What do you guys think of..............

[Brian Ellis]

I don't know anything about Peter Lik, so after I tried the search engine I still didn't know anything about him, much less what forum members think about him.
Tried Googling, and discovered that he is a successful prolific photographer of landscapes which don't seem anything exceptional to me. It's nice that someone can make a good living from it.

Hi Bill - When I did a key words search here using "Peter Lik" as the key words I found three threads containing about 120 messages with plenty of opinions (almost uniformly negative) about him. Of course I also found some irrelevant threads such as several for Peter Gowland. Apparently the search engine just goes by the first word even though it refers to "key words" plural. And strangely enough, when I made the key word "Lik" instead of Peter Lik I was told that no threads were found. So the search engine is certainly less than perfect but it did produce three threads about Peter Lik.

[Drew Wiley]

It's just a keyword problem ... try searching under, "Overpriced Garbage".

[Frank Petronio]

I don't think of Peter Lik at all. His parents should be flayed for giving him such a name.

hahaha

[Drew Wiley]

My understanding is that most of the Fauxtoshop colorization of his otherwise namby-pamby oversized postcards was done by a six-year-old on acid.

[Kirk Gittings]

.....

[Vaughn]

ouch!

[Ian David]

I have a few thoughts on Peter Lik:
(1) Like a lot of successful commodities, the quality of Lik's work seems to have been higher in the earlier days before the money started really rolling in. I assume he was much more personally involved in the workflow then. Now he seems to me more of a businessman than a photographer.
(2) Like a lot of photographers, Lik has always photographed "beauty in obvious places". This has long been a very popular strategy with the buying public and has kept many calendar and postcard manufacturers in business. Personally, I am much more interested when someone shows me the beauty that can be found in less obvious scenes.
(3) Unlike most photographers, Lik has (apparently) found a way to generate a lot of cash from his work. This always causes a lot of resentment and name-calling from other photographers who would probably adopt the same business model in a heartbeat if they thought they could make it work.
(4) From the little I have seen of him, he is not really my kind of guy. That may be a function of his marketing strategy, which obviously appeals to some.
(5) Good luck to him. His style of work may be a bit boring, but there are worse things to look at than giant postcards of pretty places.

Ian

[Bill_1856]

A lot of Sour Grapes here. Consider we should be thankful that it's possible for a photographer to do well financially, and not starve like Edward Weston and Lewis Hine. His work may not be the greatest photography ever made, but remember that not everyone can have a Cadillac, it's good that there are lots of Fords and Chevys sold.

[Vaughn]

Weston did not starve, but led an incredible rich life...and gave his kids equally rich lives. Even the rich worry about money as Ed did.

Just heard a word of advise from some photographer friends...photos of Buddhas don't sell. The corporate buyers don't buy religious art -- too 'exclusive' for business.

[goamules]

Lik? I'll research him I suppose. But this post touched on a peeve of mine:
Why use a meaningless subject line to start a post, that requires people to have to click into the thread to figure out what it's about? It's like going to a bookstore and all the titles have been removed from the book spines. Examples of such titles: "Help! -or- What would you do? -or- Anyone know.... [with nothing after the dots]" Reading the title of a post with the unimportant half a question and then "..." is very frustrating.