Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The Best Photo Blog Post Ever


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This modern day equivalent of The Ten Commandments resides in the photo department of West Virginia University, courtesy of Nate Larson of MICA...he was just visiting.
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Just in case it's blurry, I got'em all for ya:

Graveyards
Squirrels
Holiday Pictures ( Halloween In Particular )
Your Pets
Your Roommates
Your Girlfriend/Boyfriend
Parties
Campus
Homeless People
Other Classmates
Flowers=Macro
Ashtrays
Your Car or its Rearview Mirror
Puddles
Your Dorm Room
Self Portrait In A Mirror
Looking Up A Tree
Kegs
Your Frat Brothers
Live Bands
High Street
Graffiti
Bridges

And then for all of you commericial photographers out there, I have to add a few:

The Bonneville Salt Flats
Delta Blues Musicians
Cuba
Burning Man
Ruins Of Detroit
Surfers At Sunset
Anything On A Flatbed Scanner

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

You forgot:
-Salton Sea
-Hipster standing slack jawed in the center of the street in the center of the photo, backlighted
-fat person on swingset
-naked people running with sparklers (unless your name is ryan mcginley)
-i'll stop now...

Timothy Archibald said...

I like all of those!
Shooting one's own kid is typically a big no no...
Then there is that place in Iceland or whereever it is where people go swimming and the big steam plant is in the distance...does that ring a bell?

bird. said...

Rules are meant to be broken, tho, and I'd say you've successfully illustrated that. At least w/ the flatbed, right? ;)

But seriously, if I have to see any more images of Cuba, I'm puking in my mouth.

peter Taylor said...

DAM IT TA!

you just ruined my whole 2011 marketing /self promotion/personal work plan. CRAP! NowI have to actually think of something.

pt

Timothy Archibald said...

Well....as bird said, rules are meant to be broken and there are no bad ideas.
But the Bonneville Salt Flats could be purged from every hard drive in America and it would possibly make the world a better place.
Just sayin'.

Mark Tucker said...

I'm imagining one singular photograph with as many of these items crammed into it as possible. Sorta like those "Highlights" magazines that were in the dentist's offices when we were kids. See how many items you can find in this one photo. Load up an empty grip truck with props, and take them all to the Bonneville Salt Flats, (and shoot it with a Holga/Hipstamatic). You forgot to mention that.

Anonymous said...

- Peeling paint

Anonymous said...

Your coffee cup!

Steven Currie said...

I have worked with some very successful photographers in my 20 years in this business and the most successful ones are ones that shoot personal work, be it to exercise their creativity or shoot what their clients won't let them shoot. It's very shortsighted to say anything is off limits to shoot, I've seen some beautiful work out of every place on your list, by many different photographers, it's actually exciting to see how different artists interpret the same subject. It would be like saying don't shoot Yosemite, Ansel covered it 60 years ago.

A lot of blog and forums these days come across as angry because people aren't working, instead of raising your own bar, you take other people down for being successful. I feel this is am attack on one persons work and you know who I am talking about. Another thing that annoys me is people who make negative comments under an anyonomous name, if you are going to be bold be brave and "give it a name"

Anonymous said...

Steven, this is called 'humor'. You should try it sometime, it'll make you look less like someone with a stick up ther a**.

How's that squirrel photo-essay coming along?

Timothy Archibald said...

Hey there....this is supposed to be fun...please no personal attacks!

I will say that I was a bit surprised that a sign such as that was posted in a photography department. My guess is that it was created by upper level students...not the profs. Really...all of the things on that list ( as well as my list ) I've seen done amazingly...and they all have had a sense of discovery for me when I myself shot them...as I assume they carry for every one who does them for themselves. Really...in photography...there are no bad ideas.
Steven- thanks for contributing a balanced view to all of this in such an insightful way...it is appreciated and was needed.

Steve Korn said...

I made this list a couple of years ago:

1) The girl looking into the mirror and the reflection is her dressed differently or whatever.

2) Anyone screaming
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3) Pretty girl with a fur lined hood wrapping her face

4) Multiple clones of oneself

5) gas masks

6) a naked female with m+m's, rose pedals, pebbles, or any other small pieces of whatever covering her crotch

7) picture of a guy being lit by his computer

8) hand bra

9) any guns or ninjas.

10) smoke streams

11) anything splashing into a martini glass

12) view of the dashboard of a car in focus with street lights streaking by through the windshield

13) photographer taking a picture of himself/herself taking a picture of himself/herself in the mirror. (I have one of those, too. Damn.)

14) photographer taking a picture of another photographer taking a picture of the first photographer

15) when the two photographers from #14 create links between the pictures they each took so we can all see them taking pictures of each other from each perspective (not really a cliche', but it does make me want to hurt someone)

16) jumping

17) dripping faucet

18) heart bokeh

19) subject sitting on a toilet, especially if it's an attractive girl (some photographers will go to any length to get a girl to get naked)

20) popping water balloon

Don said...

So this weeks planned shoot of a girl with butterfly's painted on her face wearing little to nothing, holding an umbrella, wearing stripper heels, wrapped in caution tape and walking on a railroad track is still good?

Whew... I was worried there.

Glad I moved the shot from the salt flats though.

Anonymous said...

to steven currie
i don't know who you see this as a personal attack on; maybe it's a humorous reflection of what wins the PDN 30 under 30 photo contest... maybe it's what's reflected in the zillion blogs we read... maybe we've all seen too many photos, way WAY too many photos.

maybe we can turn it toward Magnum, and say No more shooting a scene with a silhouetted figure in the foreground and a horse in the background in a sliver of light...

chill baby!

Anonymous said...

Blurry stuff out your dirty car window.
People standing and looking at you for no reason.
Foreclosed and derelict suburban houses.
Stuff shot only at night in color with nothing going on.
People dressed as someone other than who they are.
Busy Chinese cities.
Coal miners.
Farmers.
Africans.
Famous people.
Messy houses.
Uptight business people.
Snake handlers.
Your homoerotic dream.

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