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Something for Orio
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 1:50 pm    Post subject: Something for Orio Reply with quote

Some stuff about Pascal Dangin, the most famous (and rich) photo retoucher:

articles about him on New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_collins
and the Guardian http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/photography/story/0,,2279408,00.html


PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 2:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey, it's not fair, I gave you a link that you would like and you give me this? Twisted Evil


PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 2:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Orio wrote:
Hey, it's not fair, I gave you a link that you would like and you give me this? Twisted Evil
Laughing Wink

It's just to give everyone a view about the state of commercial photography today.

Btw, also the ultra celebrated Anne Leibovitz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz) usually uses Dangin to assemble her famous groups shots (she shot the various characters singularly).



PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't like this group image you show. At all. It feels to me pretexuous and...yes, fake.
And oh, she (they?) have forgotten the foot fingers of the rightmost model...

We are distant galaxies as far as photographic preferences go.

As for Leibovitz, I think that her portrait of Queen Elizabeth:



is horrendous. And with regards to postworking the photographs, I never saw in my life a wooden floor reflection that is almost as bright as the backlit sky that is casting the light.


PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Orio, I never affirmed that Anne Leibovitz is one of my preferred photographers but I cannot ignore her success and it's always interesting to analyze the styles of our time, regardless if I like it or not.
There's always something to learn, sometimes to learn what I don't like and I won't ever do for my pictures.

For example in the shot you posted I like a lot the composition, the spaces, the classical view of fugue given by the open window. It's a shot who pays a lot of debts to classical paintings of XVIII century, that I personally don't like a lot but can appreciate.
IMHO you're also wrong about that reflection on the wooden floor, that kind of wooden floors are almost mirror-like, sure a polarizer could do the trick because of the overcast weather and the light is probably highly polarized.
You can dislike it, but I fear that the reflection is natural.

Personally I would have gone to a complete different shot with a lot shorter DOF and focus on the queen's face but at those levels you also have to hear a lot about what your customers ask you to do. You don't have freedom at all despite what artists say in interviews, and it always was this way even for Michelangelo or Leonardo.

All in all I think the real high level art is to express your style into the limits given by the customer you have to please.


PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The painters that you mention studied every particular in a painting, to have a meaning.
What is the Queen doing, sitting alone on a chair that has no reason to be there, dressed for ceremony in what must be a private moment, placed half profile next to a window that shows a landscape that has the full light? To my eyes, the protagonist of the photo is the landscape, the black tree against the cloudy sky, and the Queen looks like an accessory. An unlikely one on top of that.

For me this portrait is a failure.


PostPosted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 3:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Orio, I have to agree.

The resultant image is cold and the Queen is left looking cold and alone - losing her humanity.

Jim