But for all the pluses it seems like it might have, I can't help but feel there are hidden negatives. Or maybe they aren't hidden at all. I can't help but feel that you are loosing some of your personal style and identity by joining these groups. Right away, to become certified, you have to agree to lighting in a certain style, or adhering to specific rules. Not every photograph in life will be a 3:1 setup. Joining these large groups and getting mass-blasting emails covering current trends and hot topics is very much like buying into a franchise; you get the boutique studio setup, you start shooting what's hot in the current issue of Professional Photographer Magazine, etc. Simply on a basis of compromising your personal style and identity, I wouldn't want to join. Just because I use one light for some of my work means I'm not "up to par" with other photographers? I'm suddenly not good enough? Hardly. In the end, it should be about the work that you produce in your specific style and the acceptance that not everyone will like the work you produce. ...Show more →
Utter nonsense. That's like saying buying a camera with an exposure meter locks you into always using the meter setting.
Maybe that's a danger for the same sort of person who would be nothing but a hack anyway, but not for anyone who actually has a creative bone in his body anyway.
When I took my GRE, there was a requirement to write a paragraph in cursive. Even though I always write in block-print, I guess I "agreed" to write in cursive for the purpose of that test. Did that mean I had to forever after write in cursive? Silly talk.
Perhaps it could be for the person that gets into this for the money aspect and not the craft?
I absolutely have seen someone's front window display on a monthly basis showing what previous issues of PPM have talked about. After a few months of seeing that, it makes me think that way.
I also know someone that is drastically changing the way he shoots so he can get into this group.
I'm certainly not saything its absolute, but I've witnessed it, otherwise I wouldn't make note of it.
IMO, and in general, a CPP title represents the Old Guard, or technically perfect, uninspired photography. The "Strobist" represents a self-trained cadre of wannabes who challenge photography's standard bearers with a cheap alternative and, if PPA Magazine is any indicator, sometimes more creativity. I saw this train wreck coming years ago. "Retired" is a better title for me.
borderlight wrote:
IMO, and in general, a CPP title represents the Old Guard, or technically perfect, uninspired photography. The "Strobist" represents a self-trained cadre of wannabes who challenge photography's standard bearers with a cheap alternative and, if PPA Magazine is any indicator, sometimes more creativity. I saw this train wreck coming years ago. "Retired" is a better title for me.
You must be looking in a different PPA magazine...or haven't looked at it in years. Most of the new CPPs, by the way, are recent MWACs.
I get the Professional Photographer, aka, the PPA Mag. sent to me... unwillingly. It's put out by the PPA, all it's staff are PPA, and it's headquarters are at 229 Peachtree St., Atlanta, GA. They can be reached at www.ppa.com, and the 2010-2011 president is Louis F. Tonsmeire. Jr. Cr. Photog., API. The magazine is free to me. In fact I can't stop the subscription no matter how many times I ask them to stop sending it to me. Seventy percent of the PP magazine is ads. It tries to be hip with "exciting" articles and contests while maintaining it's traditional side of commonplace pictures of babies, seniors, instructional pics, and weddings.
MWAC? Master Wannabe Assistant Craftsman.
May 02, 2011 at 12:25 PM
Jonathan Huynh Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Photography is ART this is no right or wrong way how to taking a picture. It's simply how the person behind the camera view the world, although If you a member of PPA or WPPI , I would encourage you taking the test just to see your level of understand photography .Lighting and the relation to the camera setting, and more.
borderlight wrote:
The magazine is free to me. In fact I can't stop the subscription no matter how many times I ask them to stop sending it to me. Seventy percent of the PP magazine is ads. It tries to be hip with "exciting" articles and contests while maintaining it's traditional side of commonplace pictures of babies, seniors, instructional pics, and weddings.
The ads pay for much or the cost of publishing and distributing a free magazine. Even with magazines for which you pay a subscription fee, the ads defray more than half the cost of publishing.
Sid Ceaser wrote:
Certification is for marketing. Don't forget, there is a reason why doctors and lawyers have all those framed diplomas on their office walls; to impress you. "His wall is full of framed things with official looking signatures from impressive looking places" clients and prospective clients say. Sid
I can't speak for lawyers (or actually for doctors), but my wife has a wall full of certifications and diplomas and they are there to do more than impress. For instance, she's a Certified Nurse Midwife. To get her CNM, she had to have a Master's degree in nursing. She had to do more study and research beyond that. She also had to be mentored by a CNM. Finally, she had to take an all day exam. The diploma is testimony to the intense training she had to prepare to adequately treat her patients.
By contrast, the PPA certification is different. By the nature of the skill, getting certified as a photographer is far more subjective. There are some things that concern me. First, I'm wondering if the exam part is reflective of the state of the art. The example questions that I've seen might be old, but they were indicative of skills that might have been needed back in the mom and pop studio days of the '50's and '60's. While lighting ratios are still relevent, I'm wondering if questions and requests for examples reflect the differences between film and digital sensor dynamic ranges. I'm also concerned about the perpetuation of what is expected in the samples that must be provided. PPA has always been the protector of the Old Guard. A perusal of the images they choose to display in the gallery shows that still holds to be true. There are some lovely images, but they are of pretty much the same subjects I've seen for the last 40+ years rendered pretty much in the same very traditional way.
I see the PPA staunchly defending a business concept that no longer exists and can be argued never really existed.
Finally, since I'm on my soapbox, I think back to the early days of photography. Those who tried to make money from it were generally held in low regard and thought to be sullying the craft. It was the passionate amateur like Julia Margaret Cameron and Lewis Carrol who was held in high regard.
In this profession you don't have to have a license. But to get freaking haircut the hairdressers have to have a license in order to do a $20.00 haircut.
The two are not strictly comparable. Licensing of people in a business which is human health/cummunicable disease related is one thing. Not licensing people who are not dealing with the same issues is something else. Same analogy holds true for those professions (like law or commercial truck driver or airplane driver) where mis-performance or fraud can cause immediate or far-reaching adverse impacts on the customer or public. But note......those type of licenses have nothing to do with business success, and they don't define "professionalism" or professionals, simply that the holder of the certificate or license has reached a certain level of knowledge and competency in a specific field at a particular point in time.
To be strictly comparable.....Professional photographers and all other small business proprietors are required to have local business licenses and tax ID certificates. Those have nothing to do with business success.
So in both cases, the idea of defining "professionals" via use of a test is non-applicable and non-analogous to the discussion on this thread. There are many, many, job specialties where licensing or certification is required compete for or HOLD A JOB AT A SPECIFIC LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE. There are only a handful that I can find which require a license or certificate to be named or called as a "professional."
Photography is one of the last of the truly American Free Enterprise arenas, where ANYONE can enter the field, and ANYONE can succeed or fail based on their own merits and performance, as opposed to being controlled, limited, constrained, and managed by exterior forces and organizations.
By contrast, the PPA certification is different. By the nature of the skill, getting certified as a photographer is far more subjective. There are some things that concern me. First, I'm wondering if the exam part is reflective of the state of the art. The example questions that I've seen might be old, but they were indicative of skills that might have been needed back in the mom and pop studio days of the '50's and '60's. While lighting ratios are still relevent, I'm wondering if questions and requests for examples reflect the differences between film and digital sensor dynamic ranges....Show more →
I took the test about five years ago, and at the time I didn't see anything except perhaps the ratio questions that were still somewhat relevant then, but I'd argue not relevant today. But more portrait and wedding pros were still using film five years ago, too. I can't recall any questions specific to film even back then, just concepts such as ratios that were more relevant to film than to digital.
Now, if I start a thread arguing that "film is dead," it's going to attract a whole lot of flack...and those same flackmeisters will argue in a thread like this that a certification exam should not have any film-related questions in it. How about some consistency here. As long as a "film is dead" thread draws fire, then the certification test should not draw any flack over a couple of questions that might relate to film.
I'm also concerned about the perpetuation of what is expected in the samples that must be provided. PPA has always been the protector of the Old Guard. A perusal of the images they choose to display in the gallery shows that still holds to be true. There are some lovely images, but they are of pretty much the same subjects I've seen for the last 40+ years rendered pretty much in the same very traditional way.
What you see is what people are paying substantial money for. Cutting edge, maybe not, but cutting edge photography of their sweet petunias is not what mothers pay substantial money for. PPA's bottom line is that they are interested in portrait and wedding photographers making money, not art for art's sake.
Over on the PPA forum, there are frequently fierce complaints about a PPMag cover that illustrates what sells...but isn't necessarily a great picture. They, too, miss the point: PPA is about what sells and how to sell it.
I see the PPA staunchly defending a business concept that no longer exists and can be argued never really existed.
Image styles and business concepts are two very different parts of the profession (that is, of the matter of getting paid enough for one's photography to pay one's mortgage). In terms of business concepts, PPA promotes what works with substantial real data from thousands of working photographers across the country to back it up. The PPA Studio Management Services is actually the accountant service for thousands of photographers.
