For some time Ken Rockwell and other snake oil salesmen have carved out a reputation for themselves as a source of useful information for many beginning photographers, and attracted more attention than they should have because of their showmanship, hyperbole and gross oversimplification, rather than for the truth of what they said. His audience are partly to blame because they too often want things kept simple, and Ken Rockwell can be counted on to give you what you want to hear not what you need to hear!
If you think I'm exaggerating go to his website and read his views on color spaces and shooting in RAW, his horseshit views would be hilarious if they weren't being taken seriously by so many.
So what you might think, if you know better you laugh it off and move on, but what if you don't know better? It doesn't stop with Rockwell's website, many will take what he says and repeat what they read, misinforming many more witless haps until what started off as misinformation becomes a guiding principle before finally becoming an accepted myth.
Far too many times people have repeated to me as a fact the very same lazy arse, ignoramus, opinions that Rockwell spouts, completely unaware that they have been sold a useless pile of ideas, and my how they try to defend their held views.
There is no equivalent of the TV show Mybusters for the photography industry, if there were I'm sure it would fill a multi volume DVD set. So it comes down to people like Michael Reichmann who have the means and the knowledge to dispel these myths to a wide audience, the inaccuracy of some myths is not always self evident, especially to the uninitiated.
To say that to shoot X type photos you need an X type camera and to shoot Y type photos you need a Y type camera is not enough, as it mearly implies that your camera does matter. To expose the lie for what it is you need to be more direct so that your audience gets it.
And as for all those that are shooting down Michael for expressing his thoughts on this matter, do you live in a vacuum?? Do you really think that avoiding these kind of discussions helps anyone? What really gets up my nose about these political correctness erectile dysfunctionals is that they will say nought to the liars and cheats of this world, but as soon as someone tries to expose the lie, these no accounts will shoot the messenger!
Luminous Landscape has stood for the improvement of the understanding and practice of photography, usually that means sticking to the technical and creative aspects, but if a little myth busting is called for then that is perfectly in keeping with what I understand this site to be all about.
