Alex Webb went digital?

I personally think that he should use exactly what I bought recently and will likely sell next month.
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LOL. 😀

Yeah, these pics just lack that certain something to me that you can only get using German lenses stored in a humidor, plus darkroom chemicals you make yourself. Clearly the guy's an amateur.
 
I think these photos are deliberately like that because Webb wants to know that Youngstown sucks and even groundhogs commit suicide there out of despair by standing in the middle of the road.
 
kevin m said:
Well, just like the Majoli thread, here come the nasty comments: these pics are crap!, etc.. The guy's a well-respected Magnum photographer, so you think he'd at least get the benefit of the doubt on a photography forum, right?
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if this was with regards to my statement -- of course he's a great photographer with a lot of distinguished work.

but common man, seriously, take the alex webb out of these pictures and tell me the that's something you wouldn't immediately hit the "back" button on your browser when you've stumbled upon these. my benefit of the doubt is that his assistant, justin, took them.
 
Curious, what are these photos lacking ? What would make them 'better' ? An honest question as I'm trying to understand why these are considered boring.
 
Those photos are boring. I expected much better. I can't believe people have to ask what exactly makes them boring. How about if they make you stifle a yawn?

And to the folks who think Youngstown, OH is the murder capital: no longer true. Nawlins is the murder capital as of early 2008.
 
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...if this was with regards to my statement -- of course he's a great photographer with a lot of distinguished work.
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No, not specifically. I'm just surprised that people form their opinions so quickly even when a respected artist is the author. I can't tell you how many times, particularly when I was younger, I would think, "man, this sucks" only to find myself drawn back to the work later. I'm not saying these are great, I'm just saying I'm not forming an opinion based on first impressions. There's an intelligence at work here we should respect.
 
kevin m said:
I'm not saying these are great, I'm just saying I'm not forming an opinion based on first impressions. There's an intelligence at work here we should respect.
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And sometimes you can form an opinion about something without living with the work for an extended period. It's a rare and great work of art that rewards repeated viewings/listenings/tastings/etc. I strongly suspect these photos do not meet that criterion. Soporific, if not dead, much like that trite dead groundhog pic. Some of those shots may be better than I can appreciate, but there is apparently no significant editing at work in that collection.
 
The Youngstown piece isn't about photography. It is about people in the middle. It is about having no power, despite being in a so-called swing state, but wanting a little to make some local changes but not really knowing how to get there. The photos could have been taken in my neighbourhood- way up in Canada-or anywhere. An American story sure, but really like most Magnum projects the core of it is people first, location second. And photography third?

The photos communicate the above pretty easily, to me anyway. It would seem the photos are successful.
 
Thanks, Fred Burton, to the Magnum link (the finished product, so to speak). This is an interesting project, and the links both to Webb's subsets and to the other photographers' views of other regions are worthwhile.
 
newsgrunt said:
Curious, what are these photos lacking ? What would make them 'better' ? An honest question as I'm trying to understand why these are considered boring.
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First, its not at all representative of what people are going thru in America. Hardly.

To me it looks like some regular old boring community and as such doesn't make a statement of anything worth considering. Besides, road kill happens everywhere, nothing unique about it.
 
I went though Mr. Webb's Magnum portfolio, all of it. His previous contributions are very different. They, to me, look like Chromes shot in the late afternoon or early morning. His Youngstown work is digital which lowers the color impact, but I also think he shot his subjects at the wrong time of day (for him). I'm not a fan of posed street photography, but his earlier work does have an impact, and it is really missing in this recent folio.
 
RITskellar said:
Sheesh, people are pretty quick to sling mud. The problem is when trying to assess an individual image as a work of art or something, clearly it falls a bit flat for people here. But I don't think that's what these are about. I think they're simply meant to be a story of a town, by themselves decent pictures, but together much better as a thoughtful, and honest portrait of a town.
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Exactly - and what people seem to be missing out on is the time constraints Webb looks like he was working under. How many people on here would produce 20 masterpieces if they were told to drive to a random, pretty unphotogenic, place, in dull grey weather, and take pictures for a day?

I agree that none of those shots individually is that great, but as a Brit who has read a lot about Ohio (in the political context) but will probably never have any reason to go there I feel I have a much better sense of what a town like this looks and feels like than I did before I looked at these images. And who seriously thinks that given a few months of shooting every day there (which is what you'd expect for a major book project I assume) he wouldn't produce a much stronger set of images?

Martin Parr was commissioned to shoot some pictures here in Cambridge (in a day) for the hoardings of a new shopping centre. The results were mediocre at best, and he admitted he struggled with finding images that said anything new or interesting about such a well known and beautiful place (which is about the only thing I have in common with him photographically 🙄). Does that make him a rubbish photographer?
 
The photos are kind of ok.. I mean the composition etc.

But surely the colours and contrasts are way off from what people are used to see from great film photographers who use color (AW being one of the great ones). This disappoints many people I am sure.

Even though the photos would be from a great situation and well composed, they should be finished up to some standards too (especially when talking about a photog. like this), I would say.
 
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