Some misleading photography production work on social media

Chemnitz, July 18th 2022

Dear friends:

Lately, I have seen many posts on social media that show in a time lapse video “tricks for photos and videos” with people setting up lights, props, flags and objects; taking a picture; sometimes handholding a camera to make a video and finally, in a second, showing a final image as a result of that work.

These posts, that mainly come from TikTok, are likely not from the professional photographers or videographers who have worked on the field for years and have posted for a long time serious creative work, but instead from people that do not even know how to hold a camera or have knowledge of the physics of light. Therefore, I may tag their posts as misleading.

They post short fast forward videos without any word, only with somebody else’s music, an easy process that is not compatible with a professional job for a final high-quality image or reel. And most of the time, the final image cannot be the real outcome without a huge editing work from a specialist.

Those posts may work for creative ideas, but it can be highly frustrating for enthusiasts and new photographers and videographers when they try those exercises without finding good results.

For photographer’s customers, those posts do not represent the professional work they deserve nor the quality of job they should receive. Photographers must achieve almost the final image in the photography session and make final adjustments in postproduction according to client’s briefs in order to deliver the best files or prints possible.

People can post almost whatever they want on social media but lying is never good. My advice for the social media users is: Please, do not believe everything you see on those videos because it seems they are not honest at all.

Nevertheless, I must say that there are extraordinary and highly trained artists photographers and producers who, for many years, have posted their original work that have inspired many of us to try new skills.

Thanks for reading.

Alejandro Camacho