Mark Cleghorn: Can you say "Actually"? - A little comic relief

I found this to be amusing and thought you guys might also get a kick out of it.

We all have patterns of speech and little idiosyncrasies but Mark Cleghorn, the photographer that does all the video demos for Lastolite has an interesting quirk in his vocabulary.

He uses the word 'actually' an inordinate number of times in a a very short period, to the point of it becoming extremely obvious and perhaps a bit annoying.

You can watch any of the video demos to see what I mean and I took 2 of them just for the fun of it and counted the number of times the word is used.

I took a look at the first 2 videos on this page.

In the first video on shooting Low Key images, which is 2:23 in length he uses 'actually' 21 times.

In the second video on shooting Mid Key, which is 3:33 he uses it 30 times.

I actually found that it was actually a bit overbearing, actually.

I have one of his books (courtesy of blonde). Fortunately, he doesn't write the same way he speaks.

cdifoto wrote in post #6425387
I have one of his books (courtesy of blonde). Fortunately, he doesn't write the same way he speaks.

How are his books? I was tempted to grab one of the videos but I'm not sure I'd be able to get past what is actually very annoying.. LOLOL

Not really very useful, IMHO. At least, the book I have doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know from common sense and/or experience. I think it's more for absolute beginners...there's even a couple pages on the different types of cameras. On the upshot, that same chapter talks about different modifiers. I wasn't aware of some of them that were mentioned.

cdifoto wrote in post #6425406
Not really very useful, IMHO. At least, the book I have doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know from common sense and/or experience. I think it's more for absolute beginners...there's even a couple pages on the different types of cameras.

That's kind of what I thought. I don't hear anyone else using or recommending books written by him. His demo videos are ok but certainly not something that anyone else couldn't have done. He demos the products and that's about it.

Yeah. He doesn't really come across in the book as any kind of "guru" so to speak...more like the average professional photographer. He has some nice samples in the book but most are average at best. Some are even straight out retarded, in my opinion.

TMR Design wrote in post #6425348
I found this to be amusing and thought you guys might also get a kick out of it.

We all have patterns of speech and little idiosyncrasies but Mark Cleghorn, the photographer that does all the video demos for Lastolite has an interesting quirk in his vocabulary.

He uses the word 'actually' an inordinate number of times in a a very short period, to the point of it becoming extremely obvious and perhaps a bit annoying.

You can watch any of the video demos to see what I mean and I took 2 of them just for the fun of it and counted the number of times the word is used.

I took a look at the first 2 videos on this page.

In the first video on shooting Low Key images, which is 2:23 in length he uses 'actually' 21 times.

In the second video on shooting Mid Key, which is 3:33 he uses it 30 times.

I actually found that it was actually a bit overbearing, actually.

Cleghorn's video demos on the Lastolite site drive me NUTS. He seems incapable of forming a sentence without using the word "actually" at least twice. You'd think someone from Lastolite or Lastolite's ad agency would have said something to him or had him replaced as the spokes-pro.

Dave F.

tetrode wrote in post #6425630
Cleghorn's video demos on the Lastolite site drive me NUTS. He seems incapable of forming a sentence without using the word "actually" at least twice. You'd think someone from Lastolite or Lastolite's ad agency would have said something to him or had him replaced as the spokes-pro.

Dave F.

I agree Dave. For anyone going to the Lastolite site, it's not obvious at first, or if you just watch one video you may not be aware of it but if you're paying attention and then move on to another video you feel like your head is going to explode, actually.

Sorry, I just can't resist.

Actually, I tried to listen to the video for what it was, and I couldn't actually comprehend what he was trying to say because he actually said actually way too many times, actually. Paying for the full tutorials would have been a waste of my money, even if they were full of useful awesome insider information.

cdifoto wrote in post #6425949
Actually, I tried to listen to the video for what it was, and I couldn't actually comprehend what he was trying to say because he actually said actually way too many times, actually. Paying for the full tutorials would have been a waste of my money, even if they were full of useful awesome insider information.

I completely agree. And it's not like the full length videos are scripted and any better because the online teasers are excepts from the full length videos. If he says 'actually' 30 times in a 3:33 clip then there is no way I would be able to sit through a 39 minute video.

cdifoto wrote in post #6425387
I have one of his books (courtesy of blonde). Fortunately, he doesn't write the same way he speaks.

No, fortunately his EDITOR does not let the book go out with the same quirks that are in his speech! Cleghorn might have written in the 'actually' all over, before editing!

Reminds me of a teacher in a class I took. She said "okay" too many times like that. It drove me crazy! I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying because I was waiting for the next time she would say "okay". It was all I could hear.

HI Char,

I know someone that does that exact same thing. Every other word is 'okay' and each sentence is followed by "you follow?", but he's not really asking if you do follow. It's just a pattern of speech that he doesn't even realize he's doing.

Wilt wrote in post #6426059
No, fortunately his EDITOR does not let the book go out with the same quirks that are in his speech! Cleghorn might have written in the 'actually' all over, before editing!

Thank god for that. I couldn't imagine if that was 'actually' in print Wilt. I was watching a few more of the Lastolite videos last night and I thought my head was going to start bleeding, actually.

TMR Design wrote in post #6430455
HI Char,

I know someone that does that exact same thing. Every other word is 'okay' and each sentence is followed by "you follow?", but he's not really asking if you do follow. It's just a pattern of speech that he doesn't even realize he's doing.

I know someone that does that exact same thing. Every other phrase is 'right?' and each sentence is followed by "right?", but he's not really asking for validation of the statement, or even agreement. It's just a pattern of speech that he doesn't even realize he's doing