APhotoContributor

marketing genius.

granted, i don't understand japanese corporate mentality.  i know it's different than what i know about north american and european corporate culture ...

but, seriously, canon japan was so inconceivably stupid today ... it made even me question anything they do.  that whole mark 3 bullshit coulda killed them.  only because shooters are invested in glass did a good number stick with canon.

yes, guys, totally-totally-totally remove one of the best pieces of viral marketing you could ever think of having produced.

i think that's the issue though:  they didn't think of it.

so typical of corporate idiots.

i guess by writing this i'll probably never have a cool relationship with canon japan.  whatever.

had this conversation with a friend the other day ... about photography ... about the fact you can never ever be as good as the camera you have ... about gear-allegiance. 

I'll digress.  i shot nikon for years and years and years.  i'll bet there are people younger than how long i shot nikon.  the f5 was superb.  the f4 was superb.  hell ... the f3's and fm2's and fm3a's i shot were all superb.  i always looked at canon as kinda funny looking and perhaps even cheap looking.  the nikons were solid sexy beasts.

then digital happened.  had the d1.  then the d1x.  for what it did at the time it did it ... it was amazing.  had a shutterbox go.  had it replaced.  had a few bodies go at the same time.  heard that one of the wires was moving to canon and that i should do that as well.  got a 1d and used it as the ambient body.  i liked what it did and although i thought flash sucked with canon.  the mark 2 came out and although flash still wasn't great, i went canon all the way.  ciao-ciao nikon.  nikon's digital sucked ass until only recently really.

seems as though the nikon japan people are a bit smarter than their canon counterparts.  now, at least.

the whole mark three bullshit with autofocus really hurt canon.  my friends told me endless stories about missing shots or getting the shots but the the mark 3's didn't focus correctly.  pissed a lot of people off.  in fact, i know a lot of people who now shoot nikon yet only a month or so ago there were canons on their shoulders.  dunno if the "traditional wires" will switch but i know others who may or may not have "had a better take" at the olympics ... were shooting the new nikons.

interesting that canon has the successor to a camera system PLAGUED with issues ... and they pull one of the dumbest selfish moves ... ever.

they have the chance to fire back to nikon's newest ... and ...

they do that.

since the advent of digital i have far less camera loyalty than i had in the past.  it was sad selling the f4's and getting the f5's.  even though the d1's were groundbreaking i didn't feel bad selling them nor any other digital gear after that.

don't get me wrong my 1dsm3's are amazing cameras.  i don't shoot sports ... and except for the rare spaniel running at me ... my subjects are less than fast-moving.  in fact, i don't even usually shoot canon glass so autofocus isn't as important to me as it is to MOST of my friends -- a good number, of which, are shooting nikon now.  i love love love the 5dm2 not only because of what it can do with motion but because it's a phenomenal camera ... it's the 3-series bmw of the camera world. 

they only really fail with on-camera flash.  nikon's new stuff looks pretty nice.

thing is ... i'm happy with the equipment i'm using irrespective of the manufacturer.  would i switch?  i mean ... sure ... i'd go back.  i liked nikon glass well enough.

it's funny because ... there are two brands of which i'd never switch ... leica and apple.  if you're not just "in it for the status" leica can do more for your serious photography than canon or nikon ever could.  apple just works.  pc-people can say whatever they'd like; apple kicks ass.  i know more than a few network security people who "never want to see a fuckin' windows box" at home. ;)  they know who they are.

it's funny watching canon and nikon playing the iso game right now.  i know i know i know ... 6400's amazing with the new nikons.  i haven't used the new mark 4 but i'm told it's one of the better features of the camera.  i know 3200 and definitely 1600 are pretty damn good with the 5dm2's and 1dsm3's.  i use them regularly.

i was "meh" about the mark 4.  won't be buying one.  i'd use one, though, just to see what's up.  the only camera i've been excited about in the last year is the m9.  yeah, i know ... rangefinders have weaknesses.  so the fuck what.  i guess it's easier for some to just forget about what they loved shooting to what they felt was more pragmatic to shoot.  even when the m9 wasn't around i still shot my third body which was a leica mp or whatever i felt like picking off the shelf.  the timeliness of the images may have made them a bit irrelevant at the end of the day but ... they're still images i loved making and could have only made with a rangefinder.

if you hate rangefinders, i don't care.  you can leave your pithy-ass anonymous comment.  don't give a rat's ass.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that it's so refreshing to see a camera company take a chance and really do it right ... with the m9. 

the other "noise" is just kinda funny.

and sadly stupid that they would have their heads so far up their asses because of corporate cowardice and selfishness. 

even though they fired their counterstrike to the d3s, i think i can hear that tennis umpire say "advantage nikon."  dumb move dumb asses.

because leica became so relevant again with their little wondercamera ... it continues to replace my canon ambient body more and more and more ...

i know my shoulder's happy about it.

okay ... sorry ... was just pissed tonight.

hope you're all well!

cheers from a still-warm los angeles.

-c

hype

as much as i want canon to succeed in this apparent iso-competition between canon and nikon ... it just makes me laugh.  canon announced the mark 4 today.  it's been being tested by beta-testers since at least that world soccer thing in south africa. 

from what i heard there wasn't any "buzz" -- the kind that doesn't make it on the friggin' internet -- about the video and high iso functions.  all i was hearing about was the autofocus ... seeing as how the mark 3's were ... well ... a bit less than what shooters wanted.

would i switch back to nikon?  no.  i'm not doing sports.  in as much as my friends who are "back to shooting nikon" show me the results with on-camera flash ... well ... what i have is still plenty good.

i'm not impressed by iso's in the 100,000+ range.  camera manufacturers want us all to think ... we need the newest equipment.  that's total bs.  in fact, my cameras are far better at making files than i am. 

if i were to go out and spend $10K on new golf clubs, i'd still be unable to break 100.

same thing goes for cameras.

i know that i've made a nine foot wide print with the files coming out of my 5dm2's and 1dsm3's.  21 mp is perfectly fine for the work i do.  if i need something bigger, i'll rent it.  looking forward to the time i need to use something like the s2! :)

back to iso.  back in the day film slrs would tout themselves as "the fastest," the smallest, the most feature-packed, etc., etc.  i think now it's gonna be a race to iso prominence.  i mean ... like that matters.  honestly, there's never been a shot i've missed due to my cameras not being able to shoot fast-enough isos.  i guess if you're shooting "kit glass" it could matter but i prefer shooting the fastest available glass. there's no substitute for good, fast glass.

then again, if you can't shoot, none of it really matters.

let's see what else?  oh, yeah, the 5dm2 and it's future 24/25p capabilities.  i don't believe shit i believe on the web.  having been part of the m9 project i can tell you ... the shit you see on the web is laughable.  my favourite piece of bullshit was the "the m9 will have the 5dm2 sensor" or the dude who took apart an m8 to prove it couldn't ever be full-frame.  BULLSHIT.  thing is ... even though both of the people who put that up on whatever board it was ... i'm sure they're still posting.  posting bullshit.

i'm sure they're still making horrible photos. ;)

honestly, from the film industry people i know who were using the 5dm2 on real film sets told me that the cameras came from canon but included some kind of hardware change and that at the time 24/25p couldn't be achieved with just a "firmware update."  interesting.

honestly, though, i don't know why people are so excited about 24/25p ... please tell me when you're gonna have this projected ... 'cause that's the only reason you'd want 24/25p.  i'm good with 29.97.  i just wish canon and even nikon would fucking forget this h264 bullshit.  i think they should output to apple prores 422!  do you know how much time i'd save in transcoding? ;)

get with the fucking program.  screw h264.  funny thing is that some "film expert" who's a friend of a friend told me "you can totally edit in h264."  um, sure, buddy.  you keep believing that.  funny 'cause i saw what this "film expert" shot himself and i almost threw up in my mouth.

whatever.

at least zeiss got another lens out for us canon-users!  so looking forward to both the 21 and the 28.  unsure about the 35 as i almost don't think it's gonna be wide enough to justify purchasing. dunno.  we'll see.

i'm sure you've seen laforet's latest production?  god damn do i hate linking to anything with the smugmug name in it.  that's the stupidest friggin' name on the planet.  smugmug?  fuck me.

i've been having a private conversation -- which arose from me taking something the wrong way -- with a longtime hollywood professional in the "camera department."  what i think is funny about "nocturne" is that it's a production.  yes, it's pretty to look at.  yes, it's edited beautifully. 

but can you do it?  well ... if you have a nice dolly, access to aerial stuff, rad stabilization gear, um ... a total steadicam pro and like 30 other people ... sure you can friggin' do it, too.  

i don't think that laforet has seen the cinevate stuff, surely, if he did he'd be using it ...

of course, unless, redrock has a big "marketing budget." ;)

there's this quote ... my friend dan ... one of the best grips and people i know.  he'll see something i'm working on and say "now that's gripping my friend."  i'd text him right now but i know he's sleeping as he's working nights on one of the only big-budget films shooting in town right now.

anyway ... it's this quote about how to make a movie ... and needing an army of people to accomplish it. 

just going out with "you and your friend" and a 5dm2 or 7d or whatever variant you use ... you'll never be able to do what laforet does.

ask laforet if he "focuses himself."  bet he doesn't. 

i remember going to the premiere of some movie ... as a guest.  pretty enough.  i wouldn't expect any less.  i did notice a lot of flaws which ... for me ... because i'm an asshole took away from the story.  so ... at the after-party the person who brought me says "let's go say hi to xxx."

okay.

he says "so what did you think about the film?"

knowing he's a "leica guy" i knew i could say something other than what the ass-kissers would say, "um, may i be honest?"

"of course."

"it was a nice film except for the focusing on the close-ups."

he takes me by the arm away from a sea of suits -- people i know to be disgusting talent agents.  those suits were pissed that some "nobody" was getting the ear of one of the most successful producers on the planet.

after we're away from the earshot of "the suits" ... he says "that dumb motherfucker gave me 1 to 3 takes and i told him i wanted more."

i smile.

he goes on "those were the best-focused takes even though the takes weren't all that great.  i told him to fire the 1st asst. camera and he refused."

my smile dissolved to astonishment that this dude was sharing this kind of info, "... i told him i'd never use him again."

so .. i went and checked (i meant to in the past) ... the last and only film homeboy ever worked on ... as a director ... was the film mr. producer hired him for.  i love it when someone big in hollywood is NOT full of shit.  i won't go into exactly what mr. producer said but everything he said was true.

focus is important.

we then talked 30 minutes about everything leica.  the suits were glaring the entire time and when mr. producer actually gave me a hug ... and i left ... i said to one of the suits -- of course, a really short little guy -- "bro, you got an ugly spot on your tie."

he didn't but i thought i'd fuck with him as he clearly thought mr. producer and i had a relationship that ... we did not.

what he said to me ... lives inside my brain, though, and i think about it every time i'm shooting some little project.

my next project shoots soon.

and, yes, i'll be using a professional focus-puller or 1st a.c. as they're called ...

anyone who thinks they can do what laforet did alone, is smoking something funny.  you need a fucking army.

i know that sounds very american.

but the army i'm talking about isn't the kind which prosecutes improper and illegal wars...

they just make movies.

hope you're all well.

while i'm at it ... i want to thank you guys for continuing to read my site, making comments, sending me private emails ...

you guys are the best.

what i like the best about you guys?  is that you're all good shooters ...

unlike those other sites ... who's readers are just a bunch of old white guys who can't shoot their respective ways out of paper-fucking-bags.  and, no, leica is not just a status symbol.  if you actually knew the photo business -- like you claim to -- you'd know that leica is very much in the game.  then again, you'd have to talk to real photographers and not sycophants who -- for what reason i have no idea -- kiss your ass so that you mention them in your blog.  seriously, mate, please take some pictures so that we can see that you are talented. ;)  being a high school photo teacher doesn't mean shit ... nor does a bfa in photography.  in fact, a bfa usually means you can't shoot shit.  just so you know.  photos of trees and lawn furniture ... doesn't mean shit.

okay ... gotta jump in the shower.

cheers from a partly cloudy l.a.!

-c

UPDATE:  it would appear that laforet posted a blog to answer some questions.

also, the quote i was looking for was from orson welles ... "A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army."true then, true today, true about the laforet videos.  no way you're doing that with 2 people. ;)

photovests.

so ... the other day i taped a segment with my friend damon.  he posted it on youtube:

i discovered that i should have stolen damon's mike. ;)  i also discovered that he did a pretty cool interview with elliot erwitt.

we spoke about lots of things that afternoon.  a lot of what we spoke about didn't make it on video.  funny because when i write about gear my pageviews go through the roof.  seems like he experiences the same thing.  i guess that's why wank is so popular, no? (hope you click that last wank-link)

gear-bators make me laugh so hard.  just so you know ... because you own a fancy d-slr, slr, holga, rangefinder ... doesn't mean you can do anything good with it.  yes, of course, if you own any of the aforementioned that means that you know everything about photography.  it means instead of using the gear to make photos you sit in forums with other gear-bators and discuss everything photography ad naseum.

yes, i've seen the galleries attached to your profiles and they're total shit.

just so you know.

you're laughable.

what else?  um ... my first street photograph was made with an slr.  it was a big-ass slr as well.  the nikon f4 was not a small camera by any means.  it was a great camera.  don't really think the subjects -- they were dogs (go figure) -- minded too much.  i saw the limitations of doing this type of photography with an slr.  i then went to the contax g system.  it was a good system.  it's just that the autofocus system was more of a limiting factor rather than something good. 

that's when i bit the bullet.  i sold some gear i didn't use.

i bought a leica.

yes, i said it ... a leica.  it changed the way i saw things.  it was different than the contax in so many good ways.  yes, the contax g system had great glass if not a bit slow for my taste.

i wouldn't think of shooting street with anything else now.  yes, i've used the zeiss zm body and their lenses.  they are excellent.  in fact, the voigtlander stuff is excellent as well.  the lenses i've tried coming from voigtlander are pretty damn good as well.  wait ... i own the cv 15/4.5.  nice glass for sure.  cheap, too.  sorry ... inexpensive. 

i also like certain wines over other wines.

it's taste.

is taste bias?

perhaps.

i just know that i prefer leica products over just about everything else.

and why the fuck does that NOT matter?  i'm not doing some lame gear-bator pay-for-review-site punctuated by equally as lame photographs.  then again, i'm sure the audience -- who makes the same lame-ass photos -- probably loves the work.  misery is great company as they say.

so, yeah, i love shooting leica. 

don't be a jealous-ass hater rubbing up on your gear.  get a girl for that, mates. ;)

but .. i'll bet that would be a bigger challenge than buying a new piece of gear, right?

okay .. i gotta get outta here.

hope you're all well and enjoy damon's interview about ... gear. ;)

cheers from a way-to-friggin'-hot-to-be-driving-to-the-friggin-valley-to-look-at-curtains!

-chris

thank you

usually i try and comment back to everyone ... this time ... there was no way.  suffice it to say ... i enjoyed reading each and every comment, guys.

besides wanting to redux my '06 thing on dA ... i, like others i'm sure, found almost nothing on the web about street.  funny enough ... the most popular video out there was ... well ... something that became my motivation to do something better:

i mean ... yeah ... dress up like a cat burglar. i think the best part is "hi, i'm joel meyerowitz, i'm a serious photographer." yes, sir, you are. keep those cape cod landscapes comin' buddy. ;)

"here comes a whole breed of dogs.  look at this crowd.  look at this crowd!"

not gonna say who watched this with me but we laughed our asses off.

i mean ... he and colin westerbeck published bystander back in 1994.  if you can get through the first 100 or so pages ... it's not bad reading. ;)

so, yes, mr. meyerowitz ... thank you for the motivation.

seriously, i cannot believe the comments i've gotten!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

yes, i'm getting a full-on m9 review done.  thing is ... i think that what i write is much better suited for those who actually shoot.  it never ceases to amaze me that fucking people can review a camera THEY'VE NEVER EVEN FUCKING SHOT.

oh, sorry for the x-rated language.  i forgot that dentists and others who post on forums have virgin-fucking-ears.  sorry.  no, actually i'm not sorry.  then again, you know that.

i see someone post about the dynamic range, perhaps the same person who said the m8 could never be full-frame, and this is on their profile:

 

why don't you stick to school, mate.  clearly, you know nothing about photography.  not only ... but ... some other dude -- clearly, bitter about having bought an m8.2 and out to influence other gear-bators -- wrote this.

although i've met a few pretty good people through a couple of the message boards, for the most part they are populated and fed content, content being very loosely defined, by gear-bators.  i respect wank more than i respect the fat part of the bell curve of the people who post reviews about cameras they've never touched.

seriously, why even spend fucking time on a forum?  isn't photography about making photos and not finger-banging your equipment?  of course, one may finger-bang one's equipment whilst shooting.

if you want to learn more about photography and even gear for that matter, go to flickr ... go to dA.  if you go to a forum, you'll get a bunch of angry old white men who can't shoot yet post 10,000-fucking-posts and are probably friends with the fucking moderator so if you disagree with them they'll lock your post or even delete it ... or ... ban you.

wanna know what i find abso-fucking-lutely funny as shit?  the top posters on at least a few of the forums i've seen .. they don't even have public photo galleries?  ah ... too embarrassed of your snow-covered lawn furniture and brick walls? 

photography is about seeing something.

go to flickr.  go to dA.  go to wherever people post photos.  don't go to places where people pontificate about shit but have NO PHOTOGRAPHIC TALENT TO BACK THAT SHIT UP.  i'd rather talk to people who actually use cameras to make beautiful photos.  my friend ricci in nyc ... he's been making some nice m9 photos. :) 

okay ... enough of the diatribe.

i can't tell you how happy i am ... that one of my heavier dslr canon bodies ... the ambient body as opposed to the flash body ... is now replaced by a leica.  the leica m9.  well ... mine says leica m8 but it's insides are all m9.  my left shoulder thanked me, actually.  my right shoulder is still angry.  but ... i told the right shoulder to fuck off.

;)

perhaps if the right shoulder is nice i'll switch bodies from one side to the other.

perhaps.

okay ... unlike 99% of the people on the forums ... i actually get paid to make photos by some of the biggest publications and brands on the planet ... and that's what i gotta do.

and ... the m9 will be proudly on my happy left shoulder ...

as the right shoulder is pissed off about having a 1dsm3 weighing it down. ;)

shooting this camera -- the m9 -- is pure joy.  was experimenting with off-camera flash -- using a canon ttl cord -- and the m9.  interesting.

again, THANK YOU ALL FOR THE TERRIFIC COMMENTS ABOUT THE STREET VIDEO-THING.

hope your week gets off to a nice start!

cheers from the amazingly temperate los angeles!

-chris

christmas came early.

so did Hanukkah for that matter. dradles and snowmen all in one morning once i checked my messages. 

why?

(photoshopped for effect)

because ... well ... i'm not really proud of violence in any way, shape or form but ... i gotta tell you:  when someone has it coming because of numerous things ... they have it coming.  this on the heels of word that his orange-ness has yet another blog deal which is said to be homogenized. 

every guy i know -- okay there's one who probably hasn't -- has been punched.  i got punched over a wine cooler.  whatever.  stupid.

but when you "out" people with clearly private photos, continually use paparazzi photos clearly meant to hurt someone's feelings, um, and represent yourself as a "real media outlet" ... you probably deserve the punches.  so ... he calls canadian 411 ... which i'm sure is probably faster in mexico ... and is told no one was available to respond.

what does he do next?  he fucking twitters about it? 

whilst i'm happy that many of you have no idea who this piece of shit is ... others know that i'm not a fan.  he's got a such a false sense of entitlement it's nauseating.  listening to him is just as naseating.

watching photographers laugh at him on a red carpet is, however, a nice treat.

anyway ... after the police told him "they have real crimes going on" he tweets.  this donut-eating-cow's primary audience is 26 year old females in either kansas or canada.  both i think.  even though they have no connection to entertainment besides their lust for a new episode of john and kate plus eight and an unhealthy obsession with fucking vampires and the horribly untalented jonas-fucking-brothers ... they feel a connection through their long-lost sister, old orange mean fatty.

has kristen bell, who is beyond sweet, done anything mean to you, you fucking piece of shit?

because of his tremendous self-hate he draws penises on people, gives them photoshopped shit piles beneath them, faux-cocaine dots on their noses ... he sits around in his cute little bathrobe and cackles whilst drawing this shit.

his said audience eats it up and leaves hundreds of comments a day.

those 26 year olds are really what's wrong with the world, though.  they empower that piece of shit.

i remember back in the day when i said "why the fuck do you steal photos?  your site wouldn't be shit without photos.  no one would read even a sentence of your site without our exclusive photos." 

he's sneer back "everyone does it; why am i any different?  i'm just blogging."

he knew that was as much of a lie as what he accuses will.i.am. of doing on his own blog.

not only that ... but ... when is being gay a bad thing?  i love my gay friends.  whenever i've said "you're so gay" it's never been in a derogatory context.  i've had gay friends say to me "you're so gay."  what-the-fuck-ever.

i gotta tell you, though, i've never ever heard someone who's gay say "you're a faggot" in a mean hateful way.  the way his orangeness said that about will.i.am.  if you champion yourself for equal rights and pick on beauty queens for their heart-felt views, aren't you a bit of a fucking hypocrite?

aren't you?

i've never seen anyone refer to someone as what he said in such a self-hating mean way.  you can see that he really does hate himself for being something he's not quite comfortable with being.  is that perhaps why he always wants to out people?  perhaps that's why he tries and make young girls feel bad about themselves.

it's fucking sad.

i've pretty much gotten over the fact he used to steal so much of my work.  what's funny is that he knows i can't stand him.  he's asked certain publicists to not use me.  they still did, though.  it's sad to me that other shooters who've had their work ripped for totally commercial purposes and ran and hosted his server in eastern europe ... will still shoot when they know he's the end-client.  where are your principals?  i wouldn't shoot this piece of shit if you paid me 10 day rates.

okay ... i remember about a year and a half ago a client told me to shoot him and i laughed.  he asked "where are the photos of perez?" which i shot back "i think the camera had problems; looks like they weren't on the card when i got back."  i may or may not have shot him but somehow the photos were never syndicated.  ooops.  sorry.

hmm.

go figure.

there's no way i would help promote "his celebrity" because publicists, managers and the talent, if they're nice to him at all, is because they're using him for his pageviews.  i don't know anyone who admits to actually liking him as a person save one person but i beleive they're paid to like him.

i hope he looses his gay audience for being so self-hateful.

and look where that got him ... an 11 minute crying plea to his audience of 26 year old looser-chicks.  how many of them do you think have the same thing going on that kristen bell had going on in that one photo of her?  i'll be the percentage is quite fucking high.

what's funny to me is that someone like him with his new-found money which was built upon a foundation of self-hate and copyright theft ... actually said something to someone -- words can be just as hurtful as a punch -- who did something about it.

okay.  enough.  i'll take my giddy-ass to a movie with j to celebrate.

did you know that wank gets as many pageviews as nikon, by the way?  swear.  not only that but they run in parity sometimes.  crazy.  wank's not happy, today, though.  somehow the state of california is gonna do what north carolina did with internet sales.  whatever.  no sales tax break any more.  good while it lasted.  sites who support their bullshit by affilate percentages are fucked.  that, as it would appear by his pezez-esque manifesto, pisses him off.

seriously, they're almost the same.  one caters to self-esteem-challenged canadian females and the other to old fuckers who jerk off on their gear all day yet find time to search for "tasteful nudes."  of which ... did some amazing dof example work today.  amazing, man.

i'll bet no one that guy supposedly taught photography ... has ever made it ... or even made a decent photo. ;)

i know.

hateful.

whatever.

i'll leave you with allison from antm12.

dunno if i like her more here... perhaps. off to see "away we go."

there's one person who's gonna think i'm a dick for writing this about the fat meanie.  bro, sorry, you know why i don't like him.  he's a thief.  i still like you, though.

hope you're all well.

cheers from the most amazingly temperate l.a. one could ever ask for.

-chris

the bastardization of photography.

to preface:  i'm not a hater.  promise.

to further preface:  i do not think it's necessary to remove objects in photographs (e.g., Allan Detrich), i do not think it's necessary to be an idiot at clone stamping (e.g., reuters stringer), it's not necessary to clone photographic objects to make the composition better (e.g., la-times-walski) ... nor do i think that a fucked up frame should be massaged to high hell to get something closer to hdr (e.g., Klavs Bo Christensen).

whilst a lot of what i do ends up in weekly and monthly glossies, beyond levels, contrast, unsharp mask and a resize, which is done for me automatically given the transmission software i use, i don't do anything else.  i mean ... if you feel captioning is modification, of course.

getting back to that klavs shooter from denmark.  i saw this article and asked a friend to "give me the jist" as i don't speak danish.  go figure.  unless you're in solvang there's really no need.  i mean .. unless you live in denmark, of course.  i don't know klavs so i'm just gonna link rather than post his photos.  unlike some motherfuckers out there ... i don't post something i haven't asked to post.

homeboy's original camera file is this.  should you drag this file to your desktop and then drop it in photoshop, you'll see camera data as follows:



was stoked that wasn't stripped.  yeah, this dude totally-totally-totally underexposed this.  in the film world this would have been "thin."  i'm sure you still have that file open do an apple-l and look at the levels...

just for the fuck of it ... be the editor ... fix this image.  bring the both outside sliders in and move the mids a bit to the left. 

look at this photo.  what you get when you just fix this guy's levels is a far cry from the original.  for sure.  there are many more photos on the page.  the lone woman standing next to a shanty.  dunno if it's a shack or a shanty but i'll call it a shanty.  look at the camera data...



certainly likes iso 400 in daylight a lot. ;)  but f/8 at a thousandth is a pretty good exposure as the levels would seem to indicate...

but you look at the "finished version" and well ... it's really different.  like materially.

not only that ... but ... honestly ... if you are in a position to make your horizon level, do it.  it's more appeasing.  in this photo, though, there's a definite tilt.  one could argue that the tilt towards the lone subject could appear to make the weight of her surroundings seem to "pour toward her."

if you're going to make the argument that that danish guy who's name escapes me and i don't feel like scrolling up "saw the image as the finished image before he made the frame," yet "massaged" the original file to his "original vision," well, i don't know if visual journalism is the place for you. ;)

there's a third original camera file which that i feel is a pretty even exposure given the foreground and background.  do an apple-l and check the levels.  not a hell of a lot more you could unless you would used a 2- or 3-stop ND grad.  but ... you look at the "finished file" and ... it takes on a whole different character.  it made a wholly mundane dA-dd candidate into something perhaps not completely worth skipping over.

what someone like the danish guy is doing is masking any real talent in photography.

but what is this teaching the kids sitting in some high school photo class?  or a visual journalism class at brooks or some shit? 

honestly, the things i've seen performed to photos in front of me would tend to make me believe that a certain generation of cough-cough-photographer ... feels LIBERAL photoshopping is not only OK but required to "make a photo" look even halfway decent.

look at the twilght onesheet photographer's work.  in his defence at least his site's title includes "fine art" and "perception."  i'll give him that.  but seriously ... go personal>street.  honestly, surprised there are people on dA trying to copy this as they have with all of those textures and fake-bokeh-bullshit to cover up the fact their photography is mundane at best.

he used to have a "photojournalism section" but it would appear he took that down.  yet, he has a street section.  seriously?  hdr and multi-layer photoshop work qualifies this as street?

really?

perhaps they qualify as "street portraits," which in all actuality they are ...

i just don't see how friggin' any type of street photo can be photo-chopped and layered and called ... street.

honestly, though, i'm happy that such a young kid has broken into the ad world.  good for him. 

told ya' i wasn't a hater.

it's just these days the term photographer is such a "loose definition" of anyone who picks up a fucking camera.    in the real world ... the world of real work-flow and real editors looking at your un-photoshopped work ... GETTING IT RIGHT IN CAMERA MATTERS.

i have seen the RAW's from people who don't know i've seen their RAW work.  seriously, the flattest most uninteresting frames one could possibly imagine seeing ... not unlike that danish dude's camera originals. 

if you rely on photoshop or some other program to make your work viewable ... you, my friend, are not a photographer ... you are a photo illustrator.  plain and fucking simple.

not only ... but if you shoot the human condition (fka street) ... or journalism and add layers and filters and fake bokeh (hate that fucking word) ... you are a visual journalistic illustrator. ;)

and if you're a photographic writer who a) makes photos of babies at f/32 or b) you've never proved your photographic ability by posting anything worthwhile ... you are a fraud. ;)

so ... yeah ... there were a couple of other people i was going to pick on ... but i decided not to.

since the last few posts had photos i felt i deserved to write something that didn't include any photos of my own.

long live those photographers who make in-camera. ;)

cheers from the temperate los angeles!