thefrogman

[thefrogman]

First, I just want to say thank you to all who backed Chris's Kickstarter.

He is one of my favorite people and favorite artists. I will be forever grateful for the ways he immortalized Otis and captured his spirit in our webcomic. And I am genuinely chuffed any time he finds success in his artistry. Well deserved, for sure.

The Kickstarter is winding down and he is very close to a stretch goal with 48 hours to go.

So if you like art and spooky creatures, I would be very grateful if you would at least check out the page and see if you want to contribute and get some cool art.

Only 48 hours left! Don’t miss out! With over 100 illustrated pages this is your complete guidebook to the dark and spooky world of the creatures that lurk in the shadows of America’s 50 great states.

[thefrogman]

To people thinking this won't taste like butter... it already does.

In fact, high end chefs said the first version was actually too fancy and they wanted a more neutral commodity style butter.

This isn't them trying to make healthy butter. They aren't trying to take vegetable oils and manipulate them to resemble butter. They are just making fat without the cow. It's the same carbon and hydrogen chains.

Butter... made from... CARBON????

*giant gasp*

I will not have carbon in my food. That is one step too far. I'm going on an anti-carbon diet from here on out. Nothing I eat will have any nasty ass carbon in it from now on.

FUCK YOUR GROSS BILL GATES CARBON BUTTER!

*long pause*

Okay... so I just googled what is in butter.

Palmitic acid – C₁₆H₃₂O₂ (saturated fat) Stearic acid – C₁₈H₃₆O₂ (saturated fat) Oleic acid – C₁₈H₃₄O₂ (monounsaturated fat) Butyric acid – C₄H₈O₂ (short-chain fat, signature butter flavor) Lactose – C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ (milk sugar) Diacetyl – C₄H₆O₂ (gives buttery aroma) Vitamin A – C₂₀H₃₀O

It seems if I want to do this non-carbon diet, I'm left with water, salt, and I can also eat various rocks.

I will update with my progress.

[thefrogman]

I thought this post was going to be boring and no one would have any interest, but I am always surprised by what inane photography stuff people want to know about.

People often forget that the lens has an analog optical resolution. And that resolution has to match or exceed the megapixels of your sensor to get the maximum amount of detail. So when using a teleconverter, you need a lens that far exceeds the sensor megapixels.

Let's look at a best case scenario for using a teleconverter with a telephoto lens.

This is a top-of-the-line telephoto prime lens with a wide f/4 aperture.

You'll notice this lens costs 14 grand.

When you use it without a teleconverter, the detail is obscene.

But even with this amazing lens, the 2x teleconverter makes it a little soft.

That's still great detail under the circumstances. And it is more detail than you'd get without the teleconverter. But it's important to remember there is going to be a loss of information.

Wildlife photography is very difficult and it can be expensive to get the best gear. The biggest issue is just getting close enough to the animals. But there are actually techniques to accomplish that without having to buy expensive lenses. You can use camo and create hides. A DIY ghillie suit might be fun. But usually the best approach is just patience. Find a good hiding spot where animals roam, plant yourself there, and wait as long as it takes. You may need to return over and over until you get the shot you want.

But the alternative is finding $14,000 for a crazy lens.

You never get something for nothing in photography.

The OM1 is a micro four thirds camera. The sensor is 2x smaller than a full frame 35mm sensor.

The equivalent aperture of f/5.6 on full frame would be f/11. And then the 2x teleconverter reduces the aperture by 2 stops.

That would mean shooting at f/5.6 would be like shooting at f/22 on a full frame.

Two things happen when you use a teleconverter.

First, an optical crop.

The teleconverter is just using the information at the center of the lens, reducing its total resolving power. You are throwing away a ton of optical information. And any flaws or softness are just going to get magnified.

When you digitally crop a photo too much, it gets all pixelated. This is the analog version of that—only it gets soft instead of pixel-y.

Second, diffraction.

Smaller apertures cause more diffraction. Which reduces detail even more. You can't violate physics. If you try to shove light through a smaller and smaller hole, it is going to get softer and softer.

In order for a 2x teleconverter to be a benefit, you need a very sharp lens that has enough resolving power to handle the giant optical crop and the diffraction. A zoom lens is probably not going to be a good candidate.

You need a sharp prime lens that starts with a pretty wide aperture.

For example, if you start with an f/2.8 lens, you can lose two stops and be at f/5.6. Then you are at about f/11 on a full frame. Which will cause some diffraction, but not nearly as bad as f/22.

Photography math hurts the brain. Sorry.

In any case, you need a high end, wide aperture lens if you are going to pair it with a 2x teleconverter. If you don't have that, you may see some benefit from a 1.4x teleconverter if the lens is mid range.

There are very few zoom lenses that benefit from any teleconverter. A lot of people still use them and don't realize they are getting the same detail as just zooming in on the computer.

Meaning if you don't have a high quality prime lens, digitally cropping and using upscaling software is usually going to give you better results than a teleconverter.

[thefrogman]

Your favorite Tumblr Elder is now Tumblr Elderly.

It won't be long before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Just make sure my Tumblr "In Memoriam" post is in the form of my greatest Tumblr creation...

The GIFset

Today I turn 44.

Which means I am officially an adult.

So from here on out, I will only be doing very serious adult things. And taking very serious and dramatic adult photos of myself.

Err... I mean... not *adult* photos.

No more silly photos.

Yes, much too silly.

As you may know, 44 is the year the prefrontal cortex finishes developing. And then suddenly you are a grown-up and you know exactly what to do in stressful situations and how to fill out your taxes and you say things like, "Those darn kids and their music!"

I watched KPop Demon Hunters all ready to practice and shake my fist at this newfangled noise, but I forgot and found myself bobbing my head and singing along. And maybe crying a bit at the end there.

My brain just wasn't cooked enough yet, I suppose.

Okay... umm... This is embarrassing. I've just checked and apparently the brain finishes developing at 24, not 44.

That's my bad.

According to ChatGPT I have been an adult for quite some time and I am just... "like this."

Eh, growing up is overrated.

I wish I could say this will be a happy birthday, but I am still in the midst of a pretty intense medical recovery. And it just doesn't feel great to heal sometimes. The good news is I am nearing the finish line. There's a chance in a month or two I could feel a lot better than I have in a while.

But due to a family betrayal that I am not going to speak of on my birthday, my financial circumstances are not wonderful right now. And I am not going to have the health to sort them until I finish my recovery. And certain parts of my house have decided now is the time to be in disrepair.

I just recently needed an emergency A/C repair during the least ideal day for the A/C to conk out. The house got up to 90° and I was feeling pretty sick. But it was fixed in short order and I am okay now.

(Outside, garage, kitchen, living room)

But apparently a groundhog dug a hole under my front porch and may have knocked a pipe. So I have to figure out how to get a small leak fixed now too.

I thought that little jerk was cute.

I still think he is cute, but he is going on my "cute but annoying" list right after all the squirrels that set off my security camera motion alerts at 3am.

I am so close to restoring a bit of my health and it has been a miserable 8 month process and I guess the universe decided I needed a few more obstacles before I completed my recovery.

So... if anyone would like to lend a little help along with their birthday wishes, I would appreciate it.

PayPal

Venmo

In any case, I got to see Katrina this morning. She Facetime'd me all the way from Greece. She is my favorite person so that was the best birthday gift I could ask for. I am always grateful for the time I get to spend with my friends. And I'm hoping if I get my health sorted, and save my house, then I can actually visit my friends in person instead of seeing them on a screen.

That will be my goal for when I turn 45.

[thefrogman]

A wisdom of hootie hoots is also an acceptable collective noun.

[ OG video via Matt Poole ]

After my post about attribution, I tried to find a source for this parliament of baby owls and it was much harder than it used to be. Google Image Search is probably one of the most tragic losses due to enshittification.

It is now "Lens" and it would rather sell you an owl stuffie than tell you useful information about where these cute hooters originated.

In any case, this is from Matt Poole, a wildlife photographer and conservation biologist.

Which means I can be comforted to know these owls are supposed to go into a dark hole for their well-being and this isn't some rando influencer shoving owls into a pipe for clicks.

[thefrogman]

Hello all. Some of you may remember Chris. He was a general at The Great Emu War.

And one of my photography subjects.

And he is my long time art collaborator and official drawer of Otis.

And for a while now he has been drawing these amazing watercolor monsters for people to adopt.

And today his work is featured in a really cool art collection on Kickstarter.

If you love his art like I do and you like Cryptids, I think you will really love this book. There are plenty of tiers for different budgets. You can even get a real physical book to hold and turn the pages.

Do people remember books from the before times?

In any case, it would mean a lot to me if you all checked out his Kickstarter page and supported an amazing artist.

Remember, in this time of AI nonsense, it is more important than ever to support real art. And Chris is as real as it gets.

With over 100 pages and illustrations this is your complete guidebook to the dark and spooky world of the creatures that lurk in the shadows of America’s 50 great states.

[thefrogman]

Some more lighting advice. Don't forget about them windows.

I'm also working on a post about why everyone should get a continuous video light.

And I mean *everyone*.

So look out for that soon.

Hi!! Thank you for spreading the good word about ring lights! I'm an onlyfans girl, and I was JUST gifted a ring light. While using it I noticed most of you said, it's just not consistent enough for distance. Otherwise I've been using this bonkers bright lightbulb that I don't think is supposed fit in this lamp? It's definitely harsh and casts weird shadows. What can I do to make it work better for me? Should I get a second bonkers bulb and do the 45° thing? Or is the bulb itself the problem?

Idunno if you answer these kinds of questions, but I'm glad you're on tumblr doing your thing!! Thank you for your time!!

Sorry for the delayed response. I hope you don't mind, but I looked at some of the free photos on your Fansly. It looks like you have some really nice window light at your place.

You can actually leverage that as a light source. If you were to hang tracing paper in front of one or both of those windows, you'd essentially have two giant softboxes. The tracing paper would help give you some privacy and allow you to get closer to the light. You can also layer it if you need more diffusion. And tracing paper rolls are fairly inexpensive.

You could also use a white bedsheet or maybe a translucent shower curtain. I've also seen photographers use sheer curtains. You might even be able to make those look attractive and a permanent, convenient lighting tool.

I prefer tracing paper because it diffuses the light very uniformly while not knocking down the intensity a great deal. You can also DIY it into a frame that is easy to take on and off your window.

Then you can experiment with angling yourself towards and away from the window light, and I'm betting you could get some beautiful results. You could even use those windows as nice backlights.

I think the big mistake people make is that they don't realize how close lights need to be in order to look their best. Ring lights look best at only a foot or two away from the face. Their entire design philosophy was created because it was hard to get a camera close to something without it blocking the light. If the camera isn't in the way of the lighting, then you no longer need a ring light.

Even with the window light, you need to be as close as possible. Lights almost always need to be uncomfortably close.

The ring light is still useful. As long as it is close enough you can do some nice head and chest shots. But you can also modify the ring light to work as a normal photo light. A white shoot through umbrella can do wonders.

I literally just taped it to my ring light and got a much softer light.

As far as the smaller lamp, that probably isn't going to be great for a main light, but it could work as a backlight or an accent light. Regular light bulbs, even really bright ones, are nowhere near as powerful as video and photo lights (or the sun). So even if you bounce them off a wall or put diffusion near them, you'd have to be super duper close for them to do much. The little reflector will help concentrate and focus the light, giving it more power, but it will still be underpowered for good photos. You could try the umbrella trick and see if it gives you good results, but it might be hard to keep it attached. Especially when the lamp heats up.

However, if you use the lamp behind or off to the side of you, it could act as a nice warm rim light. Putting a nice highlight on the edge of your shoulders and hair. I still think it might be underpowered though. Which is why using it as an accent light in the background might be its best function.

I think people often neglect their backgrounds. But using lights to highlight shelves and cool objects is a great way to create a vibe with your background.

Gerald has some soft light coming in from the left and right of his background. He has some orange accent lights for his shelves. Thinking about your scene holistically can really elevate your photos.

I think the window lights with diffusion in front would give you the highest quality results with what you have now. But you can't take photos/videos at night.

I think if you are going to keep making photo and video content regularly, the best thing you could do is invest in a proper video light.

This is going to be a mouthful...

A COB LED continuous video light with a Bowens mount.

Because of the mount, you can turn this single light into any kind of light source you need. You can put an umbrella on it. You can put a softbox on it. It comes with a reflector that you can use to bounce it into the ceiling or off a wall.

The only downside is it can take up a bit of space when a modifier is attached. If you use an umbrella modifier, you can easily break it down when you aren't using it. But if you get a softbox, you will basically have this big light taking up space in the corner.

This one by Newwer is probably the cheapest that is still good quality.

It is a budget brand, but they have a decent reputation. If you are willing to spend a little more, you can get a Godox. The light will look the same, but they are a more mainstream brand. And if you want to make sure the light is dependable and long lasting, Amaran makes very high quality lights with solid components.

So, good, better, best as far as reliability. But the quality of the light will be about the same.

I think the Newwer is a good "first" video light. It is bright. It has a Bowens mount. And it is "bi-color." This means you can change the warmth of the light to match the other lights in your room. So if you have a lamp in the shot and it looks blue, you can choose a warmer color temp to match the lamp and make it look warm again. Or if you have sunlight streaming in through the windows, you can match the light to that as well.

You will need to do some learning for a light like this. But if you put a big umbrella or softbox in front of it, you will get nice, soft light without much effort. If you have the space, there is no more versatile light for your purposes.

As far as modifier options, since you probably want to do full body photos, the bigger the better.

If it were me, I'd get this one.

(You shouldn't get this one. I am a crazy lighting guy who likes crazy lighting stuff.)

The product photo gives no sense of scale, but it's literally the size of a mattress. You could light 2 people, head to toe, with nice soft light.

This one is a more reasonable size. It would be nice and soft for one person, but still acceptable for two people. It's still quite huge, but not "mattress" huge.

But most softboxes do not break down easily like umbrellas. While they are more suited for lighting entire bodies than a circular umbrella (they have less spill and more control), the big and unwieldy nature is not something everyone wants to deal with.

So a simple shoot through umbrella that breaks down easily is where I would recommend you start. And then you can upgrade to a softbox later on as you learn how to use the light more proficiently.

You can find umbrellas for 10-15 bucks on Amazon, but a high quality one isn't much more expensive.

And if you want to get something a little bigger...

This reverse umbrella is a very reasonable price for 7 feet of soft light goodness. It's nearly mattress size, but it breaks down for easier storage.

Oh and you'll need a light stand. Don't forget the light stand.

AND... then you can use your ring light for other things. It can be a hair light, or an edge light. You can do that cool halo effect I did.

So you'd have a 2 light setup with a lot of room to grow with various modifiers.

To review...

Window light with tracing paper or sheer curtains can give you beautiful light without much expense.

If you want to make use of your ring light, just add an umbrella to get soft light.

Use your lamp as an edge light or accent light in the background.

And if you want to invest in a powerful, versatile light, there is no better start than a COB LED continuous video light with a Bowens mount.

And remember, all of these light sources can be mixed. A video light as your main light with your windows as a backlight could look very cool.

[thefrogman]

There were a few things brought up in the tags of my above answer.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what the disagreement is here, but I specifically mentioned things that would allow for the creation of art outside of industry.

If artists could make art without the anxiety of having to pay for food and rent, they could opt out of the commercial art world whenever they like and create what they want.

We have the NEA to help fund art for art's sake, but that is constantly under attack from conservatives. They can't help but show that banana duct taped to the wall and say all art is stupid and should be defunded. (I really liked the banana, btw.)

The NEA isn't enough. I want filmmakers to be able to make fully funded movies outside the studio system. I want ambitious artists to have a budget if their work requires it. We should have an entity like NASA that is dedicated to people making outrageous, groundbreaking art, just because. No profit motive.

People encounter art almost every second of every day. The computer I'm typing on was originally a concept sketch. The logo on my soda pop was created by a graphic designer. Art is everywhere and it is taken for granted.

Art and art education is so undervalued it is a modern tragedy.

I was a little vague about regulations due to running low on energy and wanting to finish my answer.

I don't think we can stop or even slow down AI. It is here. And it is here to stay.

As far as regulations, I think making sure datasets are trained on licensed images would be a good start. And the ability to "opt out" of training would be important too.

But I think the regulations should be less focused on AI itself and more on protecting artists. Many groups of laborers have been afforded worker protections. Steel workers, farmers, auto manufacturing. Though I think one obstacle might be the freelance nature of a lot of art production. Perhaps something like SAG could work.

Another idea I am flirting with is a regulation where no finished commercial artwork can be 100% generated.

If something is to be published, sold, or distributed as "art," it should require consistent input, creative direction, and finishing work from a real human artist. The final product should be shaped through a real artistic process, not just prompted and posted.

I know that’s tricky to define. But it’s an idea I’m working on. I'm trying to figure out how to make it practical without being overly restrictive. And also allow for AI tools that reduce artistic tedium. It’s still cooking.

In any case, my current philosophy is less about attacking and destroying AI and more about how to elevate real human artists and allow them to thrive. And, ya know, pay their bills.

Lastly, I want to write up a guide to sourcing and attribution, but my health has been quite poor this week. I'm also very behind on answering people's lighting and photography questions. But I'm slowly chipping away at those and hope to publish them when I feel better. Please be patient.

Looking at some of your work, it is stunning but it is very similar in style to AI artwork, do you have any recommendations for how to tell apart photography like yours from AI.

I've been thinking about this. And this may sound controversial at first, but I'm hoping people will hear me out.

We should stop trying so hard to detect AI art.

I think we should all lift that burden from our brains.

I have often talked about "woke goggles." Where conservatives have lost the ability to enjoy anything because they are hypervigilant about detecting anything woke. They've cursed themselves into just hating everything. All they have left is the "God's Not Dead" Cinematic Universe.

And I worry people are getting AI goggles now. They are so concerned about accidentally enjoying robot art and hurting artists that they have overcorrected to the point where they are hurting artists.

One cannot say "AI is all soulless slop that always looks bad" and then accuse a real artist of making something that looks like AI and not hurt them. By doing so, it includes the baggage of all of the "slop" comments along with it. This crusade is having collateral damage to the very artists we are trying to protect.

Yes, we need to be cautious about malicious AI images. Misinformation and deepfakes are going to be a big problem. People using AI imagery for profit is already a mess. But if you are cruising your feed and like a cool sci-fi robot gal or a photo of a waterfall and it turns out to be AI... that's fine.

It was trained by real artists and AI is going to create some cool shit because of that.

Honestly, I think a lot of the worst slop is because the dipshits creating the prompts have no artistic taste. People keep blaming the AI for how bad it looks and often don't consider it is a product of the loser who published it.

There is plenty of non-slop out there that has fooled me. And, like it or not, it is going to get harder and harder to tell what is AI. Until there are better tools or better regulations, I don't think there is much we can do to avoid enjoying AI art every once in a while. If only by accident.

Current "AI detectors" are mostly a scam. Even the best forensic-level AI image detectors struggle to stay above 70–80% accuracy across a wide range of models and image types. And that's in controlled lab conditions.

Free online tools often drop to near coin-flip accuracy (50–60%), especially with newer image generators and post-processing applied.

The best way to avoid AI imagery is to look at an artist's body of work. It's much harder to create consistent, non-obvious fake images in a large sample size. That is usually enough to have confidence in authenticity. Plus, if they have posted similar art before 2022, you can pretty much rule out any shenanigans.

Otis literally died before genAI was available.

But images you see in the wild, just let yourself enjoy them if that is what your brain wants to do. It'll be okay.

I just think we are attacking this backwards. If we want to protect artists, we need to support them.

Calling out random AI art does not support them.

It does not put money in their pockets.

It does not grow their audience.

Over a decade ago I tried to lead a fight to create better systems of attribution on websites like Reddit and Imgur. I even spoke to the Imgur team after an article was written about me.

I asked them to allow sources on their posts and to develop tech that would help people find where an image came from. They said they were "working on it" and it never manifested.

IMAGE SHARING SITES STEAL MORE FROM ARTISTS THAN AI.

But we just kind of accepted it. No one really joined me in my fight. The prevailing defeatist attitude was, "That's just the way it is."

I think now is the time to demand better attribution systems. We need to be vigilant about making sure as many posts as possible have good sourcing. If an image on Reddit goes viral, the top comment should be the source. And if it isn't, you should try to find it and add it.

Just to be clear, "credit to the original artist" is NOT proper attribution.

And perhaps we can lobby these image sharing sites to create better sourcing systems and tools. They could even use fucking AI to find the earliest posted version of an image.

And it would be nice if it didn't require people to go into the comments to find the source. It could just be in the headline. They could even create little badges "made by a human" for verified artists.

Good attribution helps artists grow their audience. It is one of the single most effective things you can do to help them.

I literally just got this message...

There are maybe 10 popular artists who I helped grow their audience early on. Just because I reblogged their work and added links to all of their social media. I even hired my best friend to add sourcing information to every post because I believed so much in good attribution.

Calling out AI art may feel good in the moment. You caught someone trying to trick people and it feels like justice. But, in most cases, the tangible benefits to real artists seem small. It impedes your ability to enjoy art without always being suspicious. And the risk of telling someone you think they make soulless slop doesn't seem worth it.

But putting that time and effort into attribution *would* be worth it. I have proven it time and time again.

I also think people should consider having a monthly art budget. I don't care if it is $5. But if we all commit to seeking out cool artists and being their collective patrons, we could really make a difference and keep real art alive. Just commit to finding a cool new artist every month and financially contributing to them in some way.

On a bigger scale I think advocating for universal basic income, art grants for education and creation, and government regulation of AI would all be helpful long term goals. Though I think our friends in Europe may have to take the lead on regulation at the moment.

So...

Stop worrying about enjoying or calling out AI art.

Demand better attribution from image sharing sites.

Make sure all art has a source listed.

Start an art budget.

Advocate for better regulations.

[thefrogman]

A lot of people are asking how I did my 80s sunglasses photo.

The simple answer... gradient lighting and a bendy arm.

You take photo of the background by itself and then just erase the arm. Or you can just recreate the background with the gradient tool. That usually works best when you have a reference of the real thing.

Gradient lighting is advanced stuff. You need to educate yourself to do it well. And my photography mentor, Karl Taylor, is the best teacher on the internet.

He has some free videos on YouTube that get you started.

But his Visual Education platform is one of the best photography learning resources I've ever used. I learned more from him than any other teacher. And if you are serious about learning lighting, the subscription fee is worth every penny. He teaches how to photograph people, places, and things. But his specialty is lighting.

If you don't understand something after watching a video, you can leave a reply and he will personally answer your question.

The courses are all well organized and make chronological sense. There are beginner courses and highly advanced courses. And he does live streams where he just shows you his entire process. You just watch him do photography and problem solve.

The problem with free YouTube tutorials is you never know if the instructor is a competent teacher. The lessons are usually only for beginners because they get the most views. And you often learn things out of order.

When I joined Karl's site and had a more structured curriculum, my understanding of photography and light grew at an accelerated pace. The knowledge I gathered in a month dwarfed years of YouTube tutorials.

I know I sound like I am writing an ad for Karl, but I believe education is more important than anything else when it comes to photography. I've seen people buy a $2000 lens hoping to improve their images but scoff at paying for lessons because "YouTube is free."

All my images are still taken on a 10 year old APS-C DSLR. And I take consistently better photos than dentists with $10,000 Hasselblads.

Education trumps everything.

If you decide to try Visual Education, you'll notice Karl has top of the line gear. He is a renowned product photographer and that is expected of him. If he doesn't have that gear, his clients will go somewhere else.

Unfortunately, a lot of students will get frustrated and say they can't get the same results because they don't have Swiss Broncolor lights.

Don't fall into that trap.

Light is light. All the principles are the same with cheap Godox lights. These folks just need to recognize this stuff is complicated and it takes practice and experience to get high quality results. Every once in a while Karl will get frustrated by these comments and do a shoot with cheap speedlights and $5 makeup mirrors.

You need a camera, a lens, several lights, and diffusion material. Old and used is fine. Be patient and you will get it.

I love how you nerded out about lighting on a reddit post asking for help making porn because somebody recommended the wrong lighting for the job. Which makes me wonder: what does a dildo look like with gradient lighting?

Depends on the dildo.

Is it glossy or matte?

Objects have a spectrum of surface texture going from matte to glossy to mirrored.

Light reflects off these surfaces. Matte sufarces scatter or "diffuse" light. Glossy and mirrored surfaces directly reflect light. This is called specular reflection.

Gradient lighting is a bit of an illusion or lighting magic trick. You are essentially trying to simulate a diffused matte reflection onto a glossy or mirrored surface.

What happens when you take the diffused reflection of the matte ball and put it onto the chrome ball?

If your brain knows the object is glossy, the matte-looking reflection becomes more compelling. A bit otherworldly. People think it looks like a 3D render because when you are working with single glossy objects in 3D software, they are in a void with no environment to reflect off the surface—only an imaginary light source.

We have become conditioned to see this gradient effect as a "luxury" look. Which is why many high end watches, wines, and cosmetics use gradient lighting.

Gradient lighting is an image forming reflection. Essentially you shine a light into some diffusion material to create a hot spot in the middle with the light slowly fading out on the edges.

Typically a ball shape or a rectangular shape. You can make the edges softer or quite sharp. The possibilities are many.

The light source becomes the reflection.

Sometimes it is hard to wrap your head around that. Because objects are not flat mirrors. They have complex shapes. So the reflection of the light source becomes all wibbly wobbly, distorty worty.

You are literally transposing whatever shape gradient you create onto the glossy object. If I were to place my head in front of that gradient ball of light, my face would map onto the surface the same way.

It's very tricky to master and takes a lot of patience to get the angles right. And you have to make sure your gradient is big enough to reflect in all parts of your object.

I don't know if dildos are known to be glossy, so I'm not sure gradient lighting would do anything but make it look like a matte version of the dildo. Like, if you brain isn't expecting the object to be glossy, it may just assume it is matte with gradient lighting. It breaks the magic trick.

Which is why there is a technique where you have a gradient on one side and a more specular "glossy" reflection on the other side. It is done with wine bottles sometimes.

This maintains the glossy feel while still having that luxury gradient look.

So, I don't know if dildos woud be a great candidate for this kind of lighting. Advertisers probably aren't concerned with them looking like luxury products. Maybe if there was ever a Rolex dildo.

At a quick glance of dildo websites (for research purposes), the only ones I saw that were glossy were made of glass. Those might work. Or maybe there is someone who makes a chrome phallus.

Otherwise I would probably use more traditional lighting techniques for any future dildo photography.

[thefrogman]

@ironic-dysgraphia

Most of my photos with artificial light added would be considered "unmotivated lighting." I think that is the term you were looking for.

The short explanation is that motivated lighting always has a logical source. Like the sun or a window or a lamp off to the side.

That doesn't mean there are no lighting shenanigans used.

The overhead office-style fluorescent lights depicted in this scene were actually powerful diffused light bars that were much closer to the actors. They replaced the ceiling in post with more traiditioinal looking lights. So the lighting was still very crafted—but it has a logic and realism that doesn't set off alarm bells in your brain saying, "Where is the light coming from?"

Unmotivated lighting is the opposite. It's crafted, artificial light that doesn't need to make sense. It just has to achieve the aesthetic goal of the artist.

All studio lighting is unmotivated. I just re-edited this old photo of my dad.

There is no room in the world where he could have sat down and had perfectly sculpted light hitting his face. I intentionally directed the light to accentuate his features and capture the best, most idealized version of what he looked like.

Coincidentally I just wrote a post about motivated lighting in films.

Weirdly, I expressed a preference for motivated lighting in movies with a realism-based aesthetic and a lot of people disagreed. They said that the lighting comes from the same place as the music and that you just have to suspend your disbelief.

(Personally I think that is a bad analogy because music is *very* motivated by the emotional vibe. I would say unmotivated lighting in movies comes from the same place as women's apocalypse makeup.)

But I *love* unmotivated lighting in still photography. I love crafting an image and creating it in a fantasy realm where perfect, beautiful, sculpting light can come from anywhere. I want the most idyllic lighting possible.

It's the only way I could make fingernail clippers look beautiful.

And now people are saying unmotivated lighting looks like AI or CGI and isn't authentic. Even though this aesthetic was created before computers were invented and the tools of post-capture manipulation were done in a darkroom.

I'm fairly certain this is because AI does not have a great understanding of motivated lighting. It never thinks about where the light is coming from so it almost always creates images where the lighting comes from a fantasy realm. And now people are heavily associating unmotivated lighting with AI, even if it is a subconscious observation.

I think at this point in time, people are yearning for authenticity. We know so much of our imagery is heavily manipulated for nefarious purposes. Beauty advertising with retouched skin like porcelain dolls and liquified torsos that don't leave space for vital organs. Every fast food ad shows the perfect juicy hamburger because they paid a food stylist $500/hour to perfectly cook and arrange things.

But fast food workers are not food stylists and your burger isn't going to have perfect lettuce and a non-smooshed bun.

(Before you reply with urban legends about food styling, they don't use fake materials. They are required to use the actual ingredients. Those myths came from movie prop masters who needed to maintain the look of food during hours of shooting.)

I think AI just turned our uncomfortable relationship with unrealistic imagery up to 11.

It's a little depressing for me because I love to use light as my artistic medium. I say I am a photographer, but my passion is more focused on lighting.

And I often incorporate my other passion, which is image manipulation. I sometimes add another layer of unreality to my images by artistically editing them.

This is days of work.

I worked very hard for the in-camera image. Dragging a heavy chair and lighting equipment into a field on a hot summer day was not easy for me.

But I also worked very hard on the edit. The RAW file is overexposed, but once I corrected that, the lighting on him and the grass is actually what I captured. I hid a flash in the lampshade and lit him with my big 7 foot umbrella off to the right.

I could have shot this at night, but my area has so much light pollution, I would never have achieved the sky I wanted in my head. So I took the photo knowing I'd replace the sky later.

I like crafting images. I like picturing something in my head and then trying to manifest it in a photo.

I get why people are starting to prefer more natural looking images. I understand why they are currently preferring everything to be captured as it was in the moment. I know why they disparage the amazing work of CG artists and demand that every movie use only practical effects.

When everything is fake, a small dose of reality feels special.

But I see my photography more like a drawing or a painting. Light is my paintbrush and I am just trying to manifest my imagination into an image. I don't claim I don't use artificial light. I never say anything is "straight out of camera." I am very open about my use of Photoshop. If I were able to leave my house and go to more beautiful places, perhaps I would take a more motivated approach.

I mean, I love when the world is just beautiful all on its own and all I have to do is competently pick settings on my camera.

But I enjoy my artistic process and while some of my images may not be realistic, I think my artistry is always authentic.

I don't need every person to like every one of my photos. But when I work hard on a photo and there is clear talent and skill involved, I'm hoping people will still acknowledge that. I hope they will respect the effort and artistry involved.

I didn't enjoy the show Breaking Bad. I disliked all of the characters and the story just depressed me more and more as I watched it. But I still think it is an amazing show created by talented artists. I can acknowledge the monumental artistic achievement even if it wasn't my cup of tea.

That's all I'm asking.

Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.

[thefrogman]

So... I'm the porn photography nerd guy now.

And a lot of people are happy to hear I am not dead.

I have not stopped posting in over a decade, but I sort of retired from the viral comedy I used to make, so I guess it makes sense that people haven't seen me around as much.

My personal tumblr is @sirfrogsworth where I post more frequently. And I have a photography Instagram here. But I promise I am still alive.

ANYWAY...

This post has made me think deeply about porn lighting.

And I thought even deeply-er about how I would actually light a porn.

I think it would be an interesting challenge but the one time I took a topless photo I was uncomfortable the entire time. I suppose that is something I'd have to get used to with experience, but I'm generally more interested in other types of photography.

But light is light, and I am always happy to help people get better results. I've even thought about starting a consulting business where I help people pick out lighting and gear and advise them how best to use it for their circumstances. I think there are a lot of small creators who could seriously up their production value with a small investment and some knowledge. YouTubers, streamers, and OF models who want an edge.

I'll try to give some general advice in this post. But if anyone is interested in a more specific solution, feel free to message me.

This post is about lighting entire bodies.

Quick review...

Large light source = soft light.

Small light source = hard light.

You can make a light larger by moving it closer, adding a modifier (softbox/umbrella), or bouncing it off a surface.

You make the light smaller by moving it farther away, adding a reflector, a grid, or a snoot.

Most lighting is designed for faces and maybe torsos. But when you need to light entire people, you are going to need more than a ring light. Ideally, you are going to want a light source at least as big as what you want to light. You'll notice a ring light is a little bigger than a face. A beauty dish covers head and shoulders. An octobox is roughly the size of a torso. After that, modifiers can get large and unwieldy, so you may have to think about bouncing light off walls and ceilings.

I was going to show some examples, but then I realized Tumblr would give me the naughty tag for this post. So I'll try to be creative about keeping this safe for work.

First, let's quickly expand on why ring lights are not ideal for photos and videos of entire bodies that are... comingling.

Ring lights are not bad. They were just designed to do something very specific. In the beginning, they were actually used by dentists to help photograph teeth without any shadows obstructing the view.

The magic of a ring light is shining light from all directions from the camera's POV in order to get a shadowless effect. You also get circle catchlights in the eyes which some people enjoy.

In order for this to work, the camera needs to be in the hole, and the light needs to be close enough to be directional.

The inverse square law says that when you move a light farther away, all of the photons start to spread out. Imagine a donut expanding inward. Eventually the hole in the middle closes up. It becomes no different than any other light at that distance. And since it has that hole in the middle, there is less surface area casting light.

Depending on the size of the ring light, you're only going to get those special, shadowless lighting properties for a head and chest photo. You might be able to get the boobies within the effect if you have a larger ring light, but it is mostly meant for faces.

Just to compare...

Ring light on the face, close up, with camera in the hole...

Ring light far away, off to the side, camera not in the hole...

You can see her. She is lit. But that ring light "magic" is no longer happening.

It's less flattering.

"Flattering" in the photography world just means that detail and textures are going to be less prominent. Flattering light is not inherently good or bad. If you want to show off a cool pattern or texture, or even a grizzled old man's face, you might actually want a hard light look. Hard light can also be very dramatic and boost contrast, but you may need heavy makeup or flawless skin (or just retouch it afterwards).

Small, hard light causes dark, crisp shadows. Think about what a wrinkle is. A fold in your skin causing a shadow. Think about what a pore is. A pit in your skin causing a shadow. The darker these shadows, the more apparent they are in the photo.

You can even enhance this effect by using "raking" light. Which is just hard light at a steep angle.

If you imagine this was a face or acne scarring or cellulite or a throbbing, veiny bicep, this might look rather unflattering.

Raking light is still useful in a lot of applications. Art conservators use raking light to analyze brush strokes on paintings.

So all types of light can be used for something cool, but unflattering light usually isn't ideal for skin without expertise on how to leverage it.

The good news... if you use your ring light straight on, even from a distance, you can minimize the crisp, hard shadows in places you don't want them. The more raking or off-axis the light, the more flaws will be exaggerated.

You can also attach a cheap shoot-through umbrella to enlarge the light source and soften it.

The bad news... small far away lights increase specular reflections. If you have shiny skin, this may cause big spots of glare. It can also reflect harshly off moisture. And if you are hot and sweaty... for reasons... you might end up looking a little rough.

John Mulaney discovered this when he gave an outdoor speech in front of a distant spotlight.

People thought he was back on drugs.

Nope!

It was just a warm night and hard light reflects sweat and moisture very intensely.

The next day under soft studio lights, he either sobered up overnight...

Or people sometimes fail to realize just how much lighting can affect one's appearance. (This was during a rehearsal so he wasn't even wearing makeup yet.)

Soft light is flattering because it reduces and fills in shadows and evens out specular highlights.

Many people think diffused light is soft light. But any large light source will produce soft light. Diffusion is just a tool to help create a larger light source.

But if you put diffusion on a tiny light...

It ain't going to be soft.

People also assume that soft, flattering light is "better" and that isn't always the case. Sometimes soft light is kinda boring.

The hard light photo is much more interesting and dramatic, but you can already see how much shinier her forehead is. If her photo was taken with hard light directly after... sweaty activities... it would probably not be as appealing.

And that is why most pornography is blasted with soft light.

If you actually ignore the porn and pay attention to the quality of the lighting, it is usually pretty boring and flat. But it is very soft and very shadowless.

I call this "sitcom lighting."

Light is blasted everywhere from all directions. Sitcoms did this because they needed every place on the set to have adequate lighting for every camera position.

I suspect porn adopted sitcom lighting for two reasons.

1.) Porn directors want you to be able to see *everything* very clearly no matter what angle they point the camera. No body part is to be mired in shadow.

2.) If you blast light from every direction, you get a super ring light effect where all shadows are minimal. So wrinkles, pores, veins, sweat, moisture are all reduced. It's super flattering but a little dull.

This is accomplished in a few ways.

Have you ever noticed a lot of higher budget porn videos take place in nice rented houses with a ton of windows?

Ted Cruz knows what I'm talking about.

That's because all of that window lighting is essentially one big light source.

Imagine those windows as softboxes. You are just filling the room with soft sunlight. But if you actually go outside, the sun becomes a small light source with harsh shadows. You need the windows to "modify" the light and make it large and homogenous.

So if you have access to a space with a lot of windows and you don't mind being naked in front of them, you're all set to porn.

The next technique is to just use huge softboxes and umbrellas all around the room.

This is my 7 foot umbrella that I got for under a hundred bucks.

I mainly use it for outdoor lighting.

But, I mean... it'd be great for other stuff too.

And then there is bouncing light. This is how you get truly huge light sources. You can shoot lights into walls or up into the ceiling. This is especially good for videos in bed.

You can combine window lights, giant umbrellas, and bounce lights if you want.

I was watching a Gerald Undone video where he toured the Gamers Nexus studio. Steve clearly didn't know anything about lighting. And so he just put lights EVERYWHERE from every direction.

He accidentally porn lit his studio.

One difference you might notice between Steve and the young woman who is innocently talking on the phone and definitely not about to have sex with her stepbrother...

She seems a little more... smooth.

A little less... 4K.

Enter soft focus filters!

Soft focus is sometimes called the Vaseline effect or the Barbara Walters effect.

This is a filter you can put on your lens to knock the detail back a bit. It keeps everything in focus, but smooths out the edges a bit.

An optical Facetune, if you will.

It tends to look a little more organic and authentic than digital smoothing. But you have to pick the right strength or you will end up making everyone seem like they are glowing like Barbara.

If I am being honest, I don't really like standard porn lighting. But it is hard to suggest something better. Video is just difficult to light artistically without a budget and a lighting expert. When you look at how movies are lit behind the scenes, you can see how complicated it can get.

So I'm afraid I can't give specific advice on how to artistically light porn. It depends on the room and the vibe and what gear you have to work with.

The best I can do is to advise you to get a very large light source as your main light. If you don't have a large white wall or ceiling, you'll want a 7 foot umbrella or the biggest softbox you can afford. And then I would add backlighting. I think that is the element a lot of porn is missing. Shining light from behind and creating nice highlights can really elevate things. You can even make the lights part of the video.

Erotic still photography is a little easier to pull off without much experience.

There are two popular forms of boudoir photography.

There is dramatic side lighting as you can see with this pussy.

And there is more environmental erotica where you decorate a room like a theater set or find a fancy hotel.

So you can make the lighting cool or the environment cool. Or both.

But if you don't have good lighting and you don't have a cool environment, there is one more aspect that can improve your nudes.

Angles and posing.

I'm afraid this is a concept lost on a lot of straight men—as demonstrated by Reece in this dick pic parody.

Finding good angles and choosing good poses can often overcome bad lighting. The easiest thing to do is copy someone else. Find a pose you like and try to recreate it.

And learn how to take pictures without holding your phone. Get a tripod or a phone stand. There are very few sexy poses you can accomplish when you are tethered to your phone. And if you move the phone a little farther away, you can avoid distortion as well.

And now for my most important advice...

NO MACRO PHOTOS OF YOUR JUNK.

If a doctor could diagnose a medical condition, it's too close.

Most people enjoy seeing nude photos in the context of your entire... you. Your eyes, your smile, your belly, and your various private areas.

Unless the intended audience is specifically into detached, close up photos of your bits and holes, it is usually best to keep things zoomed out. Communicate and verify before shoving a camera between your legs.

I'm just saying, when I can see past someone's asterisk directly into their colon... my light gets soft.

None of this answers the question... how would I light porn?

I'd probably delve into experimental lighting. There is this lighting technique where you put a black background directly behind your subject and block the light so it can only peek around the sides. It creates this perfect outline of whatever you are photographing.

This is my pocket knife sitting on top of a light.

And then in post processing, you just expand the black to the edges of the frame.

I want to try and upscale this effect to work on humans.

Okay, that's a lie.

I mostly want to try it on fuzzy cats.

But naked humans might also look cool.

And I'm just imagining if I were to make a video of two people... wrestling... it would look like two human shaped outlines were merging and separating in all kinds of interesting ways.

So the people would just kinda look like this, but it would be an in-camera effect.

I dunno, I think that would be cool.

If you want to learn more about light...

This is a really cool post I wrote about the Inverse Square Law. I know it sounds mathmatical and complicated, but I promise it is not. And it will help you improvise lighting solutions with a lot less trial and error.

In this post I explain more about hard and soft light. I also go more in depth about ring lights and what to do if you already bought one.

And in this post I recommend pro lights as well as budget lights and even some DIY lighting solutions.

In that post I link to a big round streamer light, but it is for the white version, which is not in stock yet. The black version is available right now.

I hope some of this was enlightening.

Go forth and porn.

Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.

[thefrogman]

This must be the worst energy drink in existence.

The lowest energy crowd I've ever seen.

For one of the final acts, a walking corpse came on stage.

Turns out that corpse was Lee Greenwood, famous singer of "God Bless the USA."

He used up a fresh bottle of Just For Men and doesn't look a day over 112.

He kept trying to get the crowd into his song and he was getting frustrated that they weren't hyped to see an octogenarian sing.

He yelled, "Sing it with me!"

And they cut to Trump and his birthday entourage.

Very lively.

Pete sang along though. He was the only one.

Then Lee yelled, "Light up your cell phones!"

And then, finally, he won the crowd over and everyone swayed in unison—creating a majestic light show.

I'm just kidding.

8 people did it.

The night ended with a very lackluster fireworks show intercut with a military propaganda video.

And then everyone just kinda shuffled away.

I'm pretty sure Trump wanted a North Korea-style spectacle.

And instead he got the world's slowest truck.

He was having trouble hiding his disappointment.

What a waste.

This parade is one of the most thrown-together low-energy events I've ever seen. Our high school float parade had more enthusiasm.

The best part... Trump is bored out of his skull.

Though every once in a while he stands up and salutes.

It's really weird.

Also, they just paused the presentation to thank a sponsor.

Classy.

[thefrogman]

I've been liveblogging the parade.

It's like watching our tax money be set on fire.

They just had robot dogs.

Trump did not salute the robot dogs.

Also, Lockheed Martin is the new sponsor.

The US government is their biggest customer. 70% of their income is from the Department of Defense.

"Sure, we'll use some of the money you paid us to help pay for your little parade."

It's like a financial auroboros.

This parade is one of the most thrown-together low-energy events I've ever seen. Our high school float parade had more enthusiasm.

The best part... Trump is bored out of his skull.

Though every once in a while he stands up and salutes.

It's really weird.

Also, they just paused the presentation to thank a sponsor.

Classy.

[thefrogman]

These days it seems like people just *want* to hate things.

They never root for things to be good anymore.

They hyperanalyze a few seconds of a trailer and say a movie is horrible before they've even seen it.

Not everyone digs James Gunn's style. That's fine. But I love that he takes bold creative risks. I love that he subverted Marvel's flat color grading and used bright saturated colors.

And I love that he subverted DCs ultra grim dark aesthetic and allowed Superman to have a hopeful and more optimistic color scheme and lighting.

And a bunch of anime nerds getting angry at an obvious anime reference is... confusing.

Related: Patrick Willems did a great video on movies and flying.

Wide angle lenses distort the image so close things are big and far things are small.

I personally think this is a really cool creative choice because wide angle lenses are great at depicting speed. The large stuff turns into tiny stuff very rapidly.

You can even do it with still photography.

It's like how your sense of speed changes from a car to a go-kart. The car is going faster, but the go kart *feels* faster just because of your change in perspective.

It's weird that people with anime avatars are complaining about this effect because this is how flight is depicted in many shows.

And I also hate this trend of singling out a frame of video. You cannot judge video that way. It removes the entire context.

I think that looks cool. It's very similar to FPV drone footage and I think that grounds it to a reality we are familiar with.

The Superman flying scenes immediately reminded me of the world's fastest drone vs an F1 car video.

The sense of speed would not have been as impactful and immersive without the wide perspective.

I love wide angle.

My ultra wide angle lens is the most fun lens of all my lenses.

Embrace the ultra wide!

[thefrogman]

JD Vance: Is this the one where they follow a group of young New York City artists during the peak of the AIDS crisis? Where the original cast featured Idina Menzel seven years before her breakout role as Elphiba in Wicked?

Usha: [hysterical laughter]

Whoops! That's apparently a different thing called "Rent." Probably some gay DEI show I've definitely never heard of!

Trump is oblivious to the fact that he loves entertainment that is very popular with gay men. And now he is dragging JD Vance with him and JD is trying way too hard to signal he doesn't want to be there.

"I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE GAY MUSICALS! HAHAHAHAHA! HERE IS A DETAIL ABOUT A GAY MUSICAL THAT I WOULD ONLY KNOW IF I HAD SEEN THAT GAY MUSICAL. AHAHAHAHA. PLEASE LAUGH AT MY FUNNY JOKE, WIFE. I AM NOT GAY. PLEASE DON'T PUT IN THE NEWSPAPER THAT I AM GAY."

Meanwhile, Trump...

"I love YMCA. It's the greatest song ever recorded. The Village People were the last great band. Very catchy beats, from the standpoint of dancing. And I love that they were just regular working class guys with normal jobs. I tried to hire the construction worker to build Trump Tower, but he told me that wasn't the kind of tower he was into.

Broadway musicals are the highest form of entertainment from the standpoint of making me feel things. Les Mis, such a beautiful play. It's about bread, can you believe it? A whole musical about bread! You gotta pay for your bread, folks. Just give them $200 or whatever bread costs, show them your ID for buying groceries, and then you don't have to worry about the bread police, okay?

Later we're going to a wonderful bar called "The Bulge." Isn't that a funny name? I assume that is because all the men have big bulging muscles. Very fit, these guys. You'll never see more manly men. Very strong, very shiny guys. They could probably lift some heavy stuff, from the standpoint of weight.

Not quite as manly as the people over at Lumberjacked. Those are some very very hairy men. Very manly. Very good at handling wood, or so they tell me. The lumber industry is very important. 900% tariffs. We're bringing wood handling back to America.

They play a lot of Elton John there. My favorite musician and a great dresser, from the standpoint of sparkles. Lotta sparkly outfits, I love it."

[thefrogman]

That is a perfect example of a good use of the VAERS system (ATM machine? chai tea?). It's important to document everything so they can detect patterns in the data. Most reports are mild symptoms or just coincidences. But they want to have as much data as possible. Which is why your doctor was correct to advise you to report it.

I'm going to copy/paste some of my replies...

VAERS does allow self reporting, but most of the time it is a medical professional who does it. (Ironically, that fact is often used by anti-vaxxers to lend their claims more credibility. “Doctors are reporting this! Not crazy people!” without any context.)

People misunderstand the point of VAERS. The system isn’t about proving causality. It’s about gathering a large, messy pool of symptoms so patterns can be found. And they want to know the smallest symptoms along with the more serious ones. They want to know seemingly unrelated symptoms too, just in case that assessment is in error or there is an interaction with something else.

Even if there is a tiny chance of a vaccine being related, they want to know about it.

If someone has mild arm pain, that might be connected to people with a more severe reaction. Or many people might get mild arm pain and so the vaccine manufacturers can warn people, "Hey, your arm may hurt for a day or two, this is normal, plan accordingly." That kind of transparency helps reduce panic. When people know what to expect, they’re less likely to freak out over harmless symptoms.

In short, the need for lots of data is being used against researchers. Any large dataset will have noise. Scientists know this. They use statistical tools to filter it out. But anti-vaxxers lump together all the noise—the mild, the unrelated, and the rare serious events—and present it as one big scary number.

Anti-vaxxers include the noise, the mild symptoms, and the rare serious ones all together in their bogus statistics and don't bother to differentiate. Mild arm pain goes in the same bucket as death. Unrelated sniffles go in the same bucket as blood clots. And then they set the bar at 100% safe, which no medicine can claim.

There is no medical intervention in history that is 100% safe. We'd have no medicine at all if we required that kind of certainty.

VAERS only labels things as "adverse events." That does not mean the vaccine was the cause. They want as much data as possible so they can see patterns. You could report your experience and even say, "I think this is because of my needle anxiety," and they would still be happy to have that data, just in case you were wrong about the cause and there is a larger pattern.

Many of the VAERS reports are unrelated symptoms. But that data can still be valuable to know. It can help them rule things out. It can warn them of possible interactions. Or it can just help them build better filters for noise in the data.

Unfortunately, anti-vaxxers label any adverse event as a "vaccine injury" even if it was classified as unrelated. They don't differentiate getting the sniffles with death. They are using this amazing research tool in bad faith.

----------------------

VAERS is not just interested in the serious events. They want to be able to warn people of any symptoms and relieve anxiety if they are mild or part of the process. If your wife knew ahead of time that swelling may happen, I'm guessing that would have been comforting knowledge. If she knew everyone who had a similar reaction was fine and recovered quickly, she wouldn't go into a panic spiral and wonder if she should go to urgent care or the ER.

One thing both sides kinda get wrong is the reporting aspect.

The Left often assumes VAERS is flooded with reports from conspiracy theorists blaming vaccines for every bad thing that happens afterward. In reality, about 25% of reports are submitted by patients, parents, or loved ones. Most of those are in good faith, often at the recommendation of a medical professional. Yes, a small portion may come from conspiracy dipshits, but data scientists are trained to filter that noise. Self reporting data is still valuable and we shouldn't discourage it or claim it is all anti-vax nutballs fucking up the system.

People on the Right often assume that because most reports are submitted by medical professionals, it proves the events were caused by vaccines. But professionals submit reports even when they suspect the vaccine had nothing to do with it. Because more data is better data. These reports help identify rare complications, yes—but they also help build a comprehensive database of expected side effects. The irony is that this system doesn't expose some horrible vaccine doom. It actually makes vaccines safer and allows doctors to provide better guidance and care.

It's a great tool that produces a lot of good information to help people make decisions about their vaccinations.

And it is being weaponized by anti-vaccine zealots.

I do not have any data on how much of that number is gum theft and how much is murder. But I am still very concerned.

VAERS receives about ~1.26 million adverse event reports per year.

An adverse event report does not mean the vaccine was at fault. The event just happened near the time a vaccine was administered.

~5000 of these events are serious and require hospitalization.

In the last 10 years there have been 9 confirmed deaths involving a complication with a vaccine (along with other factors) out of over 4 billion doses.

Even if that bullshit number was accurate, that would mean 2,665,787 injuries versus 9 deaths.

[thefrogman]

I will now attempt to build a banana.

First, I will study the banana.

Next, I will start the banana building ritual.

Now I will become the banana.

Something has gone awry.

Please send assistance.

I knew outsourcing all of our banana factories would come back to bite us in the potassium.