AMATEURS SHOULD LEAVE PHOTOGRAPHY TO THE PRO'S (OR THE TALENTED)

Many billboards and magazine ad photos these days are done so lousily that when I see them I usually wonder why they didn't fire the photographer, or sued the ad company, for taking such ugly photos. For example, lighting is all wrong, shadows are where they shouldn't be, flash burns are so obvious, subject's eyes reflect what they shouldn't, colors are wrong, contrast are wrong, models pose is funny and unbalanced, composition is so bad I can't help but laugh, even the post-editing layout is not right for the medium of the ad, like a magazine layout used on billboards, or newspaper layout used in magazines. The worst thing is I've also noticed that more and more of these half-baked ugly ads are coming out.

After seriously meditating on this phenomena, I have come to 2 conclusions! First, almost any Tom, Dick and Harry these days can afford a pro or semi-pro level camera, and because of this they become so-called experts. With the financial crunch these days even giant companies need to save, and instead of hiring professionals they decide that they can write the ads and take the photos themselves, so they do, resulting in really lousy photographs and shameful grammar. Unfortunately, not everyone has the talent to see that the photo's are ugly and the grammar terrible, thus resulting in using a mistake in the first place. Second, when it comes to art, the artist is always right and the client is always wrong. This is not food service, this is soul! Imagine da Vinci adjusting his painting because Mona Lisa isn't happy about it. Imagine Solomon Saprids changing his bronze statues because some executive thinks it's too unreal. Did Amorsolo or Juan Luna have bosses who told them what to do? Well, sadly, there are a lot of unknown artists these days who are really good but try too much to please their customers resulting in mediocre or bad work, that's why when they die nobody knows them, and they are most commonly called "photographer's reliever" or "copy-cat painter".

Ladies and gentlemen, when an artist presents his masterpiece take it as it is, you are paying him for his art, and he is not paying you for your opinions. If you don't like his art, change artists!