Himalayas

[Sparrow]

Yes, that's what I meant.



So it's like your doing a public service. Thanks.



I'm practising the critical thinking and questioning, that you advocate so much.

I do still think it's strange how people here will start threads with the sole purpose of venting/ranting/complaining about something that others are doing to make a living or to amuse themselves.

If I recall correctly you managed to get to the third post, of the one thread you have contributed here before you vented/ranted/complained/incited anyone ... perhaps you too should consider doing us a public service?

 

[fstops]

I don't have an extreme dislike or like reaction to these images, to me they're simply not interesting visually and conceptually so I'm indifferent.

 

[jtm6]

I am sure that the photographer traveled with bags of high end photo equipment and yet is trying to emulate the look of an iphone and Hipstamatic. We have sunk to the lowest common denominator.

I witnessed 20 undergrads with DSLRs process all of their images (2,000 to 10,000 each student by the end of the class) with these effects.

 

[Turtle]

Asking people for their opinion, to contrast with your own, is quite normal both online and in life. It is extraordinary that you have not encountered this before, but your lack of social courtesy perhaps provides an explanation.

To ask you why you started a thread stating how you saw some photos and didn't like them.

So some strangers on the internet shared your opinion and some others didn't. Do you feel clarified?
Cheers.

 

[Sparrow]

You want me to find some photos that I don't like and bring them to your attention?

... well, if you have something to discus or debate yes ... you do understand the difference between debate and argument don't you? ... I was actually thinking you should refrain from contributing at all

 

[oftheherd]

Has anyone else noticed these: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18604676?

I never realized before quite how much I dislike this sort of look. For me, the photography gets in the way of the subject matter.

Cheers,

R.

I don't know I had ever heard quite that turn of phrase before. But I think it aptly describes the process.

 

[Turtle]

Bashing? No. Criticism, comment and opinion? Yes.

If you are devoid of viewpoint and opinion, you picked the wrong hobby. If you are disinclined to share opinions, I think it is fair to say you picked the wrong forum.

I've had far more critical comments made about my own photography. its part of the process. Its part of life.

Should you have 'bashed' the photos? Er, no. An opinion would have been a worthwhile contribution, however. Opinion on the photos that is, not just the people who contributed.

Oh. You mean I should have joined in with bashing the photographer and photos that you and Roger don't like?

 

[Alfasud]

This thread is beginning to sound like a bad replay of the Monty Python "Parrot" sketch. We are supposed to be having fun?

 

[Michael Markey]

I listened to the debate and then looked at the photos.
I didn`t find the technique too interruptive although it did remind me of the stuff which I saw only to often at my local camera club.
There they were always exhorting people to" put something of themselves into the shot" .
This usually involved some unusual treatment.
Perhaps the photographer was just mixing it up a bit .
Did I find it distracting ...well yes .
I`d have liked to have found out more about the poor chap who had recently lost his wife.

 

[Joe AC]

Yes, that's what I meant.



So it's like your doing a public service. Thanks.



I'm practising the critical thinking and questioning, that you advocate so much.

I do still think it's strange how people here will start threads with the sole purpose of venting/ranting/complaining about something that others are doing to make a living or to amuse themselves.

Isn't the point of this forum to share questions, thoughts, and opinions on something that we have a common interest in? Some of the people here are not strangers at all and they/we discuss things of this nature to get a better understanding of this thing that all of us here seem to love...photography. It's seems to me that you seem pretty offended by some of the comments about these photos. Probably because you take the same type of crappy photos and attempt to call them "Fine Art". But, thats just a guess. It also seems that you're looking to pick an argument when others are just looking to discuss. If that's the case then maybe you shouldn't join in on these types of threads. Stick to the "let's see your M" thread and admire your camera.

Thanks
Joe

 

[DtheG]

"The trip of a lifetime.* The sort of thing that cause people with no interest in photography to go to a camera shop for something better than a 'phone. (If it were not for such demand the mass market for SLR type cameras would hardly exist.) So I would not expect a tourist, et alone a professional photographer to be relying on just a smartphone. Was all the other gear lost? Probably not. So the choice must be deliberate—intended to say something. Perhaps something about what fate awaits when a new road opens up the place to the sort of people who really do think 'Hipstermatic' is clever?

As to the photos themselves, ignoring the special effects processing: good enough as illustrations for a magazine article, but not compelling images for exhibition as photographs.

 

[RBruceCR]

I do like the effects. I get vigneting with my Electro 35 too and have come to live with it!

The pictures are good enough for me, accustomed to make calendar pictures for our printing shop. Not having visited the Himalayas, the series gives me some ideas on the people and the sights, second hand.

The question that I have is if these pictures were made with an iPhone or not?

Regards,

Robert H. Bruce
San José, Costa Rica

 

[Pablito]

An interesting question, a relief from the endless threads about what to buy or speculation about some equipment rumor etc. What a shame the subject at hand can't be discussed seriously without degenerating into.....

Anyway, whatever you think of the specific images in Roger's link, the larger question is whether Insta/ Hipsta is always just a gimmick regardless of who uses it or how it's used. Is it inherently gimmicky? Or are there appropriate and powerful uses for it?

Consider Damon Winter's Afghanistan photos, for instance:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/finding-the-right-tool-to-tell-a-war-story/

 

[funkydog]

...the larger question is whether Insta/ Hipsta is always just a gimmick regardless of who uses it or how it's used. Is it inherently gimmicky? Or are there appropriate and powerful uses for it?

Methinks it has something to with the generation you were born in and how you learnt photography. Did you have to work hard to get good results in the darkroom (good results as judged by the established order of the day) or were you born into a generation where cameras and processes had become so perfect that the output is considered bland therefore one has to use computer trickery to make their pictures stand out from all the other perfectly focused, exposed, composed,processed pics?

 

[Pablito]

Methinks it has something to with the generation you were born in and how you learnt photography. Did you have to work hard to get good results in the darkroom (good results as judged by the established order of the day) or were you born into a generation where cameras and processes had become so perfect that the output is considered bland therefore one has to use computer trickery to make their pictures stand out from all the other perfectly focused, exposed, composed,processed pics?

Painting with a broad brush again; an outright dismissal of Insta/Hipsta as "trickery". Anyone have a more nuanced view? BTW, Damon Winter is no youngster.

 

[fstops]

The Damon Winter piece was a marketing work of genius for Apple.

If you go to Afghanistan and embed with soldiers, even if you take pictures with a pinhole, the pictures will be 'compelling' because its a war zone.


Today the only skill in photojournalism required is the skill of being there and there usually means some war zone or disaster era or some place where tourists cannot travel.

 

[funkydog]

Painting with a broad brush again; an outright dismissal of Insta/Hipsta as "trickery". Anyone have a more nuanced view? BTW, Damon Winter is no youngster.

Hey I can play ball too. Ok start applauding. Here's my Himalayas Instagram hipstermatic shot taken somewhere between Xixabangma and Everest. Look at me, look at me, I was there! I'm an artist now. I'm so cool and I'm not a hipster either. 😀😀😀

himalayas_instagram_cr on Flickr

 

[ottluuk]

The photos in question don't really work for me. I think it's because the subject matter is already strange and hard to grasp (for me) and the heavy gloss of effects puts antoher barrier between me and understanding what I'm looking at. Am I seeing a happy moment, or a melancholy one? It's all a bit off, so to speak, nothing to ground your emotion.

That said, I'm not against the Hipsamatic/Holga look at all. It's not fake, either, at least not more so than any black and white conversion from a colour digital image. Is ortho film more fake than panchromatic film? It is what it is. The Hipsta thing usually gives rather predictable and garish results - but so does, albeit in another way, Velvia, (IMHO). So, in the end, it's all about the context and intent with which you choose a particular method.

A couple of years ago, after I had first seen Tarkovsky's Polaroids on the web somewhere, I started experimenting with split toning and vignettes. Ultimately, this proved to be a dead end for me but I still have hundreds of these photos in my Lightroom catalog. Some of them look overcooked in retrospective but some I really like. Let me provide a few examples, if you will.

The effects are not as heavy as straight out of Hipstamatic but they're damn sure as fake as I could make them.

Like memories, nostalgic, all filtered and biased.

 

[heed]

I don't have a huge problem with the photos per se; at least they weren't taken on a LEAF and then ravaged into their current form.

My problem is how the people are typically portrayed. Mysterious. Hidden. Alluring.

There are probably others around here more experienced than me, but I've traveled in Tibetan Buddhist/Bon societies for around 11 years and the reality of the situation is this: enslaved through fear of death to the monasteries who say, "yeah, you're poor. But give us what you have left and maybe you'll come back as one of us!" Oh, and by they way, let's make sure that you stay without running water, proper sanitation, and decent education for as long as possible. They're not mysterious or alluring. They're just poor and deceived.

 

[funkydog]

..enslaved through fear of death to the monasteries .. They're not mysterious or alluring. They're just poor and deceived.

That's the same impression that I got from reading about Joseph Rock's travels in that region more than eighty years ago (link posted earlier in this thread).