First let’s look at the site: “Chart Porn.” Dubbed “Data visualizations you just gotta love,” it’s already winning me over. I mean, getting “porn,” “data,” “visualizations,” and “just gotta love” all in one, clean crisp title is pretty entertaining in itself. However, better yet, the minds behind Chart Porn (I can’t figure out who they are) manage to keep the site loaded with graphically engaging, educationally interesting and often hilarious charts.
This is good stuff.
Chart Porn’s “About this Blog” information states plainly : “A collection of interesting charts, tables, maps, and interactive data toys — with a focus on economics and graphic design.”
With usually more than one chart posted per day — covering the likes of “Culture,” “Maps,” “Politics” and “News Media” — Chart Porn is definitely worth checking out.
Now let’s look at the chart that turned my onto the Chart Porn: “Stages of a Photographer.”
Categorized under “Humor” and “Science,” “Stages of a Photographer” could also be filed under “The Funny and Not-So-Funny Reality of Living Life as a Photographer.”
Like any good, insightful piece of humor, “Stages of a Photographer” is not meant to be deconstructed. So click on the chart below to see a bigger blow-up, and take a few minutes to to digest and enjoy. I think you’ll appreciate the sentiments charted in RGB lines.
Click to enlarge.
I myself really like the blue line, “How good you think you are.” It starts out at a whopping level of 90%, quickly crashes to nearly zero, then make some manic spikes and depressive dips before leveling out at about 43%, then holding steady until “Death.”
Aint it so, aint it so.
I also like that, regardless of how we think we are doing, “Time” results in a steady, consistent increase in the green line, which represents “Quality of photos” — except, that is, for a major early crash represented by “The HDR hole.”
Presumably this “HDR” stands for “high dynamic range” and represents the missteps that newer digital photographers suffer in thinking that using this technology is better than searching out (or creating) the lower contrast lighting situations that make this technology unnecessary.
But then, what do I know. Like all good porn, “Stages of a Photographer” is a gift to be enjoyed, not over-analyzed.