18+: Uncensored Ramblings

Warning!: Adult Content - May Contain Bollocks

While I've kept most of the site family friendly, there are occasions when I need to vent my spleen. There's nothing stopping you from backing away right now if swearing offends you. So if you'd rather do a bit of knitting and have a nice cup of Earl Grey than put up with a bit of 'colourful language' (whatever that means), you should fuck off now!

Hear me roar!

Things that piss me off about Flickr

I am a member of an online photographic community called Flickr, which is a source of pleasure for me, but also a certain amount of frustration. The website itself is brilliantly put together and easy to navigate, unlike facebook (or the last haven of the talentless and desperate as it is otherwise known), which has the frustration factor of buying a jigsaw at Oxfam only to find most of the bits are missing and the box is full of bits of bland, beige carpet. No, what it is about Flickr that really annoys me is all the photo fascists and other assorted morons. I've pasted in some actual comments from fellow Flickr users, not necessarily comments made about my photos, but ones that have driven me to rant about them anyway.

"Post-production makes photographs completely invalid in my view"  - This is because you are a moron, and only one half of your brain works. Your view is invalid and so are you.

"Photos taken on auto focus should be deleted" - You should be deleted.

"Nice flower shot. Shame about the building in the background" - You know, you're absolutely right. Next time, I'll bulldoze the 14th century castle to the ground, just so you can admire the common pink flower better. Just stop it right now because God knows you're a wanker.

"I'm not in love with the girl. I don't like her expression. Score 4/10" - You don't have to fancy her, you mong. I'm not asking you to shag her. This was posted in a score my candid shot group and was about one of my photos which had, up to this point, scored 36/40. It really pissed me off because the shot posted by this person was not a real candid. It was an extreme close up, taken on auto from about 3 feet away. Just because the subject was looking away from the camera, it doesn't mean they didn't know it was there. This person also followed their photo with a wanky explanation that made me vomit into my wellies, because they were nearest.

I don't like it when people with DSLRs treat people without DSLRs like vermin, and laugh at our cameras and call them 'bits of junk'. Having a DSLR does not make a photographer. Creativity, vision and passion make a good photographer stand out from the crowd, and some of my favourite photos have been taken on a £3 plastic camera. I am not slagging DSLRs off or all the lovely people who use them, just the super-smug arseholes.

There are a lot of Flickr members, particularly in the States, who use Flickr as a platform to promote Christianity. It really bugs me. The good Christian congregation of a local church recently threw out a member because they found out he had bought a lottery ticket - judgemental arseholes! One woman, from the same church, when recently asked how she was feeling, replied "I don't know. Jesus hasn't told me yet". Now that's fucking dangerous. It's not that we can't hear your message or that we don't understand it. Some of us have tried to swallow it, but find it unpalatable. Some of us like to make up our own flavours.

OK, I'm nearly done. My final bugbear is the fisherman-whore. This is my lovely name for those people who whore their photos in a million groups, then wait for the gullible fish to bite. I have been a gullible fish myself, on occasion, and a whore on many others, but only in a very mild sense. The photos posted by the fisherman-whore are generally quite good, but there is often a second and more annoying element to these posts that drives me completely insane - what I call the 'whore's gusset' - pseudo-poetic bollocks dribbling beneath the image. What happens is this; the fisherman-whore posts a sometimes brilliant photograph followed by the whore's gusset of all pretentious prose, and everyone fawns all over it, and proclaims the originator the new messiah. And the photo is given 5 hearts, 7 stars, 6 bunnies, 12 teddies, 8 moons, 8 emmys, 5 oscars, a golden globe and a partridge in a fucking pear tree. Is this really what photography means to you? Is one moon not enough for you? Or one heart? Well, you can keep your awards fella, but know this - you are a wanker.

Big deep breath. And I'm all done.

15/01/08