When the Photographic World Comes Together at Photokina
Every two years the photographic world descends on Cologne, Germany for the gear fest that is Photokina. It attracts photographers from all walks of life, professionals, amateurs, nerds and artists – you name it.
Whilst it's an amazing experience to walk the vast halls of photographic equipment, there are some photographers you might want to try and avoid. Today we are going to take a slightly satirical look at photographers you might want to keep clear of at Photokina.
Meet the photographic world at Photokina, but avoid some.
1. Trevor Three Cams
Trevor is a constant at Photokina. He is the usually slightly overweight guy wearing a photographer’s vest and with three pro cameras hanging around his neck. He'll be found taking pictures of staff at the any of the main manufacturer’s stands giving the impression he is hired by Photokina. In reality, he is a bank clerk from South London with too many Nikons.
2. Know It All Norma
Know It All Norma has two problems. She has both verbal diarrhea and acute selective hearing. She will sidle up to you at a stand and start explaining to you everything you already know about photography.
She is an expert in her own mind because she had either just got a mid-level degree in media studies or has read every single photography book on Amazon.
She will at length explain degrees Kelvin, depth of field and hyper-focal distance but will suddenly go very quiet when you ask how to calculate hyper-focal distance.
3. Facebook Photographer Freddie
Freddie is a highly successful photographer. He knows this because he has a Facebook page with upwards of 118 likes. Several people go gaga over each and every picture he posts.
The fact that amongst these uber-likers are his mother, sister in law and cousin’s pet Labrador is irrelevant to him….likes are likes.
He is a true pro that will shoot your wedding for $50 and give you all the unedited RAW images on a CD as part of the package (a true bargain). His portfolio consists of pictures of his mother, sister in law, a nice looking Labrador and several hundred stolen images from real photographers.
One of Freddie's top likers is this lovely Labrador.
4. Gear Whore Gerald
Gear Whore Gerald is not rich but does have several maxed out credit cards. This is because every time his manufacturer of choice releases a new top-end camera, lens or flash, he buys it. Gerald is unable to differentiate between desire and require, always succumbing to the former.
He has a very active eBay account where every few months he sells his three-month-old camera for 50% of its original value before buying the latest version at 20% over RRP.
Gerald has the latest and greatest as well as a nervous credit card company.
5. Pixel Peeping Pete
Pixel Peeping Pete takes technically perfect pictures that look awful. They look awful because he spends so much time checking focus, exposure and white balance that he forgets to compose the shots. Bump into him at Photokina and he will happily spend hours reciting off by heart the DXO sensor tables for every brand under the sun.
Bump into him at Photokina and he will happily spend hours reciting off by heart the DXO sensor tables for every brand under the sun.
He will likely bore you to tears about how this sensor has a 1/8th of a stop higher dynamic range than that sensor. Ask him about the rule of thirds and he will tell you to the exact millimeter where each third should lie in the frame but not how to put it into practice.
6. Full Frame Felix
To Felix, there is no other type of photography than full frame.
He will make your eyes glaze over dictating how much better shallow depth of field is compared to an APS-C sensor. Don’t even mention micro 4/3rds to him, that's just an obscenity to the photographic purest.
If you mention a good photographer can take great pictures on any camera, he will reply that he could take even better pictures on a full frame camera.
7. Brand Man Brad
To Brad there are two types of camera, Nikons and others. Unless of course, he is a Canonista. Either way, there is no point in debating the merits of another system because any other system does not have merits. Brand Man accepts no alternatives. None.
To Brad, Nikon might as well be a photocopier company.
8. Blogger Beatrice
Beatrice is a world traveling Instagram photographer.
She writes daily from a new location around the world posting bland images spiced up with an exotic range of Instagram filters. Her readership consists of stay at home parents longing to get away and late middle age men with other things on their minds.
On arriving at Photokina Beatrice will head straight to Samsung or Apple to look at phones. After all, real cameras are so last century.
Beatrice's Blog is awash with exotic locations and garish filters.
So there you have it. Eight types of photographer you might want to avoid when you go to Photokina. How many of these have you met in your day to day photographic life? Let us know in the comments below.
Further Resources
- Photokina 2016 – The Hottest New Releases In Photography! by Jason Row
- This is Why One Lens is More Expensive Than Another by Federico Alegria
- Beware Of The Memory Card Counterfeiters Targeting Photographers by Jason Row
Further Learning
Take a look at this absolutely fantastic eBook Guide for photographers “Seeing the Light and Understanding post Processing”. Learn how Mitchel illustrates how the “eBook is made up of three sections which cover the use of a flash, a reflector and natural light.”
6 Comments
One can NOT own “too many Nikons”….
Just amazing how.many of them are out there,especially the know it all at all times.
Yay for the Gear Whores, though! Thanks to them I’ve snapped up, at “used” prices, late model gear that looks like it was barely ever taken out of the box.
Funny. The question is witch one of them are you ?
There is also the photo association team that move all the time together.
You forgot Brandman Brad’s younger brother Mirrorless Mark who has all of Brad’s wonderful qualities, plus the need to continuously insist that mirrorless produce better images in a smaller camera. Offers to compare systems bearing equivalent lenses are often met with a speedy getaway.
I had been attending PMA and WPPI since the early 80’s until about 2007 and Trevor three-cams was ALWAYS present as was his cousin Gear -whore Gerald.
I have an agreement with my wife for her to shoot me if I ever get a safari vest.