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.
The difference between an amateur and a pro is that the pro gets paid.
I was an amatuer photographer while managing a photolab at an upscale camera store… And it blew my f’ing mind how shitty some of the photos were coming out of wedding photographers that regularly got paid >5K per wedding on a regular basis.
I’d say the more-likely thing is that some people have bad imposter syndrome, myself included… I’ve done weddings and the most I’ve ever gotten paid was $2k… but most I did as a gift to the bride and groom, as an alternate photog for candids, primarily at the reception while the paid photog handled the ceremony and portraits. I’ve been told they liked mine better on multiple occasions, but I could just never bring myself to asking $5k for a wedding shoot or persuing it as a career.
Those shitty photogs have no such compunctions.