming of becoming a model. I thought he must have at least one good image, but no! I did give up looking because I was almost on the verge of tears seeing some of these pictures. I usually don't give a crap about this type of thing but it got to me. Someone pretending to be a photographer to get a bunch of girls to nude/seminude levels then take snapshots of them, no editing, clueless when it comes to lighting and every other type of negative flaw you could get in an image he had done it.
I'm not a snob, I'm a beginner photographer and even i wouldn't be confident enough to offer a portfolio service to anyone.. let alone stick up 30/40/50 images per shoot, christ I'm lucky if I get 1 shot I'm happy with per set.
I know new models have dreams, they want to be in fhm or some magazine and someone wanting to take their picture might be a big compliment to them but at what cost? There was one image which made me the saddest, it was of an alternative looking girl.. She had a great look to her and her expression looked wicked, i would love to shoot her sometime but his image of her was basically all bad styling/lighting/composition and angle right up her *flower*. I'm tempted to track her down and give her some good images which might help her or at least show her what photographers outside of bebo can produce because I really do think she would make a smashing model (thats if she still wants to be one and her experience with it didn't put her off for life).
So I end my blog which I tried to keep small..
Why oh why do some people think they are doing a girl a favour by taking their picture when infact they are causing more harm than good. Can they not look at other images and compare their own with such images? are they blind to how crap their images are. Why are girls being sucked into it over bebo? when anyone with a camera phone can take better pictures.
What makes a really uncreative person who lacks the 'eye' for an image pick up a camera and inflict their crap on innocent young girls with dreams?
And that is all
Cx