Sex Sells

I just uploaded a bunch of skim-boarder pics to my inbox:

http://www.pbase.com/joemama/inbox

Now, they haven't had many views, 'cause, well, I just uploaded them a little bit ago. But the funny thing is that the only hits are the pics with the girl, the lone exception (at the time of this post) being a single hit on the one scenic shot, and that was probably because it was shot at f/5.6 -- the viewer was probably wondering what I was shooting that could have possibly enticed me to stop down.

Anyway, since this is a gear forum, I guess I should say that the pics were taken with a 5D and 200 / 2.8L, all wide open with the exception of the one scenic pic. The lens has two faults -- no IS and it's not 1:3. Aside from that, I can't think of anything I'd really change with the lens.

Well...no offense, but the surf ones aren't really that interesting, at least to my eyes. Technically they're good but there's not much that grabs the eye from the thumbnail that makes me want to click on them.

Honestly, I believe this has little to do with your viewers' interest in the female gender. Those pictures, particularly the last three, are simply better than the rest, which either appear to be underexposed, framed to wide, or are lacking a clear center drawing the viewer's attention, at least when viewed side by side with the "good" images.

yes, it does, but that is not the reason why those are the ones which are getting the hits.

with most of your shots of the girl, you took much better care on framing and timing, and it shows. the other shots are 'just missed the moment' ones, and should not be part of your gallery. sports/action shooting is all about capturing the sport in question - which your shots of the girl do (well, not the ones of her losing her wave). the one of the two guys running into the surf with their skimboards (first one) is a strong image, evocative and shows the day nicely.

most of the shots suffer from the 'bullseye' effect, and seem flat - for example the one with the girl leaning on her board would be significantly stronger if she was closer to the left edge of the frame, with some view of the ocean that she is looking out on. crop out the un-necessary people (who are usually out of focus anyway) and think about what you are trying to convey with each shot. is it: power? grace? agility? 'oops'? an emotion?

even with sport/action shooting, the rules of photographic composition apply.

cheers,
S.

you implied a desire for constructive criticism, and I have attempted to do so.
shoot more, cull more.

ps.. I did look at ALL of them!
--
beam me up captain, there's no intelligent life down here!

beeguy956 said:

Well...no offense, but the surf ones aren't really that interesting, at least to my eyes. Technically they're good but there's not much that grabs the eye from the thumbnail that makes me want to click on them.

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Well, they're all surf pics, it's just that people only clicked on the surf pics with the girl at the time of my post, and even now, the hits on the pics with the girl far outnumber the pics not of the girl.

So, what I'm guessing from your comment is that none of the pics are interesting from a surfing standpoint, but many are interesting from a sex standpoint. In other words, "sex sells"?

CryingMonkey said:

Honestly, I believe this has little to do with your viewers' interest in the female gender. Those pictures, particularly the last three, are simply better than the rest, which either appear to be underexposed, framed to wide, or are lacking a clear center drawing the viewer's attention, at least when viewed side by side with the "good" images.

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Yeah, but the last three weren't the only pics clicked on. All the pics with the girl got clicks, and none of the pics with the guys got clicks. As of this morning, however, the hits on the penultimate pic has outnumbered the hits on the next most popular by 2:1, and the hits on the last pic expands to 3:1.

In addition, the pics with the guys are no more or less "framed to wide, or are lacking a clear center" than the pics with the girl. So, given that others feel the same, the reason the pics with the girl were clicked on is because "sex sells".

ScottyNV said:

yes, it does, but that is not the reason why those are the ones which are getting the hits.

with most of your shots of the girl, you took much better care on framing and timing, and it shows. the other shots are 'just missed the moment' ones, and should not be part of your gallery. sports/action shooting is all about capturing the sport in question - which your shots of the girl do (well, not the ones of her losing her wave). the one of the two guys running into the surf with their skimboards (first one) is a strong image, evocative and shows the day nicely.

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I would disagree. As evidence, I submit that the "one of the two guys running into the surf with their skimboards" (not the first image, by the way) got zero hits at the time of my post, and even now, is among the least clicked.

Great Bustard said:

most of the shots suffer from the 'bullseye' effect, and seem flat - for example the one with the girl leaning on her board would be significantly stronger if she was closer to the left edge of the frame, with some view of the ocean that she is looking out on. crop out the un-necessary people (who are usually out of focus anyway) and think about what you are trying to convey with each shot. is it: power? grace? agility? 'oops'? an emotion?

even with sport/action shooting, the rules of photographic composition apply.

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My photography is oft criticized for being framed "too wide" -- I accept that. Personally, I like the wider framing. In my opinion, the "too wide" criticism is mainly a function of people viewing the pics "too small" on the monitors. I like dead space and "unnecessary" elements in my pics a lot. As I say, your opinion is the majority opinion, mine the minority.

But, once again, per the title of the OP, "sex sells". That is, what "sold" the pics (in terms of clicks) was not the pic itself, but the girl in it.

Great Bustard said:

you implied a desire for constructive criticism, and I have attempted to do so.
shoot more, cull more.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was going to edit my initial post to remove the link, because it seemed like I was just trying to get people to look at the pics. But then I thought that people would say that they'd have to see the pics to make an opinion on my statement. But I wasn't quite sure how to phrase it to keep my point sweet and simple.

I guess the OP should have read, "If you have otherwise uninteresting pics, put a girl in them, and you'll get some hits."

Anyway, the time and effort you put into your criticism is appreciated. Myself, I like the pics a lot, but they're far from my best skimboarder pics. Here's my all-time favorite, to put a context my tastes in context:



and I have many others that are better than what's in my inbox (although, again, as I said, myself, I like the inbox pics).

However, the point of the OP was that "sex sells", and, while that point might have been so obvious as to prompt a response like, "And?", I just thought it striking how true the maxim is, even on pics that don't have any sex appeal that I can see.

Great Bustard said:

ps.. I did look at ALL of them!

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As I said in the OP, I had just put the pics up, so there were few hits. It was simply amazing to me that all the pics with the girl got hits, and none of the other pics (save a lone hit for the landscape) got any hits.

This morning, while the other pics have gotten hits, they're outnumbered by the hits on the pics with the girl by at least 2:1.

I only looked at the pictures with the girl.

John

Great Bustard said:

I just uploaded a bunch of skim-boarder pics to my inbox:

http://www.pbase.com/joemama/inbox

Now, they haven't had many views, 'cause, well, I just uploaded them a little bit ago. But the funny thing is that the only hits are the pics with the girl, the lone exception (at the time of this post) being a single hit on the one scenic shot, and that was probably because it was shot at f/5.6 -- the viewer was probably wondering what I was shooting that could have possibly enticed me to stop down.

Click to expand...

Well, I tried to stop myself adding to the girl's click count but I failed.

...sure have come a long way from the little plywood things we had when I was doing this as a teenager a quarter-century ago.

As to your point, I didn't think there was anyone still unaware of that fact.

When I just put landscapes up on my pbase site, I would get the usual few number of page views per day. As soon as I started putting a few nudes and lingerie albums up, the number of page views soared. Another 20,000 and I will have reached a million.
--
Jim
http://www.pbase.com/jcassatt

Jim Cassatt said:

When I just put landscapes up on my pbase site, I would get the usual few number of page views per day. As soon as I started putting a few nudes and lingerie albums up, the number of page views soared. Another 20,000 and I will have reached a million.

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I guess what caught me off-guard is that I didn't consider the pics sexual at all -- I'd have taken the same pics with the same framing regardless of whether it was a guy or girl. But apparently, a widely framed pic with a girl in a bathing suit is still enough to be considered "sexual". I mean, it's not like the pics were closeups of some smokin' hot chick in a skimpy bikini.

It's as if I posted pics of a bike race, and the only pics that were clicked on were the female riders. Just surprising, that's all.

it is a magnificent capture!

note that I did not intend to suggest that a tighter crop is always 'better', in fact, I often also prefer a wider framing. I did find that in some of the photos, the OOF elements were a bit distracting - to my eyes, they take away from the shot as they are too prominent, rather than adding to the background and feel of the shot.

thank you for taking my opinions in the way they were intended!

cheers,
S.
--
beam me up captain, there's no intelligent life down here!

ScottyNV said:

it is a magnificent capture!

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Yeah -- wouldn't it be nice if they were all as good?

ScottyNV said:

note that I did not intend to suggest that a tighter crop is always 'better', in fact, I often also prefer a wider framing. I did find that in some of the photos, the OOF elements were a bit distracting - to my eyes, they take away from the shot as they are too prominent, rather than adding to the background and feel of the shot.

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On one of the shots it was a problem for me, too (a large blurred-out area of sand across the bottom of the pic).

Anyway, like I say, I'm oft-criticized for framing too wide, so it's not you -- it's me.

ScottyNV said:

thank you for taking my opinions in the way they were intended!

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Not at all -- thanks for taking the time to criticize them!

The simple fact is that generally speaking a female makes a crowded picture more interesting. I feel strongly about that . A lot of photographs would be thrown to the wayside if it were not for a woman in it. I'm thinking of street pictures where the photographer picks a face in the crowd and more often than not the picture is of a female. I also noticed that lady photgraphers tend to shoot more females than males and the reason is that they are more interesting subjects much of the time. Yeah sex sells but as long as it is not pornographic then it is not a bad thing.

I only skimmed through this thread.... but the first thing that came to my mind was that it was mostly males that looked at your site. In other words if more females looked at those pics than maybe more of the pics with guys in them would have been clicked on. That's my hunch. Also remember when it comes to sex tighter is always better than wider

--
'The truth is rarely pure and never simple' Oscar Wilde

So in other words yes of course sex sells. But we all knew that.

--
'The truth is rarely pure and never simple' Oscar Wilde

William DIllard said:

The simple fact is that generally speaking a female makes a crowded picture more interesting. I feel strongly about that . A lot of photographs would be thrown to the wayside if it were not for a woman in it. I'm thinking of street pictures where the photographer picks a face in the crowd and more often than not the picture is of a female. I also noticed that lady photgraphers tend to shoot more females than males and the reason is that they are more interesting subjects much of the time. Yeah sex sells but as long as it is not pornographic then it is not a bad thing.

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The following two pics are side by side in one of my galleries:

Canon 5D + 100 / 2 @ f/2, 1/250, ISO 400



Canon 5D + 100 / 2 @ f/2, 1/320, ISO 400



I believe you may have seen them before.

Anyway, the pic with the man has 25% more hits than the pic with the woman.

That nice 100/2 lens is like the bargain of the century. You make some nice shots with it.

Great Bustard said:

The following two pics are side by side in one of my galleries:

Canon 5D + 100 / 2 @ f/2, 1/250, ISO 400

Click to expand...

A digression: How you like your 200 2.8l in comparison with sigma 150 2.8?

mirkoc said:

A digression: How you like your 200 2.8l in comparison with sigma 150 2.8?

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I absolutely love both of those lenses. In fact, the new 150 / 2.8 macro OS will be the next lens I buy.

The thing is, I had always been wanting to try the 70 / 2.8 macro, and the 150 / 2.8 macro was not good for landscapes (didn't handle flare well, and vignetting was an issue even stopped down). So, I traded the 150 / 2.8 macro for the Tamron 70-200 / 2.8 and bought the 70 / 2.8 macro.

The Tamron 70-200 / 2.8 had wonderful IQ and was 1:3 which was very nice. But the AF sucked so bad that I sold it within a week. I liked the IQ and MFD so much, however, that I even considered keeping it and trying to hone up on my manual focusing skills.

However, it was clear that the 200 / 2.8L was what I wanted. I had owned the lens 4 times before, but as I so rarely shot 200mm, any time I wanted a new lens, I sold it to help fund the purchase.

I've used the 70-200 / 4L non-IS, the 70-200 / 2.8L IS, and the 70-200 / 2.8L non-IS. The last time I sold the 200 / 2.8L, actually, was when I got ticked at switching lenses so often at an event, that I decided I needed a zoom, so I sold it to get the 70-200 / 2.8L non-IS.

I actually liked the 70-200 / 2.8L non-IS quite a bit, and kept it for a long time. But eventually I realized that I was usually at 70mm, 135mm, or 200mm, and when at 70mm, I'd rather just use the 100 / 2. So, when I sold the 70-200 / 2.8L non-IS, my longest lens was the 150 / 2.8 macro.

However, while it was stellar for macro and portraits, the flare issue:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=652935

as well as the vignetting made it poorly suited for stopped down photography. Granted, it's not often that I'm stopped down at such focal lengths (or any focal length, for that matter!), but, after a while, what needed to be done was clear: get the 200 / 2.8L.

So, that's what I did. And I will keep the 200 / 2.8L until an IS version comes out. However, while I have used the 70 / 2.8 macro more than I ever used the 150 / 2.8 macro, there are many times I find myself longing for the longer macro.

I've been toying with the idea of buying the 150 / 2.8 macro again, but it's so close to 200mm. However, I've also been thinking of a 135 / 2L, as well, because sometimes 100mm is too short, and 200mm too long.

Now that Sigma announced the 150 / 2.8 macro OS, my choice is clear -- it will be the next lens I purchase. But the 200 / 2.8L stays (as does the 70 / 2.8 macro).

coudet said:

That nice 100/2 lens is like the bargain of the century. You make some nice shots with it.

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The 100 / 2 and 85 / 1.8 are like brother and sister. I used to own the 85 / 1.8 and 135 / 2L, but mainly used the 85 / 1.8 due to its smaller size. On a whim, I bought the 100 / 2 to compare. Basically, whatever differences between the three, in terms of IQ, were inconsequential to me. Not saying they weren't there -- just saying they weren't enough to make me notice or care. However, the 85 / 1.8 and 100 / 2 are smaller and lighter, and also focus faster.

Over time, I found myself always grabbing the 100 / 2. Why, I don't know. I just did. So, I sold the 85 / 1.8 and 135 / 2L due to lack of use.

Recently, however, I've been having a need for something between 100mm and 200mm, and was considering the 135 / 2L again. However, Sigma's announcement of the 150 / 2.8 macro OS has resolved the situation -- that will be my next lens.