the SZ bulletin board

[lowrey]

yeh im not keen on the over dramatic over worked images i see in their choices, less is most often more. Many of their images lack a rawness or purity and seem to be almost showing off their technicality. Fade i really love this subway series your doing, by far the best thing you have done IMO, keep shooting and your are bound to capture some really beautiful images that are seriously strong. I like the honest and the somewhat akward compositions, it reminds me of you almost looking down and seeing a glimpse into a coversation, like eavesdropping. Keep shooting is what im saying, you have come on so much since the phone images you were shooting. Il post a few pics from travels soon in here.

yup

I actually entered a few shots into the general category (winners are here):

[lost53]

the thing is, i look at that PDN/Prophoto genre, then I look at photos by the likes of Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Daido moriyama, william eggleston, nobuyoshi araki, walker evans etc etc all the 'senior/deceased' generation, what kills me about the former category which seems to dominate photography today is - even though the shots may contain people, are of people in heroic/devastating cirumstances, or just photos of abject/devastating circumstances in general, there is not an iota of a human element I detect in those images, not to my eye at least, not at all. almost 10 times out of 10 that 'photograph' was made by a computer, not a hand and eye with natural God-given imperfections.

I think post production aside, the photographers you mention are all"Artists". There are many people that are photographers, and make reasonable images. But they are far from being artists.... And also there are many people whom take photographs but are not photographers.. I know this sounds anal, but since the advent of digital every fucker with a 5d or whatever is now a photographer.. give em a 5x4 and a box of sheet film.... and then see what they come up with!!

[endersgame]

the choices in general looked borderline commerce. most people don't really take pictures like that- for mass consumption.. where all the indigenous people are all smiles and tough looking... it's like they are waiting to be licensed or published in an ad for some tourism board. they are still good pics, but they should be entered in Communication Arts annuals..

yeah, FTB, those old guys never did it for the money..

lowrey, that third hk pic looks great..

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(winners are here):

the only ones i liked were the grand prize and the first runner up (two women at shooting range)

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dig the Francis Bacon lookalike on the left -

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gave the Portra VC 160 a try today

[K.T.]

lowrey: don't know why, it took me quite a while to figure out the whereabouts in the 3rd photo, probably coz more often than not the road shown is a lot busier, thus I was missing the clue...

I actually like the second photo a lot. Maybe a bit personal but seeing how you capture the mood by subtly mixing different elements here: the high rises in the background, the old buildings in the foreground and in the midst of all, that person in the middle, who has had a hard day's life and just finished work.... There's no melancholy here, and this is life. You don't know how much it strikes a chord with many who lead similar lives in this place.

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[endersgame]

ftb, i usually stick with NC. VC or UC destroys skin tones. i don't know what it stands for. vibrant color, ultra color? very contrasty?

but your scans lack contrast. the blacks need to be denser. the overall yellow cast removed, but that's the thing with color negs, it's whatever color you want..

here's an old tutorial on scanning negs as positives and adjusting individual channels. it's quick and dirty but should still work well..

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/tutorials/tutorial_6_1.htm

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i believe it's vivid color. but yeah they are scanned by the shop. i should adjust the tones myself. dont know whats up with the yellow cast thats there from time to time

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back to film...homage to Lee Friedlander:

[david s]

wow, lots of activity here since I was on vacation.

will post some edits from my photo shoot this weekend, going to be doing portrait sitting for a politician... should be interesting.

it will be my 200th post!

@FTB : you should check out the Chris Marker's work here, it's a subway series, I like some of the work you've done in that vein