Fellow photographers,

I’m sure you’ve all seen it. It’s everywhere, in Facebook groups, your friends’ timelines, under your bed: It’s Jake Olson and that little rant he had about why being “famous” allows you to be as much of an asshole as possible. In case you missed it, here is the original post:

Pretty lovely, no.

It doesn’t stop there. At all.

2 years ago, I gave a comment to one of Adrian Sommeling’s pictures, saying that I was a huge fan of his work but this one was a bit off with the light which was a shame since I knew he could do better.

Jake Olson jumped in and defended Adrian ferociously, saying that I had no right to criticize anything as my work was horrible and he was famous and blah blah, you know the drill.
Adrian responded to all of this, saying that I was right, he hadn’t had the most optimal circumstances for the lighting.
Jake ignored this blatantly and just continued talking about how amazing he was.

…But I’m glad it happened. It showed me the first of five things that I think that Jake Olson gave to this world: A counter perspective. A way of showing us all what to avoid in order to be respectable photographers. With this one act, he showed me that even though you’re new and your work might not be great yet, you can still come with valuable feedback that should not be ignored. I think this is a lesson to us all.

Second, keep a nice tone when speaking with followers and clients, and refrain from calling people “Sand Negro”.

…And the suicide encouragement might not be the best promotional tactic if you want to keep clients coming back to you.

Third, we have learnt that you should keep deadlines, no matter how many followers you have or how acclaimed you are. They don’t care about who you are if their pictures are worthless.

Fourth, be open to people of all sexuality and mindset. We are all humans, and we all deserve the same amount of respect as you would give yourself.

Fifth, but not least, don’t ever compare yourself to Kim Kardashian. He wrote on his timeline that all this bad publicity was PERFECT for him, mentioning how Kim Kardashian had gained massive fortune from bad publicity (and a sex tape, but I don’t know about that, Jake), and nothing could bring him down.

Welly welly well….

The internet did their thing, and for once, it turned out to be a good thing.
So let’s all learn from this, and try to say a hidden mantra in our head every morning; “I will never be like Jake Olson”.