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

[ignatiusjk]

What do all of you think of Photographer Peter Lik? I'm not sure if I really like his images.His images seem to Photo shopped. They are also not cheap by any means.Just curious what you think.

[Lachlan 717]

Do a search; there's already a thread on this.

[RichardSperry]

Do a search; there's already a thread on this.


I agree. Almost all topics already have threads about them. Just shut down the message board, all of them, except for new product announcement threads. No need at all to post threads on old topics. Would save tons of hard drive space and bandwidth being needlessly consumed.

[welly]

His latest photos look straight off of Flickr, for example (http://www.lik.com/thework/newyork2012/empire.html) but I'm sure it'll sell.

[Brian Ellis]

I agree. Almost all topics already have threads about them. Just shut down the message board, all of them, except for new product announcement threads. No need at all to post threads on old topics. Would save tons of hard drive space and bandwidth being needlessly consumed.

Misplaced sarcasm is seldom useful and certainly not clever. The theory of using the search function isn't so much to save bandwidth or hard drive space as it is to group all discussion about the same subject in one place. That way anyone interested in the subject can find all the information that's been posted here in one thread rather than having to wade through multiple threads.

That theory doesn't always work in practice for several reasons. Sometimes people like the OP here who start a thread don't put the key word(s) in the subject title. And sometimes the search function just doesn't seem to work very well. And sometimes a subject just isn't well suited to a key name search. But it's still good practice IMHO to give it a try before starting a new thread about a subject such as an uncommon name that would be expected to appear in the subject line - not to save bandwidth or hard drive space but to optimize the usefulness of the forum.

[Frank Petronio]

If it was a problem then they'd fix the search on this vBulletin forum software. New or recycled threads keep forums active, even if it is repetitive and boring for the old-timers.

[Bill_1856]

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.

[Vaughn]

There is a painter who does "dolphin art" (and big murals of whales) who does marketing very successfully like Lik and whatshisname -- the ex-"Painter of Light". What sets him off quite a bit from these two is what he does with his money. He is very active in education in the area of clean water and healthy oceans. I am a little biased...my brother was recently hired by him (and his foundation) to drive a semi around the country that has a trailer set up as a interactive classroom. He stops by schools, and classes visit the trailer to learn about how run-off from the land (especially streets) works its way into the ocean.

But Lik -- his stuff is okay. That is about all I care to say about it.

[E. von Hoegh]

What do all of you think of Photographer Peter Lik? I'm not sure if I really like his images.His images seem to Photo shopped. They are also not cheap by any means.Just curious what you think.

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

[Mike Anderson]

vbulletin search is weak. Not just this sites but all vBulletin sites. Using google to search on this:

peter lik site:largeformatphotography.info

produces this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=peter+lik+site%3Alargeformatphotography.info&sugexp=chrome,mod=11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Much better.

[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.

[ROL]

I feel somehow comforted that respondents seem nearly as irascible as me these days (oh well, nothing a week at Burning Man can't potentially fix :rolleyes:).

[Vaughn]

Lik? I'll research him I suppose. But this post touched on a peeve of mine:
...

All you have to do is to hold your mouse pointer over the title to get the first line of the post to appear without clicking on it -- then no more frustration for you! or at least half-starve your pet peeve.:)

[Doug Herta]

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.

Yeah - My favorite is the subject line "Free 4X5 enlarger - Pick up only". The OP then complains on the thread that hundreds of folks have read it and no one has responded. Ya might want to tell us where in the world your free enlarger is located in the subject line.

[Jody_S]

I had no idea who Peter Lik was until one day I walked into his Vegas gallery. I looked around, I actually liked one or two pieces on the wall. Then some 20 year-old woodland nymph-type creature came up to me for the sales pitch. What she said the images were (technically) didn't match up with what I had observed on the walls. And then she told me the price of the one I had been looking at. I did manage to keep a straight face, but I left rather quickly.

All I can say is that if he gets people to pay that kind of money for photography, er, 'photography', I wish him all the best.

[Bill Burk]

This might be what you were looking for:

QT Luong gave a link to an interesting read about Peter Lik in the thread Re: Selling own prints on own site

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?91592-Selling-own-prints-on-own-site&p=898176&viewfull=1#post898176

[Drew Wiley]

Sour grapes???? ...... get real! There are plenty of ways of making money rather than
pimping out nature like a street whore slathered with cheap loud makeup. I don't envy the
dude - I pity him. He hasn't lived. He's not a photographer because he isn't discovering or
seeing anything. What's the point of going out and missing the light. Who needs a fake world? Or who can improve on the real thing? Money comes and goes. But you only get one lifetime to experience the real beauty of nature, so why throw away the opportunity
just for another damn buck?

[E. von Hoegh]

.... or at least half-starve your pet peeve.:)

That would be unkind. Peeves gotta eat too, you know.

[Brian Ellis]

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

It could have been worse. They might have reversed the names.

[Leigh]

You might get more responses if you'd put a complete question in the title rather than a teaser.

I never look at teaser threads, and I'm sure many others feel the same.

- Leigh