Summations Only

Crashfrog tries desperately to quote CS: But CS's first post on this, in Message 68, states: I'd like to know, Crash, how is it that YOU and only YOU seem to be unable see anything in CS's statement beyond the words "coffee n'stuff without getting paid"?? Maybe a truck ran over your eyes right there? Did you miss the part that goes "but get the invaluable experience of watching how they do their job and better your own performance so that you can end up getting paid to do it"?Or is it that this is only more stupid semantics and your narrower understanding of the word "experience" precludes any sort of in-the-field education or on-the-job training? Help us out.When everybody else thinks you are wrong here, you might just want to consider the possibility that you are wrong here. A tip with no experience meant.

Let me get this straight, you think that when I wrote this:

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You could follow around a photographer and get them coffee n'stuff without getting paid but get the invaluable experience of watching how they do their job and better your own performance so that you can end up getting paid to do it.

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...that I meant that you could get experience as a photographer by fetching them coffee. Could you explain to me how those words could mean that? Crash, you've been right about a lot of things and know better than me on plenty. I don't have a problem with that, this just happens to not be one of those times. The first time I mentioned the analogy after you responded to it was to tell you that you were using it wrong. And I never defended against your misunderstanding of it. The facts are plainly against you on this and everyone but you can easily see it. When you get to the point where you think that everyone else but you is wrong and lying, then its time to take a good hard look in the mirror. I never once disagreed, the first time I mentioned it again I told you that you had it wrong. I already asked you what your referring to with this but you ignored my request. And even if I did, how would it prove that?What I think is out of bounds is purposfully misinterpreting someone's analogy so that it saying something incredibly stupid rather addressing the aspects of it that challange your position.If you say that you can't get experience without getting paid, and I say that you could follow around a photographer and get them coffee n'stuff without getting paid but get the invaluable experience of watching how they do their job and better your own performance so that you can end up getting paid to do it, then for you to respond to that by claiming that I'm saying that you could get experience as a photographer by fetching them coffee is not an honest and open apporach to a debate.

The only thing I can figure is the source of the misunderstanding, assuming that crash isn't just being dishonest, is that back in Message 66, when he said this:

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Because of the value of what they get in returnexperience, college credit, references, networking, information, etc.

I asked you what they get in return, and you told me they get "value." Now you've given me a whole list, but let's look a little closer and we'll see how it makes no sense:

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Experience - you can't get this from an unpaid job, because if you were getting experience that was relevant to a paid job, you'd be doing that job and they would be paying you.

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... by "experience", if he was referring specifcally to just the kind of Work Experience you would put on you resume as a list of the previous jobs you've had. Overly granting him all that, he would have a point there. I don't see that that is what Jon was talking about though, but it might have been.However, I'm not so sure that he isn't just doing what he's accusing me of doing - that is: being convinced by our arguments that claiming that you can't get experience from an unpaid job was stupid, so now he's acting like he meant Work Experience on a resume instead. But I don't think we'll ever really know.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : formatting

That example was, again, an example of how one can gain experience following a photographer around and/or assisting them.On the resume it would appear as: Assistant to (insert well known photographer here)What aren't you following? An indie shot when Apatow was doing indies, that was non-SAG, was done for free. Infact, you'd be surprised at how many films break even and actors make nothing. But they do it for the exposure, working with a specific director, for the experience, etc. First you need to focus on what's being said and not swing blindly.- Oni

What does "turn professional" mean except "start getting paid work as a photographer"? For instance, when I was doing journalism I knew that I was finally "pro" at it when the newspaper actually paid me for my work.So you're making a claim here that CS is saying that if you follow around a photographer, you'll get work experience that you could put on a resume so that somebody might hire you. But CS is now claiming that he never said that if you follow a photographer around you'll get work experience that you could put on a resume so that somebody might hire you.You guys should talk, or something, because you don't seem to understand CS's new position. Hint: It's not the same as his old one. You're a bit out of date. No, it's not. It's in reference to how CS can't rebut my arguments so he just throws out these accusations that I "spin things." If you follow that thread, Mod, you'll see that it has nothing at all to do with "valuable experience" and everything to do with the fact that CS thinks that I'm obligated to accept his counterexamples at face value. Again you're equivocating on the term "experience." Anything is an "experience" in the sense you're using it now. I'm talking about real, marketable experience that you could put on a resume and get hired. I've told you several times, now, that that's what I'm talking about. This insistance on equivocating terms is dishonest. Sure, you say that now. But when we started, what we were talking about was real, marketable experience you could put on a resume. This is just a dishonest equivocation on terms, here. And I continue to maintain that the experience is not valuable. I thought I was pretty clear about that. And rather than respond to my arguments that the experience is not very valuable, you've all thrown this shit-fit about how I "spin things", about how I "misunderstood", about how I don't accept counterexamples at face value, and other dodges. The dishonesty with which you all have approached this conversation is just astounding, and then you have the temerity to accuse me? I've never misrepresented my position in any way; I've been 100% clear the whole time.

"Invaluable experience" is what CS claimed, in the above, and I wonder why you can't see it. The last time I quoted it I bolded "invaluable experience", to show everyone what I was talking about, but you don't seem to see those words in the material you quoted. No, I didn't miss it. Do you understand that I don't believe that "the invaluable experience of watching how they do their job" will result in you "getting paid to do it"? That's been my position and my effort throughout, and apparently I've been so convincing that, now, CS no longer believes that following around a photographer and watching him work in between coffee runs gives you real, marketable experience that you can put on a resume. But instead of admitting he was wrong, he's trying to pretend like he never adopted the position you just quoted him adopting. Take it up with him, I guess. All I want people to do is stop making me out to be the bad guy because I develop arguments that apparently change their minds. Have you read this thread, Xong? Not only did I consider that I might be wrong, I developed and tested a hypothesis to see if I was wrong: if I had genuinely misunderstood CS's remarks, then the first time I responded after having misunderstood him he would have corrected me. That would, after all, be the most effective counter to the argument I was making.But he didn't do that. And when I went further and stated the exact position that he now claims he's always held - that it's stupid to suggest that fetching coffee will give you real marketable experience in photography - he disagreed in the strongest possible terms.So I've already considered that I might be wrong, developed a hypothesis to test whether I was wrong, tested the hypothesis, and proven that I was, in fact, not wrong. Nobody, not even CS, can explain why he openly and strenuously disagreed with the exact position he now claims to hold if, indeed, he had always held it. The only explanation is that he changed his mind, and is now lying about it. QED.

Sure. It's the part where you say that

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You could follow around a photographer and get them coffee n'stuff without getting paid but get the invaluable experience of watching how they do their job and better your own performance so that you can end up getting paid to do it.

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Since it's only experience as a photographer that could possibly get you paid as a photographer, it's clear that I was correct about what you meant. It's the only logical interpretation of your statement. Further evidence is that when I told you it was stupid to believe that following around a photographer to watch them work could somehow get you experience as a photographer, you disagreed in the strongest possible terms. You said that I was "spinning things" and that it was out of bounds to disagree that following around a photographer to watch them work could somehow get you experience as a photographer.So there's just no ambiguity in what you meant yesterday and earlier today, CS. If you really had thought it was stupid, you would have agreed with me when I said it was stupid. But you didn't agree. You didn't even ignore it. You pulled it out in order to disagree in the strongest possible terms. You told me that I was using it wrong because I used it to disagree with you, not because I misunderstood you. But again, I get to use your examples to disagree with you if I disagree that they're counterexamples against my position. Which I told you, I did. Which proves that I didn't misunderstand it. If I had, that's the first thing you would have pointed out because that's the easiest and most immediate defense when someone attacks a straw man - point out that they're attacking a straw man. I know you can recognize the fallacy of attacking a straw man, CS, because you've called people on it before. So obviously if I had been attacking a straw man position at that point, you would have called me out on it.But you didn't. You only raised this straw man fallacy after pages of convincing argumentation from me. What else can I possibly conclude from how long you let me attack that position except that you knew, then, that it really was your position?So you see, it's proven - there was no misunderstanding on my part. That's the only explanation for your actions. I don't think it's "everyone else." I think it's a small number of "usual suspects", you, Mod, Dronester, Oni, and to some degree Jon; all people with whom I've had strong disagreements in the past, people who have watched others side against them and with me, and who therefore are particularly motivated to contradict me simply for the sake of contradiction.I mean, look, you're the guys who started getting personal, who said I "always do that", that I'm always "spinning things", that I misunderstand people on purpose and lie about it. I was perfectly happy to stay on topic, and indeed tried to steer us back to it, but you guys insisted that we had to talk about me and what I do.Well, you got your wish, I guess. We're talking about me, now, except that I've already proven that I don't "misunderstand people on purpose"; rather, that I catch people trying to change their minds while concealing it, when they should have the courage and respect for their opponent to admit that they've been convinced. But that's not what you said, now is it?

The part where you think being a photographer's assistant should convince me, or anyone, that someone is good at photography.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

There's no "source of the misunderstanding", because as I've proven there was no misunderstanding. Anyway this is a quote of my response to Jon so I don't see how it could be evidence that I somehow misunderstood you.It's possible, I guess, that you misunderstood me but you don't claim to have misunderstood me. I'm taking it at face value that I've effectively communicated my position, and my arguments against yours, this whole time, in part because you haven't disagreed that I have.Maybe I shouldn't assume that, though? Is that what you're saying?

Flying off to Thailand for a week, guys. I'll catch up on this when I get back.Apropos of the topic:

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Unpaid internships don’t do as much for you in the job market as paid ones do. According to the 2011 Student Survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, paid interns spent more of their time on professional duties, while unpaid interns were given clerical ones. Sixty-one percent of paid interns working at for-profit companies received a job offer; only 38 percent of unpaid interns working at for-profit companies did. And paid interns netted higher starting salaries. The unpaid internship offers no advantage to the job-seeking student, NACE concludes.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/...take-unpaid-internships.html The study further discovered that students who worked unpaid internships not only started behind those who had worked paid internships, but behind those who hadn't worked any internships at all.We can talk about hypotheticals and "experience" and our own personal anecdotes all day long, but the real evidence is that job-seekers are not well-served by the "experience" they would supposedly get for free. (Actually, for pay, since rent and food and gas don't become free simply because you're not being paid.) The "experience" of an unpaid internship is nothing but a widely-held delusion that supports a system of exploitation.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

I have now returned! I went to a wedding in an interesting location. Maybe you're not interested but if Straggler is still watching he might be.It was at Pembroke Lodge (A Georgian mansion), the home of Lord John Russell (twice Prime Minister) and childhood home of his grandson, Bertrand Russell.I suspect your return story will be more interesting, I hope you enjoy Thailand. Why do you ask?I mean, I guess it's possible to get paid to be a photographer but not be a professional. I think my fiancee has received some money for her works, but it was a paltry sum in terms of the rent (you can see some of her stuff here). I know someone else that does portraits and makes a nice bit of money from that and some photo restoration work - but he still works full time in an office job and I don't think his photo related work has yet paid for all the equipment he owns.So I wouldn't qualify them as professional.Amusingly, the latter photographer is going to shoot my wedding. And he's going to do it for free. Not because he's a friend (He pays for my IT support and I've paid for a photograph to be saved from bad exposure settings), but because he wants to have a wedding in his portfolio so he can get new clients and we can't afford a professional, it seemed a happy exchange. Unpaid work in exchange for real marketable experience: what an idiot he is, eh? Isn't that more or less definitionally true? I mean, if the pay was your primary income that is. CS seems to think I understand his position, if he wants - he is free to correct me. As it stands, the only person he seems to be trying to correct is you - and you are fiercely resisting for your own reasons. That doesn't make any sense I'm afraid. You might think that CS's statement was made because he couldn't rebut you, but that's not relevant in interpreting what CS's comments were referring to. Here is the comment again

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You spun my photographer assistant analogy six ways from sideways.

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He was referring to your comments such as:

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To riff off of CS's example, below, nobody's opinion of your photography skills is going to be improved by your "experience" of getting coffee for photographers.

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It was readily apparent to most participants in this thread that CS was not referring to the experience of getting coffee improving your photography skills.and this

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Getting coffee isn't going to make you a better photographer, and if you tried to tell someone that it did, they'd know you were an idiot.

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I would like to comment on your next sentence:

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Watching other people take pictures doesn't make you a better photographer either until you put what you've learned into practice.

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Of course it won't make you a better photographer until you put what you've learned into practice - but the point is that you will learn something that will aid you when it comes time to put things into practice.We've been stressing that you can learn something useful from your time spent with a photographer. You've agreed that this is so on several occasions while also strenuously arguing with us as we try and make the same points.And it's because you got yourself confused about what we were talking about regarding the rather uncontroversial word, experience. I've been using it the same way all along:

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a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something

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dictionary.reference.comI have not been using it in the sense of 'by following around the professional photographer, John became an experienced photographer'. But you have apparently been arguing against me thinking that's what I meant. This is probably because you think I'm stupid or something. The thing is, it's not equivocation when you discover you've been understanding somebody wrongly.I actually have to have been using the same word, in the same context, to mean different things to be successfully accused of equivocation. I, however believe, I have been quite clear in my distinctions between them. If I have not, I apologize and I hope this is now finally clarified and settled. I hope it is now clear that this is not what CS was talking about. Probably not I'm guessing as he's lying about that. At least I hope it is now clear that it was what I was talking about when I replied to you when you brought CS's example up in our discussion. I was quite explicit in what experience I believed CS was referring to. Even if you are right, and CS is lying and he was talking about marketable experience, I wasn't ever and I think that was clear.I tend not to think of photographers being salaried. So I'm picturing a freelancer wannabe following a professional freelancer. In general, unless it was particularly impressive, you wouldn't put down all the details of your training and self-teaching on a CV in order to get hired. Obviously to win contracts you need a portfolio.But I was talking about a different kind of experience, which is still useful to someone wanting to get into the business and get paid enough to live off it. Here is valuable experiences as I pictured them myself:

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observe setting up shots, trade tips for quick colour balancing, will ask questions about exposure settings and learning the justifications for each. They'll learn how to approach clients and drum up business, how to sell their work, what work sells quick, what work sells high.

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I said that nice and early in our discussions, so your insistence that I am equivocating is baseless. To be absolutely clear, the very first time I ever mentioned anything myself about experiences gained by being a photographers assistant is the quote above. You seemed focused entirely on the coffee fetching part when you raised it with me, and it was this erroneous focus I criticised and tried to highlight what I thought the real value of following a photographer might be.If you're following them around, I imagine if possible you'll be taking some pictures yourself and maybe seeking some feedback for them. And that again is not marketable, but it's an experience that might be valuable. I should humbly apologize. Allow me to do my best to explain why I may have once thought differently. Here are your words that I clearly misinterpreted somehow.

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You've all already agreed that you can get some valuable tips.

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No, you get tips.

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An additional misrepresentation. I never said there was no value.

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and I guess this too (emphasis mine, a learning experience is presumably a valuable one)

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Watching other people take pictures doesn't make you a better photographer either until you put what you've learned into practice.

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At least I have the decency to chalk this up to a mistake on your part. You seem intent on viewing this as maliciousness on my part.To me you are a perfectly honest, decent chap. You like to argue, and you have no fear. I admire you and your talent at getting across your points of view. In this case you've gone and done a perfectly human thing, made a mistake. A small one in the grand scheme of things, though your 'no fear' approach to dealing with it has left you with a bit of extra egg on your face.But to you, I seem to be a member of a cabal intent on using deceit, trickery, word games, equivocation and whatever other schemes we can dream up to try and make crashfrog look the fool. Being a treacherous equivocator you can't ever take my word when I say you've misunderstood me.Although you claim to have admitted to more mistakes than anyone, you don't even seem willing to concede that it's possible that this has been one of them.If you want, you can just abandon this subthread, which has turned into something of a meta-debate. If you want to focus back on real marketable experience, you can go back to Message 147 and reply to that. In that subthread, I'm stressing the importance of real marketable experience and we're trying to argue out whether workfare can help people who have found themselves in a position where they are simply unable to get that kind of marketable experience as nobody will pay them to do the work without marketable experience.

As the article notes however:

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Of course, that’s when you look at the aggregate. If you’ve landed an unpaid internship you’re convinced is worth it...

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Just because unpaid internships are on average worse than paid ones (or even no internship at all), it does not therefore follow that all unpaid internships are bad.As for workfare, the topic at hand - I'm willing to believe it doesn't / won't or even can't work. I've even seen studies that say so. However, I'm positively in favour of the principle of trying to help the long term unemployed overcome the catch-22 they face. This study (A comparative review of workfare programmes in the United States, Canada and Australia: Richard Crisp and Del Roy Fletcher) may be of interest to the thread.

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The emphasis on unpaid work at the expense of job search activity made it
difficult for clients to capitalise on their experience and obtain paid
work;

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It seems to concede that they gain experience that could be capitalized on, but highlight the difficulty of job seeking and working. This could be ameliorated by reducing the number of required hours to work.

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clients with multiple barriers did not benefit from unpaid work placements
because workfare programmes did not provide the support necessary to address
their needs;

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This can be worked around with sufficient statistics, targetting those who will have a better chance of success. That is probably going to turn out to include some subset of those whose only main barrier is one of recent relevant work experience.One interesting case, using a scheme of work experience called community jobs:

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These CJs were introduced in 1998 for individuals with multiple barriers
to work who have received benefits for 24 months. Participants must work up to
twenty hours a week for nine months but are supported through an intensive
case management approach that helps them to cope with the demands of the
job. Clients are also required to enrol in a complementary activity such as basic
education or substance abuse or treatment for an additional 20 hours a week.
The WorkFirst survey data showed that subsidised CJs generated far better
outcomes than unpaid work experience.Workfare placements increased
employment by only 13 per cent compared to 33 per cent for those in CJs, whilst
workfare increased the quarterly earnings of participants by only $45 in the year
following placements in contrast to a $792 increase for those who had been
engaged in CJs.

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CJs are paid by the government at minimum wage, but I fail to see what difference the manner of their pay (subsidized wage, or welfare cheques) has in their effectiveness. I'm sure that if workfare schemes put the same amount of time and effort into helping the individual get employable, providing the support, only requiring 20 hours a week with another 20 on something else that would be of use (vocational training, cv writing tutelage, interview tips etc).Then again, strange things have turned out to be true before in matters of human behaviour. Maybe getting paid a wage is the determining factor in whether work experience can be capitalized on. I'd just like to see a theory as to why that is, if it is.

Modulous lets a small modest shoe drop with this quote: Congratulations, my man!- nate

I am watching and I am interested. Just tied up with buying/selling house at the mo so not participating much. I'll be back more fully in a month or so I hope....... Cool. I have read about Bertie's childhood a bit. Just doing a quick Wiki:

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The atmosphere at Pembroke Lodge was one of frequent prayer, emotional repression, and formality; Frank reacted to this with open rebellion, but the young Bertrand learned to hide his feelings.

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Well my heartiest congratulations!!!! (on your impending wedding not your free photographer)

I did, and Cambodia as well. The temples of Angkor are truly astonishing. What do you mean, "why do I ask"? Not what I asked. That's the exact opposite of what I asked, in fact. And, sure, you could be a professional and not get paid; work pro bono, let's say. But if you had never been paid as a photographer or been paid for your photographs, you couldn't really be said to be a "professional photographer."As in the majority of fields, "going pro" means starting to get paid to do it. You're arguing that words have no meaning, otherwise. Well, yes. It is definitionally true which is why I wonder why you put three paragraphs into arguing the opposite. But, I mean, that's what you do, isn't it Mod? Cloud the issue with stupid questions ("why do you ask") and irrelevancies (" I guess it's possible to get paid to be a photographer but not be a professional") until your messages are so long, everybody has lost all sight of what we're arguing about. It makes perfect sense. What it looks like when one is misunderstood is that one corrects the misunderstanding as soon as it becomes apparent; this is because the easiest and most effective way to rebut an argument against a position you didn't actually take is to say "that argument is against a position I didn't actually take." It's a devastating rejoinder when true.What it looks like, though, when you're throwing out false accusations of misunderstanding and misrepresentation is that the accusations only appear after your position has been demolished; that's because the argument that one was arguing against a straw man couldn't have been made at the time because it obviously wasn't true. That I somehow "misunderstood" what CS was saying makes no sense, because if I had he would have immediately said so. Instead, he accused me of "spinning" his examples simply because I opted not to accept them as counterexamples against my position - because they weren't. And I agreed that it would. In fact you just quoted my agreement. I agreed that it would, in fact, before you said anything about it, which means you're the one agreeing with me.So what's your point, here? We were talking about experience that you would be able to put on a resume in order to get a job, and you've agreed that's not what you get when you watch a photographer. You now claim that's not what you meant by "experience", but it's what we meant by experience when you decided to join the conversation already in progress; if you meant something else than we did by the same words, you had an obligation to say so. If a misunderstanding occurred, that's on you. But again, I think that if a misunderstanding had occurred you would have said something when it had. You didn't, which makes me think this is yet another instance of the extremely popular "accuse Crashfrog of misunderstanding things in order to stealthily retreat from a defeated position" dodge that so many people think they can get away with. Except that it was: CS is talking about marketable experience: "so that you can end up getting paid to do it." That's the definition of experience we were all using, and you jumped in to that conversation and started using the term "experience" in exactly the same context. We're supposed to have just known that you meant something else? Oh, yes, you're the very picture of magnanimity to assume that everybody's made a mistake but you. I can, when you're not lying about it. And the way that I know you're not lying about it is when you correct me when the misunderstanding occurs. When "oh, you misunderstood me" pops up late in the game, that's how I know it's a dishonest ploy. Nobody's even tried to explain how I'm wrong about that.