Let me tell you about journeys

The Professor has been on the move this week, crossing oceans and time zones and continents, and finds himself slightly jet lagged and grumpy. Travel used to be an exciting and invigorating experience, now it's just a pain in the ass. Strangely enough, after all of the journeying of this week the Professor finds himself just a few miles down A-1A from the home of Barry Atkins, author of Photographic Journeys.

It might be my physical location, I find that the Sunshine State sucks me creatively dry. It might be the lassitude that comes with time-zone hopping. Either way I really struggled with what to say about Photographic Journeys. In fact, I wrote an entire review that was fairly tempered and polite. But, I threw it in the trash because I realized that I was doing Barry a disservice. Presumably Barry, like most folks, submitted his site to us to get blunt criticism and to have someone tell him the truth. By mincing words and acting all Paula Abdul, Barry wasn't getting what he paid for.

Well, Barry you wanted the truth and the truth is that your photography is not very good and your writing is just plain bad. Probably not what you wanted to hear but I'm doing you a service. You see, a few years back The Professor took a whack at freelance photography and I'm here to tell you that it's an extremely tough gig. Every Tom, Dick and Barry with an SLR and a bit of spare time fancies himself a photographer. The market is absolutely flooded and you've got to be exceptional to come out on top. I know that you've had a couple of shots taken by stock companies, but that doesn't make your photography exceptional. The headshot of your friend makes her look pretty unattractive and your breakfast in horribly flat lighting does not make a great still life. In general, the photos that you're posting on your blog are technically and artistically poor. You say that you're making money in stock and, if so, that's great. Your most recent post claims that you can show me how to recreate what appears to be a booking shot at the Duval County jail. Thanks for that. You're right about the umbrella and single light source but angle and distance from subject are your problems. From what I see on your site, I would keep your day job.

More troubling to me is your writing. I know that photography is your thing and that the words are just there to flesh out the images a little, but for fuck's sake use the spell checker! Your shocking grammar is a little bit trickier, but most word processing programs have a grammar checker that will pick up the most blatant offenders. as well. It may not catch everything, for example Word may not know what to do with a sentence like "When I first approached this turkey vulture (Cathartes aura), I was moving at it so fast that I got scared and flew away" but that little bit of extra effort will make you revisit your words. In fact, since writing seems to be an afterthought, why not just do a straight photo blog. This one, this one and this one are great examples. That way the photo becomes the reason for post and the words are there just to describe conditions.

There are some nice shots - the night images of the Jacksonville River Walk on your header are great (I suspect that those are the one's making you dosh in stock. I don't think we can really argue about the badness of the writing, but hell, I may be wrong about your photography. Like you, I was self taught with a seminar or class here and there. But I think I have a grasp on the basics of composition, lighting, exposure, subject, and so on. I like to try and keep things constructive, so if you were to make a change to more of a photoblog, here are some practical suggestions to make your site better:

1. Get rid of those stupid copyright watermarks. I know that you want to protect your images, but those things just bugger up your photographs. If you are that paranoid or legally obligated, put the copyright discreetly in the bottom corner.
   


2. Make the photos in your posts bigger - that's what you're trying to show off, so show them off.


3. Clean up the side bar, there are lots of gaps.


4. Add an "About" page, if I knew more about you I might be more compelled to read and look at your images.
   


5. You must, must, must get rid of that audio pop-up ad on your site. It's just annoying. Don't know what you're trying to sell, but if I weren't stuck here reviewing I would move on as soon as I heard that voice.
   

The biggest problem that I've got, Barry, is that I just don't feel anything from your site. You've got no introduction of yourself, so I don't know why I should be paying attention to what you have to say. Your photography is not enough to bring me back to your site. You don't tell me funny tales of your photographic antics. You don't tell me about your journeys. As far as journeys, in fact, you only seem to make it a few miles down the coast. My seriously jet-lagged infant can tell you more about journeys. My dog that's locked up in some jail on a different continent waiting for us to come and spring him, he can tell you something about journeys. In the words on The Princess Bride's Montoya "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I'm going to give you one for your writing because bad writing pisses me off. I'm going to give you for your photography because I don't like it, but I'm not an expert. And I'm giving you four flamers for your title because until you drag a family 3/4 of the way around the world in three and a half weeks you don't know shit about journeys .