What are your photographic turn-ons/turn-offs?

[jakyamuni]

Turn offs (these seem to be more easy to come up with, for whatever reason...)
-"Extreme post processing," including, but not limited to, the HDR hole
-Anything for anything's sake
-Filter whoring (as Lon delicately put it)
-Lomography/Bokeh/Hipsters thinking it's ironic to use a Nikon F because 'omg it's so 19th century'/it's all the same
...

One of my former professors, when assigning projects about social issues, had a list of images and subjects that were not acceptable... which stimied most of the students. The list had everything from "kittens" to the most controversial subjects of the time on it: "abortion, war in Iraq, eating disorders..." and so on. In time, I decided I'd never make images about those subjects, because they were done to death.

[Pgeobc]

Turn offs:
Inartful nudity or porn
Snapshots parading around as photographs
Color, when B&W would be exquisite
B&W, when color would have produced a superior result
The average pregnancy picture. However some I have seen were incredibly well done.

Turn ons:
Any well done photograph, even if it is only suitable as a textbook illustration, etc. Photography is an art and a science and good stuff is good stuff.

[Roger Cole]

Want more of:

Social landscape in colour
Natural landscape in black and white
Compositional rigour in line, tone, texture, shape
Mystery
Fiction
Interiors


Want less of:

Lomography(tm)
Homeless picture #2012310413b
Fine Art Photography
Slot canyons
Yosemite
Sand dunes
Peppers
Street photography
Decisive moments
Jazz musicians / buskers

What the heck is a "social landscape?" Pictures of landscapes or building-scapes that include signs of humanity, like "urban landscapes" only including rural or suburban or wherever? I never heard the term before and that's all I can think of that it might mean.

[bwrules]

Social Landscape? Look up New Topographics.

[Tony Egan]

Dislikes:
Preoccupation with categorisation/labelling of types of photography
One exception: "Banal" and "Deadpan" which end up being just plain dead and boring

Likes:
I know what I like when I see it. It's not based on which label or subject type might be attached to it.
Photos that are the axe that breaks the frozen sea inside us (with apologies to Kafka)

[Ken Nadvornick]

Let's try some non-content related things...

Likes
The anticipation time between exposure and development.
The unmistakable smell of a mid-life acid fixing bath.
The quiet gurgling sound of the siphon hose on a print washer.
The comforting appearance of anything viewed under red light.

Dislikes
The assumption that it must be about terrorism.
The assumption that is must be about kiddie porn.
The assumption that newer is always better.
The assumption that he must be a moron to want to photograph THAT!

Ken

[yeknom02]

Like: Well-executed street photography
photojournalism in black and white
Artistic nudes
Cross-processing
Overexposed color negative
Anything exemplifying social commentary
super-sharp or super-blurred portraiture

Dislike: Nudes that offer nothing apart from nudity
Most landscapes
Most architectural

[thegman]

Like: Travel, nature, landscape, so general natural beauty. Also like "industrial" stuff like power stations etc.

Dislike: Generally not keen on "street" photography. For me it's just pictures of people doing what we do every day and somehow uninteresting for me. Kind of like reading a book about every day life, with a whole chapter on how Excel was running really slow at work.

[Steve Roberts]

Likes:
Industrial landscapes
Hard-hitting photojournalism
Clever use of light (OK, all photography is about light, but some are able to use it better than others)
Photos mounted on/in black.
Interesting skies.

Dislikes:
Offbeat composition for its own sake that does nothing for the end result. (Anyone remember the 'STARB' obsession? Shot Through A Rhubarb Bucket?)
Anything starring a windswept, gnarled tree (every other photo of Dartmoor seems to have one).
The use of colour filters in colour photography, e.g. graduated filters for skies. Polarising filter, OK, graduated orange filter, not OK. No logic - just the way I feel!
People who brag about how many 'bricks' of film they've bought/got in their freezer. I am not interested - it's what they do with it that counts.
Photos mounted on/in white.

[hoffy]

Only when it's very tasteful. But no one really wants to look at furry pussies anymore

Pure Gold!

I really don't have many turn off's. I enjoy looking at most photography. If I have to say anything, it would be McPhoto's, I.E., the shots that everyone copies of each other and gore for the sake of gore.