My experience with a "fauxtographer."

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

We had some photos taken of our kids a few months back. My wife found this woman on Facebook, who appeared to know what she was doing. She showed up with a 7D and 85mm F/1.2L

She positioned us, took a lot of shots, etc. etc. etc.

We get the CD a few weeks later and all the shots are terrible. Misfocused, BAD white balance. I could go on and on.

She doesn't admit to any of her mistakes.

Anyway, that's another story.

So, at the time all I had was a Canon S95. I decided to grab a reflector I had and try some shots.

Here's what I got.

Throckmorton · Jan 20, 2012

I agree that her pictures are horrible. There's a lot of fauxtographers out there, and most customers can't tell their work is garbage.

BTW why is her logo on the photos?

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

her CD contained 2 versions of each photo. 1 full resolution with no logo. And another a smaller size with her logo. Same crappy focus, editing, and white balance in both though. lol

Throckmorton · Jan 20, 2012

I think the white balance is fine. The pictures look like they were taken late in the afternoon or early in the morning, so that's why the lighting appears warm. You wouldn't want it adjusted so whites look white. The focusing is bad though and it in some pictures it looks like she airbrushed?

Edit: Wait I just noticed the purplish and greenish colors in some pics... What's up with that?

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

It was like 3pm or something. Very high sun. In Florida. The way the pics look is nothing like it looked in person.

fuzzybabybunny · Jan 20, 2012

Huh? Her pictures look fine. It's common and almost expected to give these photos a specific "look" by tweaking the saturation, the contrast, the white balance, etc. She missed focus on a couple of the shots. If you want a natural, "how it looked in person" unprocessed look like the ones you took then just ask her for her shots straight out of her camera with no processing.

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

She would not give me anything. Wouldn't admit to ANY out of focus shots. These look horrid in print. Are you not seeing the amount of sharpening she added to compensate?

At least I have a 5D II now. I'll just reshoot everything.

Throckmorton · Jan 20, 2012

fuzzybabybunny said:
Huh? Her pictures look fine. It's common and almost expected to give these photos a specific "look" by tweaking the saturation, the contrast, the white balance, etc. She missed focus on a couple of the shots. If you want a natural, "how it looked in person" unprocessed look like the ones you took then just ask her for her shots straight out of her camera with no processing.

Well fuzzybabybunny... you may yourself be a fauxtographer!

rootaxs · Jan 20, 2012

Given it's pretty consistent shot-to-shot, it's easy to say this person knows what she was doing.

That said, i am not a fan of the over processing of the photos. Tweaking colors is fine, i see the artistic nature of the OoF shots (although focusing on hair instead of the faces in that mother/child shot is too obvious of a mistake.)

She tried to smoothen the faces and bring out the eyes too much that the skin detail actually went away -- very poster-like effect. Again, this could just be her style, but personally i find it too much especially for portraiture of this nature. Borrowing from the great Austin Powers, she put too much emphasis on the wrong syllables.

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

Maybe that was her intent with the editing. But, focusing on my wifes hair. Back of my head. Baby's feet. My foot. A few others. I pointed all this out to her. And her only explanation was that this was my "opinion." White balance & editing aside. Out of focus is out of focus. There is no opinion about it.

alfa147x · Jan 20, 2012

7D and 85mm F/1.2L

That made her think she was worthy of selling her pictures. I saw 3 or 4 pictures out of that list that I would be willing to hand to a customer.

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

The problem is, we paid her $150 for 1 hour. And a CD with the shots I linked. I see it as I'm out $150. None of them are fit to print at even 4x6" much less something bigger to hang in my house. I got better results with the S95. She made a good camera look really bad. But, more than that was the fact that she doesn't admit to any of it. Didn't offer a reshoot or untouched images. Or even a refund. Don't see her staying in business long.

alfa147x · Jan 20, 2012

I would make sure to leave reviews on sites where she is listed. Don't want other people getting screwed as well.

JohnnyRebel · Jan 20, 2012

I looked at her facebook page. She has stuff posted that looks a lot like what you got, but better focused samples. You really should not have expected much after looking at her posted samples on FB. This is obviously her art, and she has over 2K likes. Here is one that is better than yours, but I still hate it.

JR

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

Her processing is terrible. My wifes teeth are glowing. ANd yeah, those are bad as well. She shoots with the lens wide open in every shot, and then tries to sharpen them later to make up for the thin DOF.

alfa147x · Jan 20, 2012

The faces in the photographs look like manikins...

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

alfa147x said:
The faces in the photographs look like manikins...

LOL. That was the first thing I told my wife when we got the CD.

alfa147x · Jan 20, 2012

It's really easy to do it on accident. I remember doing it a lot when I first got my light kit. :\

sixone · Jan 20, 2012

This should be good for a laugh.

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

sixone said:
This should be good for a laugh.

That must be the video she watched before she decided to go "pro." LOL

GoSharks · Jan 20, 2012

She has a decent eye but her technique (mostly PP) is bad. The missed focuses could also be an equipment issue. The WB could be either lack of care or for variety.

speedy2 · Jan 20, 2012

GoSharks said:
She has a decent eye but her technique (mostly PP) is bad. The missed focuses could also be an equipment issue. The WB could be either lack of care or for variety.

I'm betting she didn't pick a focal point and let the camera choose. Or even shot in AUTO mode. She also wouldn't comment on that as well.

GoSharks · Jan 20, 2012

speedy2 said:
I'm betting she didn't pick a focal point and let the camera choose. Or even shot in AUTO mode. She also wouldn't comment on that as well.

She shot in Av.

And by equipment issue, I mean that it is a possibility that her setup has an inherent front focus (which she should correct...)

Silenus · Jan 20, 2012

To me the shots all look HEAVILY over processed, and frankly terrible. Granted, white balance can be a subjective choice but some of the other stuff is so heavy handed it's almost absurd (sharpening, skin smoothing, eye whitening, ect.) I don't what was going with the focus problems. Shooting close with a fast prime like that requires extreme care with focusing. If it were me I would never even give a customer shots that were badly out of focus. Did her website have lots of photos that looked like yours? Did you expect something different?

When it comes to good photography, the gear hardly matters in comparison to the person behind the camera. This is a well understood but often forgotten concept these days where anybody can go out and buy good gear and think themselves a good photographer. I am very sorry this happened to you. It sucks.

The only thing I can suggest if she doesn't budge is really try to let it go. Give it some time. Save up some cash and go out try again, but next time with a more deserving photographer who understands your concerns and has a style you like.

CuriousMike · Jan 20, 2012

I agree that the shots look over-processed and the skin-smoothing is eerie; the focus being off anywheres from a little to a moderate amount is worrisome.

Some of the composition is good.
Some of the warm colors work well.

Some of the photos aren't terrible IMO ... they just should be better.

I think something she could learn is to not fall into the *Facebook-photo-trap. Only send out the best.

* Facebook seems to cause people to post all the photos from an event, regardless how crappy they are.

My experience with a "fauxtographer."

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