The Angry Photographer

I was watch­ing a live web­cast yes­ter­day that was mar­keted as a cri­tique of HDR pho­tographs. Unfor­tu­nately, it was attacked by the angry pho­tog­ra­pher who hates HDR. Peo­ple were invited to sub­mit their pho­tographs for cri­tique — both about their pho­tog­ra­phy and their HDR tech­nique. While that was hap­pen­ing, even before dur­ing some dis­cus­sion on the show of HDR as it relates to pho­tog­ra­phy, the angry pho­tog­ra­pher in the live cha­t­room went on a rant about his hatred of HDR, how it’s a bas­tardiza­tion of pho­tog­ra­phy, blah, blah, blah. Noth­ing I haven’t heard before.

Here’s the thing — I don’t want to call out this pho­tog­ra­pher by name, or even the show. Those who were there already know and I see no ben­e­fit to nam­ing him to oth­ers. How­ever, I don’t want to keep call­ing him “the angry pho­tog­ra­pher” in this post, so I’m just going to make up a name to refer to the angry pho­tog­ra­pher. Let’s call him Dick.

Much of my own pho­tog­ra­phy is HDR. Not all, but prob­a­bly more than 50% falls into that cat­e­gory. I’m sure this Dick wouldn’t like my pho­tos at all, based upon his plethora of rants and insults about HDR. That’s OK. There’s an old saying:

Opin­ions are like ass­holes. Every­body has one.

One of the things that I often enjoy about watch­ing this web­cast is the con­ver­sa­tion with other view­ers. It’s often quite friendly, but a few folks have started to dis­turb the peace lately. One other per­son was booted out a week or two ago for his com­ments, despite sev­eral warn­ings. I won­dered for a while if they were going to boot this Dick in the ass, but he remained through the show.

I don’t mind that some Dick has a dif­fer­ent opin­ion than I do. Seri­ously. There are plenty of peo­ple in the world who don’t share my views and that’s OK. On the other side, I see a lot of things that I don’t like. Most of the time, I try to keep my mouth shut if I don’t have some­thing pos­i­tive to say. If I dis­agree with some­one that I don’t know very well, or in front of a large group, I try to be care­ful how I express it. So rather than say “That sucks!”, I’ll try to say “Per­haps I would have done it dif­fer­ently.” Some­thing to that effect. I’m not per­fect, but I make an effort to be respect­ful in most circumstances.

Unless you’re a Dick. When you show a bla­tant dis­re­gard for every­one else, then I fig­ure all bets are off. I’ve lost respect for peo­ple who dis­play no respect to others.

As I men­tioned, this show was billed as a cri­tique of HDR pho­tos. If you truly despite and detest HDR pho­tog­ra­phy, why would you show up to such a web­cast? Why spend an hour spew­ing detestable insults against a form of pho­tog­ra­phy in the pres­ence of peo­ple who are clearly inter­ested in it? Why be a Dick?

Believe it or not, most peo­ple are not inter­ested in your unso­licited opin­ion. We can accept an unso­licited opin­ion as part of a group con­ver­sa­tion, such as the cha­t­room asso­ci­ated with this web­cast. There are lim­its to that accep­tance, though. When you spew a dozen hate­ful com­ments about the topic of the show within a cou­ple of min­utes, you’re being a Dick. When the con­ver­sa­tion turns to some­thing else (such as the issue the hosts are cur­rently dis­cussing on the web­cast) and you keep bring­ing up your hate­ful com­ments, you’re being a Dick.

Dick made some com­ment about real pho­tog­ra­phers lik­ing WINE instead of KOOLAID. All I know is that he did a lot of WHINING. It made me won­der if he was hav­ing a WINE ENEMA dur­ing the show. That would explain what was stuck up his ass.

There is a time and place to express your opin­ion. I have a blog so I can share what’s on my mind. Folks can read it or not at their own dis­cre­tion. The rea­son I wanted to watch this web­cast is because I val­ued the opin­ion of the hosts. There are some very knowl­edge­able and help­ful folks who often show up in the cha­t­room, too. It’s just that I’m not watch­ing for their opin­ion that goes on a ram­page against the topic of the show. If you feel so strongly about an issue, then share it on your own plat­form. Only a Dick would try to hijack some­one else’s audi­ence to spew his hate­ful message.

I used to work with a man who fre­quently repeated this phrase to folks in our busi­ness meetings.

It’s inter­est­ing that you have an opin­ion, but it’s irrelevant.

The first time I heard him make that com­ment, I thought he was a Dick. For­tu­nately, I dis­cov­ered that my ini­tial assess­ment of him was incor­rect. I learned that he was a very well informed man who had been in our field for years, though it was very new to the rest of us. He used this com­ment to both release his frus­tra­tion and to explain why opin­ions didn’t mat­ter. There was often a rel­e­vant law or busi­ness prac­tice that super­seded the direc­tion we had to take. Lots of peo­ple have opin­ions. You can talk about what you think we ought to do in a meet­ing, but you’re just expos­ing your igno­rance when our path was already dic­tated by law or policy.

HDR isn’t law, but it’s here as a tool. As dis­cussed by the show hosts, HDR became a tool for the masses when Apple included it in iOS. You can take HDR pho­tos with your iPhone now. It’s not going away, so your opin­ion is irrel­e­vant. It’s here. Deal with it, Dick.

P.S. The pho­tog­ra­pher shown above is not angry and he’s not a Dick. He’s a won­der­ful guy.