[GalacticPhoto]

As the title reads, I have to say that there's a lot of people out there with terrible taste.

Example scenarios

1.

I post a waterfall photo that was shot professionally and looks nice. I get 100 likes on a FB page for waterfalls.
Somebody posts a waterfall picture with their phone and adds filters and bumps the saturation up a billion times, it looks like total crap. They get 200 likes.

2.

I take a portrait photo, looks incredible.
Person asks "why is the background all blurry though???"

(I see a lot of complaints about milky waterfall pictures too)



Does this kind of stuff bother anyone else? Is it a gift to have DECENT taste in things? It almost seems so. I really think the US is full of tacky people. I wonder if it's as bad everywhere else.

[Johndav]

You'll end up frustrated trying to work out why certain pictures get more likes on FB. Takes pictures for yourself and you'll be a lot happier

[Peter Nutkins]

Agreed....I have thought about taking some crummy out of focus shots on purpose and seeing how many likes I can get.

To me it is much like other social media...it is all about how many 'friends' you have....and I have no friends.

Actually, in real life I don't have any friends either, so I just shoot what I like.

[vonBaloney]

The whole concept of bad taste relies on the masses having it and the elites having "good" taste. It is impossible for most people to have good taste because that just moves the relative goalposts. Nevertheless, it is true you will sometimes feel pressure to degrade your own work in your own eyes for the sake of being more popular, more commercial, whatever. (Then you can possibly make more sales to normal people if you sell things, but at the expense of the esteem of the highbrow people.) Of course the real highrows would likely consider any "pretty" landscape picture of a waterfall or anything else like that as trite and not worthy of thinking about no matter how well done unless you're really bringing something new and unique to it.

Although we don't do traditional landscapes, the work my wife & I do for pictures we sell is generally of stuff that would probably be considered cliche, but we do it well, and with a bit of whimsy not often found with such things. Our pictures are decent art (for which we get decent prices, but not highbrow art gallery prices) for normal people. But it is decoration, not "high art", and we are ok with that. Although I'm somewhat gratified (I guess) that we've sold a few things to highbrow-type people (in one case, to a modern art conceptual photographer). It is still annoying when people ask to crop an image (that would ruin it) to fit a particular size, print it on canvas (very popular, but almost always tacky I think), etc. And I don't even want to know about the frames and mattes that our photos end up in -- I'm hoping things that beige or orange colored mats are relegated to the ash heap of history forever...

[biz-engineer]

A photo is not necessarily liked for its aesthetics. Online posting is about social networking, keeping the communication going with other people, not necessarily about the quality of the photos themselves. Appropriate media to be chosen for appreciating the value of good photographs. More often than not, DSLR does not shine to its best light with online posts along with smartphone photos. Where DSLR stands out in on enlarged prints.

[ffking]

Flickr makes no sense either, other than that the number of views is proportional to the extent to which the photographer works the system (gathers reciprocal followers) - a few get high counts on merit alone, but fewer than those who maximise their following -and Flickr is a moderately specialist (mostly) photo-sharing website. Still - that's the way the world works - as Johndav says, take pictures that you like, perfect your art,and when the views come, you'll know you've earned them

And yes - I get irritated too sometimes ;D

---------- Post added 09-24-16 at 11:32 AM ----------

It puts me in mind of a conversation I had at the London Gift Fair at Olympia back in the 80s. An agent who worked for our company spent most of his time on the stand of another company he also represented because it was constantly busy. It sold tat, and he knew it - when I commented on this he said that when he first started in the business his father had given him the sage advice " Nobody ever got rich overestimating the taste of the great British public," I've never forgotten that conversation

[GalacticPhoto]

I'm not looking for advice, just curious how many others get bothered by this.

Another thing I see way too often are composite shots. Don't get me wrong, it can be an art itself but I am seeing SO many of these now and a lot by photographers without even being labeled as composite images.

[SpecialK]

FB page

No, sorry.

[IgorZ]

I agree, there are a lot of poor pictures that get a lot of likes, but similarly there is a lot of art that costs a lot and I have no idea why. Like that photo of a potato with a black background that sold for a million euros a couple of months ago...

To be honest, what bothers me most is that I see what kind of pictures people like, and then I catch myself thinking about making a similar style photo. Embarrassing, I know. That's why I stopped going to those sites so I don't get that pressure until I figure out my "style".

[swanlefitte]

This reminds me of the glasses set down in the dallas museum of art by some teenagers back in May? It all amuses me.

[AldaCZ]

I know that feeling

Subject K30 + M50 1,7
Background K-S2 + 18-135 WR



Phone instagram shot

[clackers]

It's handy to know what pleases crowds, GalacticPhotos, so you can do them yourself when it suits. Can't hurt being popular.

It never stops you also taking the shots that please you that you keep and display elsewhere for your own enjoyment ... 'One for me, one for them, one for me ..."

[AldaCZ]

It's handy to know what pleases crowds, GalacticPhotos, so you can do them yourself when it suits. Can't hurt being popular.

It never stops you also taking the shots that please you that you keep and display elsewhere for your own enjoyment ... 'One for me, one for them, one for me ..."

Kittens...and naked kittens

[aleonx3]

Likes on Social media platforms (FB, Instagram and the likes) is not a good indicator of quality (artistic, technique etc.) of photos; It is inference rather (more) by the popularity of who posts it.. There is also another factor called social media etiquette as it is not cool to "unlike" friends and "likes" sometimes could just be nothing but merely a lip service as "I don't like the photo, it is awful, but I still like it but he/she is my "friend".

[house]

Experts tend to experience and appreciate different things than casual consumers. Goes for art, wine, photography, litterature and architecture.

I'd also reiterate that (without knowing your work) it's likely that high end art proffessionals would look at your work in much the same way you look at those social media snaps.