At 1am this morning I got this e-mail from Viktoria Modesta who is a model aspiring to be a musician.

"Hi i found photos that i presume you have taken of my performance @ Water Rats.
I really dont see a point in putting up so many bad photos of a show online. Its not good for me or for you as a photographer.
 
It is worth mentioning.
VIKTORIA MODESTA "

I do sometimes upload rather rubbish pictures, but even then most people in bands are a) polite and b) take the view that they shouldn't stand on stage if they don't expect to be photographed on camera phones and with awful expressions. So I was quite surprised to find the photos weren't in fact 'bad' at all. Then I looked her myspace and found she had some photos that are genuinely bad.

Obviously as a model who is in some band conest which seems to be on the TV, Viktoria may expect all photos of her to be hugely photoshopped or just out of focus. But in my definition neither of those attributes make a photo good. I think She means She doesn't like them, and if she has said that in a pleasant and human way I would have happily removed them. But in view of her assertion that the photos are 'bad' I thought it offered an interesting discussion topic, and to allow you my readers to form a view and comment I shall have to leave them up.

So what is a bad photo ?

I would say some combination of the following could possibly be described as a bad photo... but there are no hard rules:

a) Out of Focus
b) Motion Blur
c) poor composition
d) badly cropped
e) too much photoshop
f)  under exposed
g) over exposed

and for gigs something about not acurately representing the gig. I would also tend to bin pictures with double chins, blinking etc

So do the photos of Viktoria pass any of those tests, have a look and see what you think. Personally I think they are a very true reflection of the show. That's what the show at the Water Rats looked like - I was there!

I don't claim to be any great authority on music ( I didn't think Florence was anything special when I saw her in 2007), although my friends Little Fish are on tour supporting Hole in USA and UK at the moment and several other bands that I have championed are progressing steadly towards fame and fortune (O.Children and Bleech for example)  so I wouldn't make ill-informed comments about Viktoria's music. So you must make you mind up, but I can't really imagine that there will be hoards of fans seeking out my humble photos.

As an aside - Marina and the Diamonds Fan Club person asked if they could use the photos I took of her at a gig in Jan 2008.

here's a link to the photos in question 

ps I'm not looking for a load of sycophantic comments, I think the topic is really worth mentioning....