Harshly Photoshopped Steve McCurry Photographs

foggie

foggie

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Steve McCurry's photographs from around the world at this site http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/22-incredible-photos-of look like they've been through HDR hell.

Compare this:
http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/6421/srilanka.jpg

Look at the HDR glow and over saturation.


With the same photo on the magnum site:
http://www.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/TR3/5/f/c/9/PAR117345.jpg

Is SM authorizing this? Does he have control over who edits his photos? Does he even know it's happening?
 
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Wow... Are people's eyes so washed out by Flickr and advertisement, that even great pictures now have to get a red light district kind of makeup ???

That kind of cheap esthetic is just disgusting... Kind of makes me sad, actually...
 
it's the digital world's flavour of the month. This will look as dated as sepia toned photos do today. I'm not interested in it.

The phenom of 'promoting peoples work' is a "loada" as Dave has properly pointed out.
 
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Rule No. 6 - No Public Posting of Copyright Material
6) You will not upload, attach or post any material you are not the creator and/or copyright holder of. It is however acceptable to post links to publicly accessible material.

I'm seeing more work posted that is not the work of the RFF members, and it violates our TOS.

I have edited out the image BB code of images, the links to the images are left as they were.

Please post LINKS to other people's works.
 
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Brian Sweeney said:
Rule No. 6 - No Public Posting of Copyright Material
6) You will not upload, attach or post any material you are not the creator and/or copyright holder of. It is however acceptable to post links to publicly accessible material.

I'm seeing more work posted that is not the work of the RFF members, and it violates our TOS.

I have edited out the image BB code of images, the links to the images are left as they were.

Please post LINKS to other people's works.
Click to expand...


Since we're talking about that, how do those rules apply to image hotlinking? For example, if I go to flickr, some people have enabled their BBcode to permit "image sharing" by other flickr members. Is it OK to post those?

I researched the topic a bit, and hotlinking doesn't violate copyright law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking
 
I agree that most of these shots are processed to death, but the photographer definately has an eye for composition. His stuff really doesn't need the processing, in my opinion.

As other posters have suggested, perhaps this is just a reaction to what sells at the moment.
 
antiquark said:
Since we're talking about that, how do those rules apply to image hotlinking? For example, if I go to flickr, some people have enabled their BBcode to permit "image sharing" by other flickr members. Is it OK to post those?

I researched the topic a bit, and hotlinking doesn't violate copyright law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking
Click to expand...

The links given by the OP were not hotlinked, but img code thrown around a jpeg file.

Hotlinks - need to look into it with regard to RFF TOS. This is a new thing for Flickr, the old interface did not permit it.
 
In looking at one of the pictures vs. the one on Steve McCurry's site, it doesn't look to me like it's been additionally photoshopped. I can't really compare them side-by-side in my current setup, but on the monitor I'm currently using, they seem to have similar contrast, detail, and color.

Specifically, the car one in Afghanistan (#4 in the Afghanistan gallery).
 
Hasn't Steve McCurry just recently had a show of his life work? I suppose they rescanned and re-edited the pictures in the course of that which might explain the difference between the 'old' and new version.

That being said, haven't Steve McCurry's photos always been oversaturated? That's his style, isn't it? That 'Afghan girl' picture was a photoshop nightmare before photoshop even existed.
 
yoyo22 said:
You can find the "colorful" variant of that photo on his very own website.
Click to expand...

Ah. Glad you pointed that out. Answers my question of "does he know this is happening?". It is now a matter of taste rather than unwarranted alteration of art.

Personally I prefer the version that's on the magnum site but it's not my image nor is it my choice. It's Steve McCurry's picture and he undoubtably doesn't care what I think. if he likes the powerful, rich blues then he make his image as saturated as he likes :)
 
To me the most distasteful part of the processing has been the considerable lightening of the shadows. Occasionally when PP'ing a digital file I'll do the same thing without realising how far Iv'e gone until I revert back to the original file for a look! :eek:
 
foggie said:
Personally I prefer the version that's on the magnum site but it's not my image nor is it my choice. It's Steve McCurry's picture and he undoubtably doesn't care what I think. if he likes the powerful, rich blues then he make his image as saturated as he likes :)
Click to expand...
Well, one of the reasons I like his work is that I do like saturated images. I don't like some HDR extremism, granted, but I do prefer lots of color.

Chacun à son goût and all.
 
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