Christmas shopping is well into it's peak mayhem of retail carnage and there are lots of people with photographers on their shopping list. What are the best gifts you can give the photographer in your family? I'll skip the formalities and cut to the chase below:

- Wine.

- Single malt Scotch.

- Gift cards.

- Anything but photography equipment.

Why would I say this you ask? Simple. You probably don't have any idea what they need or want. The chances of buying something completely inappropriate is incredibly high. What gear is appropriate to their specific needs and any one particular time can be mind boggling enough for the photographers themselves, but an outsider guessing the right thing is almost impossible. Even if they drop 1001 hints about really wishing they had a new 70-200 2.8 lens with image stabilization just like the one in the second shelf of the third case from the left at the local camera store, don't risk it. Find out how much it costs and get a gift card for that amount. Incidents of photographers thinking they need one thing but being corrected by a more knowledgeable salesperson is also rather high.

Let's turn the table for a minute and put you on the receiving end. You have a beautiful Mercedes Benz Cabriolet that you pamper and detail with no expense or effort spared. Then it's Christmas time and someone you love and don't wish to offend presents you with a gift that they bought because they know how much you love your car. Now you drive around town in the only Mercedes equipped with Yosemite Sam seat covers and a furry steering wheel.

It's the same thing when you buy that Polaroid lens for someone's high end camera. Sure it will work, but the photographer has no use for it. It's not your fault, you didn't know any better, but you made the mistake of venturing into a territory that takes years to understand.

"Thanks Grandma! Yes, I'll be sure to use it to shoot cousin Julie's wedding next month."

So thank you for your generosity, and now that you've been forewarned and are ready to go out and buy that gift card, make sure it's from a local camera shop with expert staff, not a big box store staffed by overworked twenty year olds being managed by inept twenty five year olds. The recipient will be far better off for it.

Merry Christmas!

Credits:

"Japan Camera" - G. Aquitaine (Creative Commons)

"Polaroid ProCam" - Andrew Butitta (Creative Commons)

Text - © 2016 Troy More - All rights reserved.

There were some ancient cultures who feared that photographers were able to capture their souls in a photograph and refused to be photographed or acted with anger and violence if someone attempted to photograph them. You can laugh now about such backward thinking, but it's not entirely gone from society, in fact it's seemingly on the rise.

A couple in New York recycling their souls.

A couple in New York City recycling their souls. Image by: Eric Gross / Creative Commons

Now I totally get the modesty and shyness thing. I hate being photographed. I don't have self-image issues, but I just happen to look like a giant lumbering dork with a big dopey look on my face when photographed. I'm fine with how I look in a mirror, but on film I just don't cut it. So I'm not completely insensitive to those averse to having their photo taken.

Definitely a part of western culture, photo aversion is virtually unknown in Asia, where it's indeed difficult to shoot a crowd scene without half the people smiling and making a V sign with their fingers. In Canada an entirely different sign is the norm, though not using quite so many fingers.

The bird is the word.

Even with a group of photographers. - Image by: Troy More / All rights reserved

Nothing magnifies this worse than when children are involved. It's difficult to document the world around you and at the same time edit out all the children, but this is exactly what some busybodies would want. Interestingly, I never get this complaint from actual parents of any who's appeared in my photograph. In fact I've gotten the most flak from people riding in on their high horses after seeing me display photos of children that I was specifically asked to shoot. In fact there have been occasions where I was looked at suspiciously for taking shots of my own kid.

Let me make this perfectly clear. A photographer has every right to photograph someone in public, and a child in a playground scene, marching in a parade, or playing soccer is in no danger whatsoever due to their being photographed. Not in any logical person's mind anyway. The self righteous who like to make a big scene about how they are protecting the children have their own agenda.

The simple joys of playing in a giant sprinkler. Nothing else. Image by: Troy More / All rights reserved

The reactions to someone carrying an SLR is just ridiculous "security theatre" sometimes. I once took my daughter to a public pool and with a Canon SLR took some photos of her practising her swimming. All around me other parents were doing the same with phones and small point and shoots. Funny enough though, I was the one jumped on by staff asking what the heck I thought I was doing. I was doing exactly what most of the other parents were doing, though at a slightly better resolution. Pro tip to swimming pool personnel, the person with the big bulky, impossible to conceal SLR who is chatting with his kid is not your biggest worry. Your biggest worry is lurking in the change rooms with a camera phone, but you seemed to ignore that.

Probably the most laughable incident was when a friend of mine was photographing a marching band in a major parade, and the mother of one of the participants kept moving along to block him from taking a photo of that band.

The world creates about two billion photos per day. You, your friends, and your family are needles in an enormous haystack. Stop worrying about having a lens pointed at you. The chances that it will actually wind up even making it to the photographer's Facebook page, let alone somewhere that will attract more than a handful of viewers are slim.

Photographers have been documenting the world since the early 1800s. Our views of the world around us are shaped in great part due to the images they create. Much as we sometimes feel uncomfortable being pushed to the front of the page, we cannot opt out of that world. We are part of it, and it would be a shame to erase those tiny moments of ourselves from history. God help us if a century from now all that was left of us was a few selfies and a Walmart portrait session. Unlike taking photos of people in public, that would a crime.

Why is this even a thing? We don't have medium sized models, skinny models, black models, or any other designation, so why "plus size"? Plus sized people are the norm, so why do we have a special term for them when their photo is taken?

They're just f&%king models okay?

Beautiful people are beautiful people, and they come in many shapes and sizes. Despite the idealized image of a fashion model, we all know people who if they were skinny, just wouldn't look right. They would look strange if they were taller or shorter, lighter or darker. Whatever lucky combination of factors combined to make them a compelling figure to record has less to do with size than personality. 

I'm not here to knock people who fit the typical mould of of a photographic model, it just bothers me that we think there needs to be a special term for someone who doesn't fit that narrow definition. Plus size should not be an exception to the rule. 

Yes Twiggy, I blame you for starting this shit.

Twiggy, I blame you for starting this crap. (Image by: Sarah C. Stanley / Creative Commons)

People marketing themselves as "plus-sized" aren't helping matters. In fact they are not only reinforcing a stereotype, they're indirectly saying it's okay to say that someone without a visible rib cage is somehow not normal.

Now I know one could say that the idealized ultra-slim fashion model, and their opposite, a severely overweight person both represent an unhealthy standard, but that is not a photographer's problem. It is not our job to idealize anyone or anything. Our job is to record our subjects faithfully, and respectfully, and that begins with not putting unnecessary labels on them.