Just when you thought you’d identified the ‘prime’ dickhead in the world, and were about to have the t-shirt printed, the flags made etc. up pops another one – must be the season.
I should explain – I used to have a gay friend – very competent photographer in fact, and he has a Flickr feed, like me. We came across each other a few years ago, on Facebook of all places, and enjoyed a few months friendship, losely based around things photographic.
He, like me, is a bit of a gear-addict, and together we have amassed a considerable arsenal of equipment, some of which is actually useful…but a lot of it not…
Our ‘friendship’ frittered and died, and for a few years we had no exchanges, until a few months ago where our collective sarcasm had calmed itself, and we were again able to enjoy reasonable conversations – and I must say, a number of very nice lunches.
Sadly that waned too as I just couldn’t get my head around the snide comments. From time time, when REALLY bored, I take a look at what’s going on over on Flickr, and lo and behold, I tumbled onto my old friends feed – obviously his equipment addiction hasn’t calmed at all, and the object of his latest series of ‘product shots’ is a new tripod.
And very nice it is too (well, everything bar the price, which is slightly on the high side…an arm and THREE legs?) and his images were perfection, as usual. However, in the ‘comments’ section I read comments from someone who was visibly FAR from impressed. I decided (I told you I was bored…) to go and take a look at what his Flickr feed had to offer – what did I find?
A clone of my gay friend! Flowers, product shots – and all the ‘dross’ I used to complain about (jokingly) on my friends feed.
I went further – after reading several chapters of this blokes ‘bio’ on Flickr I discovered he has a blog AND a website.
This is basically Mr Grumpy all over again – nothing, but nothing is ever right, or to his exacting requirements. He owns EVERYTHING, he has, to date, purchased 24 Nikon Z7s, and is certainly not afraid to tell you – why oh why would the fact that he owns a « Neewer backdrop paper stand » be of any interest – to anyone? More to the point, how would this information help me understand how to make decent photographs etc.?
The only thing of interest was, undeniably, the fact that he has less Nikon equipment than me – yo! But frankly, I couldn’t give a damn. Guy sounds like a real jerk -although we don’t talk, I rather hope my gay friend feels the same way – I would hate for him to be « under the influence » of such a tool….
Oh, one last thing – the rant concerning the Nikon Z7 was that the menu system was in English and Chinese – after freely admitting he would only ever use English for the menus, he complained because he’s buying a grey-market camera, and therefore paying considerably less than shop price, and complaining that something he’ll never use, isn’t present – what REALLY surprised me is the fact that there’s actually a firmware update which can fix this – for free – no unpleasant bending – wrestle poodles and win.
One last, last but by no means least, thing – apparently this idiot REALLY dislikes animated Gifs being used in comments to his photos – OMG it’s like a red rag to a bull….. how will I be able to resist….