James you are right obviously and I'm not here to be anyone's defender but you have to admit that some of the statements above make their poster sound dimmer than what he/ she accuses the subject of his/ her posts to be....
Yair
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Yair,
Your right to some extent, but there is also a level of personal publicity that surrounds a lot of my industry that has nothing to do with cameras, talent or work ethic.
At certain levels of this business, there is a reality that is 180 degrees from the truth, even to the point of who lights, shoots, conceives and retouches the final image.
Most people don't want to mention any of the publically because it can come across as jealousy or sour grapes, but that doesn't mean that "one hand clapping", is not getting deafening.
To defend or damn, you have to know more than a myspace page or see more than an overly cloned celeb image to know what really goes on, who does it, what it costs and if there is any financial or even artistic success.
This is a strange business that seems to attract way, way, way too much attention. I'm shocked when actors, dancers, performers (and the group of wannabes) pick up a camera and and start filling the medium with images.
I'm even more surprised that photographers want to be household names.
I come at this industry with the thought that it takes a lot of hard work, investment, risk and effort and I have little patience for the ones that do it only for the "fame".
Where that puts the rest of us is in an uncomfortable position to also start pushing the PR and at that point it's not about the photograph, it's about who has the ability to pose as "blue steel" and scream me, me , me.
It's all silly.
Given this, I respect anyone that has success in this business and knows how to leverage all of their positives to keep going and whether I like the style or way they do it really doesn't matter because most of it just comes down to personal opinion.
JR