Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/07/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Eric Welch wrote: >...<CUT>... > And > you can bet there were a bunch of great pictures taken at Wimbeldon. You > just don't seem many of them. Society is so exposed to great photos they > start thinking there are no great photos out there. Hogwash. There's lots > of great photos, in spite of the magazines. We just don't see them. Eric, I would add that we do not see them because we do not notice them anymore. I find that the average level of illustrative material in sports magazines and sport related articles in less specialized media is extremely high. Much higher than it was before the Eighties. I've come accross issues of magazines dating back to 1966 covering soccer: the average picture quality is much lower than it is today. I also find that fashion photography is generally of a very high level these days, though that discipline has always been the vehicle of some of the best photographers. Same could be said of a large part of today's international photo journalism work, though there has not been that much change since the Sixties (except the systematic use of dayligh fill flash and the intensive usage of lenses wider than 28mm). The high quality level is probably due for a large part to technological progress in the fields of emulsion, telelenses, zoom lenses, high quality automation, pre-press and printing procedures, etc. The sad thing is that we hardly notice this quality anymore. This is maybe part of the justification some contemporary photographers use to theorize the harsh P&S look that is so fashionable these days. It seems easier today to attract the viewer's attention with intentionally degraded images than with "super high res/super composition/super colours". This is obvious in youth oriented magazines, in a large proportion of video clips and in some movies (Lost Highway, Tarantino films, etc). Lomo is in , Leica is out ? > And your granny's stuff would look lots worse, and having an auto camera is > of no help here. A properly exposed bad picture, a properly focused bad > pictures is that. i would not be so sure that "grannies" are not in a position to shoot anything except "bad pictures"... Friendly regards, Alan, Brussels-Belgium