PKR
Mentor
Hi Robert, I hope all's good with you and family.
Anush has a good eye. She keeps her equipment simple and produces some good images. She updates her Instagram feed regularly so, you can follow her travels.
https://www.instagram.com/anushbabajanyan/?hl=en
Best my friend, pkr
PKR
Mentor
It seems the NatGeo / Beth Moon thing isn't going away any time soon.
Scientific Errors in Those Nat Geo Milky Way Photos
petapixel.com
6 mins read
The night sky offers an unlimited source of markers (e.g. stars, constellations, Milky Way, etc.) that never lie about the time of year and location in the world you shot a night sky picture from. You don’t even need to be a professional astronomer or to double-check RAW files to prove it.
Tools like Stellarium or the StarWalk app can help you verify your point within seconds.
National Geographic is at the center of a manipulated photo controversy this week over an article featuring photos by photographer Beth Moon. Moon gave this statement in response:
I am late to this discussion as I am attending my father’s funeral. First, I want to say that I am not much for technical expertise. For me, it’s not about the equipment. For these pictures I developed a fairly simple formula and memorized it, varying adjustments occasionally to suit the light. I also usually take my time producing work, but this work under starlight was the exception. With three back to back trips and a book deadline I enlisted the help of an intern seven years ago. During her 6 month term she helped to batch process images and she also hand-stitched the panoramic shot in question. I got back in touch with her to ask her about this process. She remembers stitching the images together one by one, lining up the tree branches by using the transformation tool to line each shot up. I believe the problem stemmed from the distortion of the wide angle lens used. She claims she did not use the clone tool. To be clear, I am not passing the blame on to her. My name is on it and I take full responsibility.
This is a painful lesson. I am sorry to have upset so many people. I did not intentionally try to hide anything and I apologize. With the passing of my father I am reminded to try to concentrate on a bigger picture, which I hope to do going forward.
In the wake of the controversy raging on the Internet over the past few days, I wanted to take a deeper look at some of the pictures that were published. The goal here was to try and determine if Moon’s pictures were manipulated based on the undeniable science of astronomy.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
This picture (which was at the center of the controversy) can only be a panorama and not a single exposure. To be able to capture the whole span of the southern hemisphere Milky Way setting, you would need a fisheye lens that would distort the foreground. In this image, a specific warping mode was used during the stitching process, creating a bent Milky Way instead. However, what is most noticeable about the picture is the Milky Way itself. While its position and curvature are definitely possible at the location it was taken (Botswana), its overall shape and look is irrefutably unnatural. Some parts of the Milky Way were quite obviously cloned several times, perhaps to make it look more impressive.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
The caption says that this picture was taken in the famous Quiver tree forest in Namibia. However sharp eyes or people that have been to that place will realize that the sky does not match the foreground. For starters, in real life, there is visible light pollution in several directions around the forest and none of this is visible here on the horizon.
However, the most compelling evidence is to have our own galaxy oriented this way. It is simply impossible in the southern hemisphere! You can perhaps recognize NGC 7000 (North American, Pelican nebulae, Sadr region), the bright star Vega and Polaris, which would be located above the frame. But the North Star Polaris can never appear above the horizon below the equator as a rule.
The Cygnus part of the Milky Way, if visible, usually points downwards. All these elements constitute a solid case about the photograph being, in fact, a composite where the foreground was taken in Namibia and the background sky somewhere else in the northern hemisphere, and at a different time of the year.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
In this picture, the Milky Way appears over a baobab tree of Botswana. The Milky Way appears to be completely cloned out around the Eagle and Shield constellations, which can never happen in real life. In the upper right-hand corner, we can also discern either the Large Magellanic Cloud or the Small Magellanic Cloud completely out of place. This underlines a heavy cloning manipulation in the picture.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
In this picture seemingly taken in Namibia again (with a Quiver tree in the foreground), we can see an upright Milky Way across the top right-hand side. Again the Milky Way can simply never appear in this manner in the southern hemisphere. With this orientation and focal length, the “Southern Star” (the point of the night sky around which the southern hemisphere sky rotates for a viewer from Earth) would be located approximately within the red circle. However this point is right above the horizon in Botswana! So the sky has conveniently been lowered so that the core of the Milky Way appears in the frame.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
In this picture, shot in Utah, the Milky Way has blatantly been added in. The difference of luminosity of the Milky Way and the overall background sky doesn’t add up. When we zoom in and look at the stars in the Milky Way and outside of it, we can see that they don’t ‘suffer’ from the same aberrations (lens errors that affect the image). The Milky Way stars appear sharper and rounder while the ones below appear blurry and trailing. This only happens the other way around where corners get affected more than the center.
Another disturbing evidence is that the Milky Way has its core too high in the sky for the latitude of Utah. Judging by the size of the Milky Way, I would say the shot has been taken using a 14mm to 20mm lens. If you are stargazing in Utah, there is no way you can get that much distance between the horizon and the core of the Milky Way regardless of the time of year.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
In this final picture, the Milky Way has been cloned and perhaps added in. It’s quite hard to tell what its real position is because you don’t know which part of the Milky Way is legitimate. In the top left-hand corner, we can quite obviously discern the Norma region of the Milky Way. In the top center, there is the core, but it’s the other way around! That bright area circled in red should have been well out of bounds on the other side of the dust lane rift.
As if this wasn’t enough, another clone of the fake core was added in the top right-hand corner. What can also be striking to anyone familiar with astronomy or astrophotography is that there is no atmospheric effect as you get closer to the horizon (you usually see a darker and more colorful layer on the horizon). It’s a natural effect that is always present no matter where on the planet you take a picture from. It’s another piece of evidence suggesting that once again the sky has been quite heavily messed with.
While the problem should not firstly be about these artistic pictures themselves or the photographer who produced them, it should be about how they ended up published by a reputable organization that promotes science and true-to-life ethics. These pictures should never have made it through the publishing process if they had been correctly spotted. However, this raises other questions like why did photographer Moon (or her assistant) have to manipulate the pictures in the first place? A hint could be hidden within the lines of the article:
“Lots of places have either old trees or dark skies, but not both. When the two do intersect, the location is often challenging to reach,” Moon says.
About the author: Adrien Mauduit is a professional astrophotographer and cinematographer and the CEO and owner of Night Lights Films. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Mauduit also does science education, communication, and public outreach for Project PoSSUM. You can find more of Mauduit’s work Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Many photos at the link
https://petapixel.com/2019/05/10/scientific-errors-in-those-nat-geo-milky-way-photos/
Scientific Errors in Those Nat Geo Milky Way Photos
petapixel.com
6 mins read
The night sky offers an unlimited source of markers (e.g. stars, constellations, Milky Way, etc.) that never lie about the time of year and location in the world you shot a night sky picture from. You don’t even need to be a professional astronomer or to double-check RAW files to prove it.
Tools like Stellarium or the StarWalk app can help you verify your point within seconds.
National Geographic is at the center of a manipulated photo controversy this week over an article featuring photos by photographer Beth Moon. Moon gave this statement in response:
I am late to this discussion as I am attending my father’s funeral. First, I want to say that I am not much for technical expertise. For me, it’s not about the equipment. For these pictures I developed a fairly simple formula and memorized it, varying adjustments occasionally to suit the light. I also usually take my time producing work, but this work under starlight was the exception. With three back to back trips and a book deadline I enlisted the help of an intern seven years ago. During her 6 month term she helped to batch process images and she also hand-stitched the panoramic shot in question. I got back in touch with her to ask her about this process. She remembers stitching the images together one by one, lining up the tree branches by using the transformation tool to line each shot up. I believe the problem stemmed from the distortion of the wide angle lens used. She claims she did not use the clone tool. To be clear, I am not passing the blame on to her. My name is on it and I take full responsibility.
This is a painful lesson. I am sorry to have upset so many people. I did not intentionally try to hide anything and I apologize. With the passing of my father I am reminded to try to concentrate on a bigger picture, which I hope to do going forward.
In the wake of the controversy raging on the Internet over the past few days, I wanted to take a deeper look at some of the pictures that were published. The goal here was to try and determine if Moon’s pictures were manipulated based on the undeniable science of astronomy.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
This picture (which was at the center of the controversy) can only be a panorama and not a single exposure. To be able to capture the whole span of the southern hemisphere Milky Way setting, you would need a fisheye lens that would distort the foreground. In this image, a specific warping mode was used during the stitching process, creating a bent Milky Way instead. However, what is most noticeable about the picture is the Milky Way itself. While its position and curvature are definitely possible at the location it was taken (Botswana), its overall shape and look is irrefutably unnatural. Some parts of the Milky Way were quite obviously cloned several times, perhaps to make it look more impressive.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
The caption says that this picture was taken in the famous Quiver tree forest in Namibia. However sharp eyes or people that have been to that place will realize that the sky does not match the foreground. For starters, in real life, there is visible light pollution in several directions around the forest and none of this is visible here on the horizon.
However, the most compelling evidence is to have our own galaxy oriented this way. It is simply impossible in the southern hemisphere! You can perhaps recognize NGC 7000 (North American, Pelican nebulae, Sadr region), the bright star Vega and Polaris, which would be located above the frame. But the North Star Polaris can never appear above the horizon below the equator as a rule.
The Cygnus part of the Milky Way, if visible, usually points downwards. All these elements constitute a solid case about the photograph being, in fact, a composite where the foreground was taken in Namibia and the background sky somewhere else in the northern hemisphere, and at a different time of the year.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
In this picture, the Milky Way appears over a baobab tree of Botswana. The Milky Way appears to be completely cloned out around the Eagle and Shield constellations, which can never happen in real life. In the upper right-hand corner, we can also discern either the Large Magellanic Cloud or the Small Magellanic Cloud completely out of place. This underlines a heavy cloning manipulation in the picture.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
In this picture seemingly taken in Namibia again (with a Quiver tree in the foreground), we can see an upright Milky Way across the top right-hand side. Again the Milky Way can simply never appear in this manner in the southern hemisphere. With this orientation and focal length, the “Southern Star” (the point of the night sky around which the southern hemisphere sky rotates for a viewer from Earth) would be located approximately within the red circle. However this point is right above the horizon in Botswana! So the sky has conveniently been lowered so that the core of the Milky Way appears in the frame.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
In this picture, shot in Utah, the Milky Way has blatantly been added in. The difference of luminosity of the Milky Way and the overall background sky doesn’t add up. When we zoom in and look at the stars in the Milky Way and outside of it, we can see that they don’t ‘suffer’ from the same aberrations (lens errors that affect the image). The Milky Way stars appear sharper and rounder while the ones below appear blurry and trailing. This only happens the other way around where corners get affected more than the center.
Another disturbing evidence is that the Milky Way has its core too high in the sky for the latitude of Utah. Judging by the size of the Milky Way, I would say the shot has been taken using a 14mm to 20mm lens. If you are stargazing in Utah, there is no way you can get that much distance between the horizon and the core of the Milky Way regardless of the time of year.
Photo by Beth Moon and published at National Geographic.
In this final picture, the Milky Way has been cloned and perhaps added in. It’s quite hard to tell what its real position is because you don’t know which part of the Milky Way is legitimate. In the top left-hand corner, we can quite obviously discern the Norma region of the Milky Way. In the top center, there is the core, but it’s the other way around! That bright area circled in red should have been well out of bounds on the other side of the dust lane rift.
As if this wasn’t enough, another clone of the fake core was added in the top right-hand corner. What can also be striking to anyone familiar with astronomy or astrophotography is that there is no atmospheric effect as you get closer to the horizon (you usually see a darker and more colorful layer on the horizon). It’s a natural effect that is always present no matter where on the planet you take a picture from. It’s another piece of evidence suggesting that once again the sky has been quite heavily messed with.
While the problem should not firstly be about these artistic pictures themselves or the photographer who produced them, it should be about how they ended up published by a reputable organization that promotes science and true-to-life ethics. These pictures should never have made it through the publishing process if they had been correctly spotted. However, this raises other questions like why did photographer Moon (or her assistant) have to manipulate the pictures in the first place? A hint could be hidden within the lines of the article:
“Lots of places have either old trees or dark skies, but not both. When the two do intersect, the location is often challenging to reach,” Moon says.
About the author: Adrien Mauduit is a professional astrophotographer and cinematographer and the CEO and owner of Night Lights Films. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Mauduit also does science education, communication, and public outreach for Project PoSSUM. You can find more of Mauduit’s work Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Many photos at the link
https://petapixel.com/2019/05/10/scientific-errors-in-those-nat-geo-milky-way-photos/
lynnb
Mentor
robert blu
quiet photographer
Interesting work by Fred, surely a man who saw much !
And I like his words "Though he is now 90, he still works seven days a week. He has no choice but to live “quite a bit longer,” he said, because there is “so much work left to do,”
Thanks for the link Lynn, so many unknown excellent photographers in the world...
robert
And I like his words "Though he is now 90, he still works seven days a week. He has no choice but to live “quite a bit longer,” he said, because there is “so much work left to do,”
Thanks for the link Lynn, so many unknown excellent photographers in the world...
robert
JohnWolf
Well-known
Some moving work from David Heath. He's cited earlier in the thread, but this is a nice piece.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190530-intense-photos-of-love-and-longing
John
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190530-intense-photos-of-love-and-longing
John
reiki_
Well-known
Could someone help me please - I'm trying to find a photographer on flickr, I think he was a member of RFF too (but maybe), anyways mostly women portraits. It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't seem to find him. One line name/pseudonym on flickr as best as I can remember. Thanks.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
reiki_
Well-known
Thank you but no, he was the first to come to mind. Similar style though, just a bit less nude in the models department.
I think most pictures were made with a 5d plus 35 or 50 but that isn't saying much.
Jamie Pillers
Skeptic
Giant wall photos by JR
Giant wall photos by JR
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/larger...french-photographer-jr-60-minutes-2019-07-07/
Love this work... art reaching for humanitarian goals.
Giant wall photos by JR
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/larger...french-photographer-jr-60-minutes-2019-07-07/
Love this work... art reaching for humanitarian goals.
PKR
Mentor
Devin Yalkin
I saw Devin's work in this last Sunday's NYT Mag and, it was interesting. I wondered about the muddy tones in his work. After visiting his page, it's pretty obvious that the NYT is loosing it touch when printing B&W imagery on a web press. Just a horrible printing job.
https://www.devinyalkin.com/
https://www.instagram.com/dedecim/
I saw Devin's work in this last Sunday's NYT Mag and, it was interesting. I wondered about the muddy tones in his work. After visiting his page, it's pretty obvious that the NYT is loosing it touch when printing B&W imagery on a web press. Just a horrible printing job.
https://www.devinyalkin.com/
https://www.instagram.com/dedecim/
dwojr
Well-known
http://arabimagefoundation.com
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190606-photos-revealing-hidden-histories-of-the-middle-east
From same-sex kisses and men in drag, to nude portraits and children posing with assault rifles, the Arab Image Foundation is replete with startling and sensationalist photographs of the Middle East. But it is the foundation’s thousands of photographs documenting day-to-day activities, neglected traditions and vanished ways of life that make it a unique and fascinating resource. For more than 20 years, the foundation has preserved its archives, published books and organised exhibitions, but its collections have been difficult for the public to access. Now, the launch of a new online platform has made thousands of previously unseen photographs accessible to the world, revealing forgotten moments and untold stories.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190606-photos-revealing-hidden-histories-of-the-middle-east
From same-sex kisses and men in drag, to nude portraits and children posing with assault rifles, the Arab Image Foundation is replete with startling and sensationalist photographs of the Middle East. But it is the foundation’s thousands of photographs documenting day-to-day activities, neglected traditions and vanished ways of life that make it a unique and fascinating resource. For more than 20 years, the foundation has preserved its archives, published books and organised exhibitions, but its collections have been difficult for the public to access. Now, the launch of a new online platform has made thousands of previously unseen photographs accessible to the world, revealing forgotten moments and untold stories.
PKR
Mentor
Robert Frank
November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019
Robert Frank, Legendary Documentary Photographer, Has Died at 94
Robert Frank, one of the most influential documentary photographers of our time, passed away on Monday on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. He was 94 years old.
With his seminal work The Americans, Frank changed the course of documentary photography, pioneering a raw, candid, and honest style that remains popular to this day. He turned his camera on moments and subjects that had been largely ignored by the posed photojournalistic style of the time; as a result, he became known as the father “the snapshot aesthetic” and “the Manet of the new photography.”
With just 83 grainy, black-and-white images, Robert Frank redefined a genre.
Born on November 9th, 1924 in Zürich, Switzerland, Frank turned to photography in the 1940s, training with various photographers and graphic designers in Switzerland and releasing his first photo book in 1946. His professional career began in earnest when he moved to New York City in 1947 and became a fashion photographer for Harpers Bazaar.
For the next ten years, he travelled broadly while working for Fortune, LIFE, Vogue and others; all the while, he was honing his craft and developing his worldview, both of which would be critical when, in 1955, he embarked on the roadtrip that would result in The Americans. With the financial backing of the Guggenheim Fellowship, he travelled over 10,000 miles “in an old used car” and captured some 27,000 pictures, before culling that collection to that iconic set of 83.
First published in 1958 in France as “Les Americains” alongside various essays, the American edition of the book that we know today—complete with an introduction by legendary poet and kindred spirit Jack Kerouac—was finally published as a pure photo book in 1959.
Following the publication of The Americans, Frank turned his skills towards documentary filmmaking. But while he brought the same unblinking honesty to his work in film, earning praise for his motion work and continuing to create striking stills, he will be remembered best for his photographic masterwork and the impact it had on the United State’s willingness to turn a critical eye inward.
As Sean O’Hagan wrote for The Guardian on the eve of Frank’s 90th birthday, “[Frank]caught what Diane Arbus called the ‘hollowness’ at the heart of many American lives, the chasm between the American dream and the everyday reality.”
He paved the way for a new documentary photography, and while he would eventually lament that “The kind of photography I did is gone,” we are confident that Mr. Frank’s work will endure, inspiring millions more in the years to come.
https://petapixel.com/2019/09/10/robert-frank-legendary-documentary-photographer-has-died-at-94/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frank
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2QHp2znBLU/
November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019
Robert Frank, Legendary Documentary Photographer, Has Died at 94
Robert Frank, one of the most influential documentary photographers of our time, passed away on Monday on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. He was 94 years old.
With his seminal work The Americans, Frank changed the course of documentary photography, pioneering a raw, candid, and honest style that remains popular to this day. He turned his camera on moments and subjects that had been largely ignored by the posed photojournalistic style of the time; as a result, he became known as the father “the snapshot aesthetic” and “the Manet of the new photography.”
With just 83 grainy, black-and-white images, Robert Frank redefined a genre.
Born on November 9th, 1924 in Zürich, Switzerland, Frank turned to photography in the 1940s, training with various photographers and graphic designers in Switzerland and releasing his first photo book in 1946. His professional career began in earnest when he moved to New York City in 1947 and became a fashion photographer for Harpers Bazaar.
For the next ten years, he travelled broadly while working for Fortune, LIFE, Vogue and others; all the while, he was honing his craft and developing his worldview, both of which would be critical when, in 1955, he embarked on the roadtrip that would result in The Americans. With the financial backing of the Guggenheim Fellowship, he travelled over 10,000 miles “in an old used car” and captured some 27,000 pictures, before culling that collection to that iconic set of 83.
First published in 1958 in France as “Les Americains” alongside various essays, the American edition of the book that we know today—complete with an introduction by legendary poet and kindred spirit Jack Kerouac—was finally published as a pure photo book in 1959.
Following the publication of The Americans, Frank turned his skills towards documentary filmmaking. But while he brought the same unblinking honesty to his work in film, earning praise for his motion work and continuing to create striking stills, he will be remembered best for his photographic masterwork and the impact it had on the United State’s willingness to turn a critical eye inward.
As Sean O’Hagan wrote for The Guardian on the eve of Frank’s 90th birthday, “[Frank]caught what Diane Arbus called the ‘hollowness’ at the heart of many American lives, the chasm between the American dream and the everyday reality.”
He paved the way for a new documentary photography, and while he would eventually lament that “The kind of photography I did is gone,” we are confident that Mr. Frank’s work will endure, inspiring millions more in the years to come.
https://petapixel.com/2019/09/10/robert-frank-legendary-documentary-photographer-has-died-at-94/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frank
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2QHp2znBLU/
robert blu
quiet photographer
RIP Fred Herzog
RIP Fred Herzog
Fred Herzog died at 88, sad news:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2QgtQrlgHQ/
RIP Fred Herzog
Fred Herzog died at 88, sad news:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2QgtQrlgHQ/
PKR
Mentor
Why the camera market, and photography, are on a decline.
Robin Wong's thoughts.
I thought Robin made several good points, some I missed. Most blame the Smart Phone. There are other things at work.
As usual, I'm more concerned with Photography than Cameras but, they seem both effected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu1UagrnW4g
Merry Christmas to my RFF friends, PKR
Robin Wong's thoughts.
I thought Robin made several good points, some I missed. Most blame the Smart Phone. There are other things at work.
As usual, I'm more concerned with Photography than Cameras but, they seem both effected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu1UagrnW4g
Merry Christmas to my RFF friends, PKR
lynnb
Mentor
Mark Estabrook has been documenting the EuroMaidan revolution in Ukraine. A solid body of work amongst which there are many excellent PJ images (such as this) taken in Maidan Square in Kiev in 2014.
Out to Lunch
Menteur
It's not news, and so, nobody cares.
emraphoto
Mentor
dourbalistar
Buy more film
Photographer Lynn Johnson is featured in NPR's latest The Picture Show, with some wonderful photos of Mister Rogers. There's even one of him using a (Olympus?) point-and-shoot, shooting Lynn as she's shooting him. 
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictur...rs-away-from-the-neighborhood-of-make-believe
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictur...rs-away-from-the-neighborhood-of-make-believe
PKR
Mentor
Hi Willie..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl4f-QFCUek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zk1nkZ3-kE
I really liked this one. I share much of his thinking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wem927v_kpo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbbAlyOJQiY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUuwdPkLsT0
Rice U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP6lP3UaP24
.
PKR
Mentor
An Evening with Sebastião Salgado
An Evening with Sebastião Salgado
An Evening with Sebastião Salgado
Filed under: photography — Tags: Sebastiao Salgado — richard @ 9:06 am
As one of the most famous documentary photographers of our time, Mr. Sebastião Salgado drew a full crowd tonight at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. My XPanII was loaded with Neopan 1600, and film being what it is, I won’t know if anything comes out until I develop the roll, probably sometimes tomorrow. Meanwhile, a scan of the cover page of the program will have to do.
Ken Light acted as the questioner and Mr. Salgado answered and segued into all sorts of topics. The show then ended with a slideshow of photos from his latest epic project – “Genesis”, with a few questions and answers rounding out the evening. On youtube, you can find an earlier talk circa 2006 between Ken and Salgado at U.C. Berkerley.
We paid for the normal $25 admission. Our seats were most excellent, right in the center section, and with the seats rising each row, we had an unimpeded view. They offered a premium ticket reception for $100, but I didn’t think it would be worth it. We briefly chatted with a woman who was in the reception area, and she was so busy with her texting that she didn’t even know Salgado was standing just 30 feet away talking to other people.
It was also rather odd that they were selling 3 of his books (Africa, Sahel, and Uncertain Grace) autographed. Africa I can understand, since it came out only a couple of years ago, but surely anyone who knows him would have one of the other books already? I have all 3, plus a few more. I had to purchase Migration and Workers used a few years ago. It is too bad that they have not reprinted those two books.
****
During one of the earlier interchanges, Salgado let it be known that he had switched to digital, which drew an audible gasp from some of the audience. He later on explained that he had used Leica at the beginning (both the legendary Leica M rangefinder and also the R6.2 SLR). When he was working on the previous project, “Africa”, he wanted to print big, so he switched to the medium format camera. He chose Pentax 645 because the low-contrast Pentax lens matched the characteristics of the Leica lens he used (he was probably using the earlier generation Leica lens and not the latest high-contrast sharp-as-tack ASPH generation).
For the current Genesis project, he needs to travel all over the world going through multiple countries and airports. His assistant would carry tens of pounds (I believe he said up to 50 pounds) of films, and being post 9-11, this got to be difficult as they requested hand checking of the film. He would carry documents from different agencies and a couple of times he had to call “people in high places” to straighten things out. With the 220 film, if it went through the X-Ray scanner more than 2-3 times, the quality degraded to less than 35mm level. So the assistant said they needed to do something about the situation.
One of his friends suggested that he try digital, which at first he resisted. However, he did try a medium format 645 back and was quite impressed by the quality. Since the medium format back setup was a bit large, he eventually settled on the Canon full frame (1Ds-something?). However, he still uses it like in the film days: his assistant makes contact sheets for him, and his camera is modified to give the same 645 ratio he is used to. He also has the images processed to look like Tri-X. For prints, a lab converts the data into a 645 negative and prints using traditional darkroom process!
He is excited by the promise of the new Leica S2, a camera system that is set to challenge medium format and full frame 35mm digital by having a sensor size bigger than 35mm and with 39 megapixel resolution, quality that will likely best any medium format digital with its peerless Leica glass, with better ergonomics to boot. He looks forward to possibly using Leica again.
****
Salgado has witnessed a lot of human suffering and despair starting with his Sahel project. The Genesis project is a sort of spiritual renewal for him – up to 40% of the Earth is still as it was 5,000 years, 12,000 years ago. He wants to preserve that in photographs. He and his wife started the Terra Foundation, and it is now one of the biggest producers of native plants in his state in his native Brazil. While well versed in socialism and marxism, he doesn’t think that those are the paths of the human communities at large. Our time on this earth has been so minuscule, how could we possibly think we have a solution to all the problems? His only regret is that he won’t live a million years so that he could photograph the world for that long.
Unfortunately, the slide show clearly did not show the photos in the best quality. The projected images were too contrasty and as some of the images are obviously from the “Africa” shoot, I know that the actual images are not as contrasty. In my opinion, his people images are what really sets him apart – the dignity, the eyes, the Uncertain Grace. With the epic subjects, I can’t help but think that the landscape images will look too small except as a large prints. Nevertheless, I look forward to the publication of Genesis.
An Evening with Sebastião Salgado
An Evening with Sebastião Salgado
Filed under: photography — Tags: Sebastiao Salgado — richard @ 9:06 am
As one of the most famous documentary photographers of our time, Mr. Sebastião Salgado drew a full crowd tonight at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. My XPanII was loaded with Neopan 1600, and film being what it is, I won’t know if anything comes out until I develop the roll, probably sometimes tomorrow. Meanwhile, a scan of the cover page of the program will have to do.
Ken Light acted as the questioner and Mr. Salgado answered and segued into all sorts of topics. The show then ended with a slideshow of photos from his latest epic project – “Genesis”, with a few questions and answers rounding out the evening. On youtube, you can find an earlier talk circa 2006 between Ken and Salgado at U.C. Berkerley.
We paid for the normal $25 admission. Our seats were most excellent, right in the center section, and with the seats rising each row, we had an unimpeded view. They offered a premium ticket reception for $100, but I didn’t think it would be worth it. We briefly chatted with a woman who was in the reception area, and she was so busy with her texting that she didn’t even know Salgado was standing just 30 feet away talking to other people.
It was also rather odd that they were selling 3 of his books (Africa, Sahel, and Uncertain Grace) autographed. Africa I can understand, since it came out only a couple of years ago, but surely anyone who knows him would have one of the other books already? I have all 3, plus a few more. I had to purchase Migration and Workers used a few years ago. It is too bad that they have not reprinted those two books.
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During one of the earlier interchanges, Salgado let it be known that he had switched to digital, which drew an audible gasp from some of the audience. He later on explained that he had used Leica at the beginning (both the legendary Leica M rangefinder and also the R6.2 SLR). When he was working on the previous project, “Africa”, he wanted to print big, so he switched to the medium format camera. He chose Pentax 645 because the low-contrast Pentax lens matched the characteristics of the Leica lens he used (he was probably using the earlier generation Leica lens and not the latest high-contrast sharp-as-tack ASPH generation).
For the current Genesis project, he needs to travel all over the world going through multiple countries and airports. His assistant would carry tens of pounds (I believe he said up to 50 pounds) of films, and being post 9-11, this got to be difficult as they requested hand checking of the film. He would carry documents from different agencies and a couple of times he had to call “people in high places” to straighten things out. With the 220 film, if it went through the X-Ray scanner more than 2-3 times, the quality degraded to less than 35mm level. So the assistant said they needed to do something about the situation.
One of his friends suggested that he try digital, which at first he resisted. However, he did try a medium format 645 back and was quite impressed by the quality. Since the medium format back setup was a bit large, he eventually settled on the Canon full frame (1Ds-something?). However, he still uses it like in the film days: his assistant makes contact sheets for him, and his camera is modified to give the same 645 ratio he is used to. He also has the images processed to look like Tri-X. For prints, a lab converts the data into a 645 negative and prints using traditional darkroom process!
He is excited by the promise of the new Leica S2, a camera system that is set to challenge medium format and full frame 35mm digital by having a sensor size bigger than 35mm and with 39 megapixel resolution, quality that will likely best any medium format digital with its peerless Leica glass, with better ergonomics to boot. He looks forward to possibly using Leica again.
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Salgado has witnessed a lot of human suffering and despair starting with his Sahel project. The Genesis project is a sort of spiritual renewal for him – up to 40% of the Earth is still as it was 5,000 years, 12,000 years ago. He wants to preserve that in photographs. He and his wife started the Terra Foundation, and it is now one of the biggest producers of native plants in his state in his native Brazil. While well versed in socialism and marxism, he doesn’t think that those are the paths of the human communities at large. Our time on this earth has been so minuscule, how could we possibly think we have a solution to all the problems? His only regret is that he won’t live a million years so that he could photograph the world for that long.
Unfortunately, the slide show clearly did not show the photos in the best quality. The projected images were too contrasty and as some of the images are obviously from the “Africa” shoot, I know that the actual images are not as contrasty. In my opinion, his people images are what really sets him apart – the dignity, the eyes, the Uncertain Grace. With the epic subjects, I can’t help but think that the landscape images will look too small except as a large prints. Nevertheless, I look forward to the publication of Genesis.