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Some inspiration:

fotografz

Well-known member
Public viewing of the Hasselblad Masters competition: :thumbs:

http://www.hasselblad.com/mastersPublicJury


Lots and lots of inspiration for all photographers regardless of gear brand. Heck, I even like some images in the Landscape category :ROTFL:

Note to self: Marc, you WILL enter this next year in the Wedding category ... my grip batteries are charging up for this Saturday's wedding ;)
 
J

jmvdigital

Guest
Nice work up there. It's too bad the web interface sucks though. Having to reload the page for every image? I gave up, looked at the thumbnails and left.
 

LJL

New member
Note to self: Marc, you WILL enter this next year in the Wedding category ... my grip batteries are charging up for this Saturday's wedding ;)
Marc,
Will that be with the -31?, or have you snuck something bigger into the kit like a -50 at this point? :D (You had mentioned staying in the Hassy world, but moving up to something, plus looking to sell the -39.)

Does this mean you are reconsidering using just MF over the A900 kit for weddings, or is this one where there may be enough good light and setting to break out the bigger gun for killer images?

Good luck with the shoot, and I will be looking for your entries next year:thumbs:

LJ
 
D

ddk

Guest
Just managed to go through the portrait section, some wonderful work there but what I find surprising is how much of it is heavy post processed based, otherwise they just might not make the cut without it.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Just managed to go through the portrait section, some wonderful work there but what I find surprising is how much of it is heavy post processed based, otherwise they just might not make the cut without it.
That's the rage in portrait work right now ... and not just with Hasseys.

Unfortunately, it has also crept into wedding stuff. IMO all the flashiness is hiding lack of well timed and sensitive content. Remove all the layers and basically all that's left is a pedestrian image. :thumbdown:

I just posted a video in the analog section of Winogrand shooting with his M and blabbing on camera ... and one thing he said struck a cord with me. Something like the fact that to many photographers are overly absorbed with what an image looks like rather than what it is depicting ... or something to that effect. He thinks it's all so boring ... I tend to agree with him ... a lot! Probably because my stock in trade is all about content ... that nano second that defines still photography IMHO.

http://leicarumors.com/
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Honestly the wedding images were really weak.
I'm not sure they are "really weak", maybe just "weak" with just a few that are pretty cool ... which is WHY I'm shooting for next year's entry. I'm planning on kicking their collective asses :ROTFL:

That's what's "inspiring" me. :thumbup:

Sorry, I'm just not feeling them ... but that's true about a lot of top wedding work these days regardless of gear used ... flashy fashion look ... but lite on human content and magical timing.

Maybe I'm becoming a dinosaur ... but the more it goes that way, the more I want to go my way ... maybe I'll be out of business if I do that ... and then I won't have to worry about it anymore ;)
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Marc,
Will that be with the -31?, or have you snuck something bigger into the kit like a -50 at this point? :D (You had mentioned staying in the Hassy world, but moving up to something, plus looking to sell the -39.)

Does this mean you are reconsidering using just MF over the A900 kit for weddings, or is this one where there may be enough good light and setting to break out the bigger gun for killer images?

Good luck with the shoot, and I will be looking for your entries next year:thumbs:

LJ
Yeah, the H3D-II/31 ... I use the 39 more for commercial stuff, usually on a view camera. It's the 39 I'm looking to replace with a 50 and why it's up for sale. I'm not selling the 31.

It depends on the job and conditions. The Sony one time, the H3D another, or the Nikon for another. The only constant is whatever I take, the M8 tags along.

To date the best stuff, I've managed to get at a wedding has been with the H3D-II/31 or the M8. But the DSLRs are a must for certain conditions, no getting around that.

-Marc
 

Sharokin

New member
I'm not sure they are "really weak", maybe just "weak" with just a few that are pretty cool ... which is WHY I'm shooting for next year's entry. I'm planning on kicking their collective asses :ROTFL:

That's what's "inspiring" me. :thumbup:

Sorry, I'm just not feeling them ... but that's true about a lot of top wedding work these days regardless of gear used ... flashy fashion look ... but lite on human content and magical timing.

Maybe I'm becoming a dinosaur ... but the more it goes that way, the more I want to go my way ... maybe I'll be out of business if I do that ... and then I won't have to worry about it anymore ;)

I completely agree with you. So many wanna be superstars following fake ones.
 

LJL

New member
Just went back over the various galleries again. Honestly, most are not terribly impressive things. The Landscapes are quite dramatic, and a couple of the studio renderings for the Products look good. The Portraits, also dramatic, seem overprocessed to get skin that looks....well....plastic in a completely different way, Marc ;-)

The Wedding shots are not great by any stretch, but I do like the wide angle use in a few of them. The "editorial" style in the wedding shots is becoming more common, as noted, but that does not mean the photog actually caught the moment that we talk about and that Winogrand goes on about in those videos.

So, from that, I can see how these collections are an inspiration to Marc and others, knowing that there is a lot of running room to do something that looks more interesting, more refined, more grabbing, or whatever one is after. Not putting any of the Hassy "Masters" down, but I do not see most of what is being used as being all that spectacular....save some of the dramatic Landscapes. The rest could have been done with any camera, for the most part, and there is nothing that screams "Hassy MF rocks", or anything like that from these shots.

Just my thoughts on this. So, I do see them as more of an open challenge to best the shots in every category......now I guess I need to pony up for a Hassy, eh? ;-)

LJ
 

Arjuna

Member
What I got from a quick viewing of the Winogrand video, and I have heard/read some of his thoughts before, was that we know too much about how pictures/photographs look, or can look, but he doesn't want to think about that, he wants to capture a piece of, a moment of, life. (in this context, perhaps, forget about the post-processing, heavily stylized, 'looks').
 

LJL

New member
...and that works if your goal is more editorial than anything else. It does little for the more "artistic" expressions, or when the goal is to convey lots of detail and subtle expressions in a more "created" image. Winogrand, to me, was all about "street shooting" and what life is composed of beyond the interpretations. Would not expect him to "compete" in areas where attention to detail, such as landscape, fashion, product, and maybe even wedding shooting has some expectations of what the audience wants to see. Shooting the "raw life" is fine, but it does not sell products, nor portrait sessions, nor a lot of other things. It is its own genre, and has its following. It is its own "art form". There was one segment in the first English video when he was shooting outside a sidewalk cafe and somebody asked what he was doing. His reply was something along the lines of "just trying to survive". A shared feeling for many, but having different applications across different audiences who may be the ones "paying" to help that survival. Maybe that is the "prostitution" of photographers trying to earn that living?

LJ
 

carstenw

Active member
Honestly the wedding images were really weak.
Interestingly, I found that a lot of the more interesting *photographs* were very weak as *wedding photos*. Half-cut off faces and so on lend a lot of tension to an image, but really, who wants wedding photos where half the faces are missing? I thought that some of those photographers took the *art* so far that they lost sight of the occasion.

I agree Marc, if the judges are half-way sane, your stuff is way better than most of what is there this year. On the other hand, if the judges were sane, those photos wouldn't have won. I don't think you should get your hopes too high; clearly they are looking for something different.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
What I got from a quick viewing of the Winogrand video, and I have heard/read some of his thoughts before, was that we know too much about how pictures/photographs look, or can look, but he doesn't want to think about that, he wants to capture a piece of, a moment of, life. (in this context, perhaps, forget about the post-processing, heavily stylized, 'looks').
Exactly.

Probably why he uses a rangefinder which doesn't even show what effect a wide angle has ... just what is in the frame in terms of content.

It is exactly why I still like using a rangefinder more than a DSLR.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Interesting reaction on a Hasselblad Pro forum I participate in ... lots of bitching about the over-processed look of everything ... and whether it's a photo contest or a Photoshop contest :wtf:

But there is also a general feel that is what is being bought in the marketplace. I'd have to agree with that based on my recent experiences in the advertisng world. I think I got out just in time ;)
 

Dale Allyn

New member
Interesting reaction on a Hasselblad Pro forum I participate in ... lots of bitching about the over-processed look of everything ... and whether it's a photo contest or a Photoshop contest :wtf:

But there is also a general feel that is what is being bought in the marketplace. I'd have to agree with that based on my recent experiences in the advertisng world. I think I got out just in time ;)
Marc,

This is an interesting topic in and of itself. I find it find very frustrating (or bewildering, or...) that "over cooked" images get the "oohs and ahhs" in so much of the market. If one carefully processes an image to be as true to a scene, or even a "feeling" of a scene, it may very well be less appealing to the marketplace than one which was processed such that that saturation slider was practically pegged right or the most aggressive of curves was applied, etc. I'm not commenting in reference to the work linked at the start of this thread, just speaking generally.

It can be a bit disheartening at times as one tries to avoid that look. :)

(Oh, and this is not to say that I don't screw up and process too aggressively at times, at least for the on-line versions, but that's not the kind of work that I like. Interestingly, a few of my "screw-ups" that should be replaced on-line, actually get the most attention. Ugh.)
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Marc,

This is an interesting topic in and of itself. I find it find very frustrating (or bewildering, or...) that "over cooked" images get the "oohs and ahhs" in so much of the market. If one carefully processes an image to be as true to a scene, or even a "feeling" of a scene, it may very well be less appealing to the marketplace than one which was processed such that that saturation slider was practically pegged right or the most aggressive of curves was applied, etc. I'm not commenting in reference to the work linked at the start of this thread, just speaking generally.

It can be a bit disheartening at times as one tries to avoid that look. :)

(Oh, and this is not to say that I don't screw up and process too aggressively at times, at least for the on-line versions, but that's not the kind of work that I like. Interestingly, a few of my "screw-ups" that should be replaced on-line, actually get the most attention. Ugh.)
Actually, we shouldn't be surprised in general when viewing the commercial world or even selling to the public at large. The top scoring images on Photo.net give you a glimpse of that.

The more stuff looks like a Thomas Kinkade "Painter of Light" image, the more oohs and ahhs it gets. :eek:
 

LJL

New member
On the color side of things, it is getting a bit like "Velvia on steroids" for the new wave. I have seen many articles in various mags that are "showcasing" the super saturated, smoothed out, over-processed look as the new "art". What seems the most disturbing about this is that in some ways it may be an outgrowth of the DSLR side of things, where on some of the older models and many of the cropped sensor models, there is a lack of DR. To compensate (over-compensate?), the saturation gets pushed even further as does the contrast, all blurring what little subtle DR may have been there into oblivion. This is such a contrast to what MF is really capable of delivering, with all the subtle shades and colors in a broad DR profile....plus detail. Instead, the new "art" works to smear the detail or remove it and push the saturation to the max, as Dale mentions.

On the B/W side, a similar thing seems to be happening also. Instead of working to bring out the detail and grain and knife-edge sharpness, the contrast gets boosted to levels of deep blacks and blown out whites with little character between. It is an art that works for some imagery, but not to the extent that is seems to be nearly overused today. Why use a MF rig only to disgard a lot of what it is capable of delivering that few other things can? Hoping that pendulum starts to swing the other way in a little while.

LJ
 
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