Social media is like social disease - everyone has read about it, hardly anyone has seen it for themselves, and no-one wants the old-fashioned treatment for it. The little umbrella...
Writing for it requires a combination of Charles Lamb and Woody Allen; serious essay and one-liner. Plus a dash of Ansel Adams - plonkingly complex technical advice clothed in art. It is an exhilarating experience when it goes well but very sad when there is nothing inspiring here in the shop. That is also when it becomes most dangerous - you start to think on a tangent and pretty soon the irate customers start beating on the windows with rocks.
We have a company slogan: " We Love Photography." and by-golly we do. Everyone here on the floor is a photographer and we actually do what we talk about - in most cases with the stuff we sell to you. It is the best way for us to get knowledge - if we can do it we can show you how.
Sometimes we can show you how not to do it, as well. Every one of us has approached a job at some time and shot it in the best way we could and had it look like a horrible mess in the end. Sometimes we have been consultants for other people doing the same thing. This sort of experience is wonderful, particularly if you survive and the warrants expire.
Are we doing better than the anonymous writers on the forums? I think so - in the end we can actually demonstrate the gear in front of the customer, and even if we need to have a shop-huddle to all figure out how to make the device work, at least we all learn.
We are always asked which camera or lens is best. The answer is, of course, yes. Or no, depending upon the prejudices of the questioner. Some people really do want advice - some just want a fight. Quite a few want a place to eat their lunch when it rains. In the end, we ask as many questions as we answer, and sometimes the customer actually does their own answering. Then we can argue and eat lunch.
It is fun, the business of selling cameras. Not as much fun as social disease, but you don't get itchy in awkward places in hot weather.
Uncle Dick
