So, this dude, online, asks me, “Jack, what’s your iPhone schtick?”
“My schtick?”, I quietly thought to myself, “What the fuck is this dude talking about?”
I quipped back, “My schtick is, that, I don’t have a schtick?”
I think what he was attempting to ask me is if I had an angle, a gimmick, a slant for teaching and selling people iPhone photography.
Fuck no? No schticks, just clicks.
I hate the word schtick. It wreaks insincerity, hypocrisy, deceitfulness, dishonesty.
It is generally associated with a trick or device to attract attention, publicity, business.
People, the smart ones anyway, see right through this.
Here’s the honest truth, when it comes to photography, I’m really not trying to sell anything but celebrate everything.
Seriously, sell nothing, celebrate everything.
I love photography.
What I say and teach people publicly, is what I believe privately.
They are one and the same.
I walk the talk. At least I, sincerely, hope I do.
What I attempt to teach people in a public forum, is the same stuff I apply to my own craft and character.
No schtick required.
Of course, without a doubt, I have a time-tested opinion, perspective, outlook, viewpoint, natural point-of-view about iPhone photography but certainly no schtick.
Schticks are for a snake-oil salesman.
Clicks and ticks are for authentic photographers and photography.
My frame-of-mind and frame-of-reference, in iPhone photography, are highly photographic. I want, first and foremost, for my iPhone photos to look like, well, photographs.
Natural. Real. Authentic. Modern. Minimal. Beautiful to the eye and heart.
The people that like and follow me are mostly photographer types.
Not app seekers. Not trendsetters. Not here-today-gone-tomorrow personalities.
I don’t want people to look at my photographs and see, this app or that app, this technique or that technique, this editing style or that editing style, I want them to see… my photographs.
Pure. Plain and simple. No schtick.
It is my humble opinion that apps, presets, filters, techniques, specialty tools, should, in general, refine but not define our photographic style.
I want you to see and feel my honest photographs and not my artificial schtick.
There are lots and lots of online photographers selling and promoting schtick.
I’m not one of them.
Fuck schtick.
Click
Jack
