BBC article about Hasselblad shooter in Britain

Ricardo Miranda · Mar 20, 2017

Steve Smith said:
We will go for independence for the Isle of Wight. Build a wall along the Solent and get England to pay for it!

Steve.

LOL ))

NJH · Mar 20, 2017

The Isle of Wight is going to conquer the world with hovercraft!

I may be a few decades late with that prediction.

benjiboy · Mar 20, 2017

klownshed said:
The UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

So, all of Britain is within the UK. England is in Britain. But Wales is not in England.

;-)

Scotland is in the United Kingdom, until we build the wall.

BrianShaw · Mar 20, 2017

benjiboy said:
Scotland is in the United Kingdom, until we build the wall.

Scotland would likely be willing to pay to have that wall built!

Arklatexian · Mar 20, 2017

Cholentpot said:
Bridge...We live under bridges.

But, but, bridge doesn't rhyme with hole and Troll.....Regards!

Cholentpot · Mar 20, 2017

oldtimermetoo said:
But, but, bridge doesn't rhyme with hole and Troll.....Regards!

More poetry than silly 'ol rhymes.

Richard Man · Mar 21, 2017

Is Britain, UK, whatever those islands are, North of France, West of Norway, really that gray with raise midtones and nothing else?

Europan · Mar 21, 2017

The English girls are pale and the English films are black and white. Everything in order

Europan · Mar 21, 2017

The English girls are pale and the English films are black and white. Everything in order

klownshed · Mar 21, 2017

benjiboy said:
Scotland is in the United Kingdom, until we build the wall.

Scotland already has a wall!

NJH · Mar 21, 2017

Richard Man said:
Is Britain, UK, whatever those islands are, North of France, West of Norway, really that gray with raise midtones and nothing else?

No not at all but one important thing is the light a particular photographer is drawn too and then how you represent that in the final print, some are drawn to make the photographs represent the flat drab grey that they see. Personally I just find it depressing and much prefer the dramatic weather like that so famously painted by Turner.

mynewcolour · Mar 21, 2017

I'm not sure if they're heavily compressed or just badly handled but the image files don't do the photography much justice.

I don't have a problem with realistic-contrast black & white. These are mostly ok.

Steve Smith · Mar 21, 2017

NJH said:
The Isle of Wight is going to conquer the world with hovercraft!

We did that in the seventies. We do still have a passenger service to the mainland using new hovercraft built a few months ago.

Steve.

klownshed · Mar 21, 2017

The tonality would be less of an issue if the compositions were better.

BMbikerider · Mar 21, 2017

klownshed said:
Scotland already has a wall!

Actually the wall is in England. From Wallsend in the east to near Silloth in the west generally atributed to the Emperor Hadrian. Covering the counties of Cumbria, Northumberland and what is now the north part of the area of Tyne and Wear. There is another wall, largely ignored and hard to find anyway - known as the Antonine Wall between roughly Glasgow and Edinburgh.

But going back to the otiginal topic before everyone throws their toys out of the pram or even spits their dummy out, the images posted are at one brightness level (The original) and viewed on different screens, (ours) So who is to say the screens are not calibrated properly or on laptops where the appearance can be altered by simply moving the screen. On my laptop I can change the appearance from almost totally black to very pale and washed out.

klownshed · Mar 21, 2017

BMbikerider said:
On my laptop I can change the appearance from almost totally black to very pale and washed out

The tonality is quite flat regardless of how you mess around with your monitor. Lets give him the benefit of the doubt and credit him with achieving the look he was going for though. It's just not my personal cup of tea. It's not a unique aesthetic, others have been there before him.

Also, judging by his photographs we have different views on composition and negative space.

There's no problem with that though is there? I don't have to like his photos any more than he has to like mine. And as I said before, I admire what he's trying to do and the fact that we're talking about his images is a good thing, whether we like them or not.

The fact that he's taken them on film is the only reason we're talking about it here though. And that's not reason enough to like them.

BMbikerider · Mar 21, 2017

Actually on the coast near to where I live, on a dull overcast winters day this would be a good representation in tones of B&W. In colour. if the tonal range was kept constant and without 'fiddling', the scenes may have appeared dreadful. I am not defending the images, I actually like a bit of 'punch' in my photographs and would have done something to try to improve them. But hey-ho what we see is what we get.

mynewcolour · Mar 21, 2017

klownshed said:
It's not a unique aesthetic

I chuckled at this. He's just a hobbiest!

klownshed · Mar 21, 2017

mynewcolour said:
I chuckled at this. He's just a hobbiest!

[pedantmode=1] Actually, he's a photography student. [pedantmode=0]

I didn't imply he had to have a unique style. But I'm glad I made you chuckle. ;-)

silveror0 · Mar 21, 2017

I've learned so much here, but now I don't know what to do with all this newfound knowledge.

c41 · Mar 21, 2017

Steve Smith said:
We did that in the seventies. We do still have a passenger service to the mainland using new hovercraft built a few months ago.

Steve.

You'll find yourself turned away attempting entry to the People's Republic of Portsea.

It used to be a family day out for me to go watch the IOW hovercraft skimming its way back and forth, a grand way to travel (in calmer seas.)

I too found the linked images really flat and lifeless but thanks for sharing and credit to the photographer for their attitude to film and the printed image.

NJH · Mar 22, 2017

Same here, I was a student in Portsmouth for a few years. The other thing I remember is the old London underground train you got on over on the Isle of Wight side, as a Londoner by birth it was a really strange thing.

NJH · Mar 22, 2017

Hate to say it but the linked pictures look just like typical flat scans in terms tonality, I pretty much always have had to pump up midrange contrast then pull back the shadows and highlights a bit in photoshop (i.e. put an S curve in) to get a nice tonality similar to that from a straight print aimed at getting nice contrast range from almost black to almost white.

Steve Smith · Mar 22, 2017

NJH said:
Same here, I was a student in Portsmouth for a few years. The other thing I remember is the old London underground train you got on over on the Isle of Wight side, as a Londoner by birth it was a really strange thing.

The underground stock we have is quite old, 1938 I think. Some of the same batch are in the science museum. Our preserved steam railway has steam locomotives, used in service with British Rail here until 1966 which are younger!

Steve.

Ko.Fe. · Mar 22, 2017

I wonder if crap shots could only ignite crap talks....

I looked at the images on BBC web side... They need to hire some knowledgeable person with healthy eyes. The way pictures are visible now is total disaster. If you are presenting photography it must be not on the trashy Facebook side, where pictures are re-sized by dirt cheap codec and ruined by compression. Due to this BBC hosted photos are looking bad. They look indistinguishable from digital or scans. Here is absolutely nothing in those pictures to show it as the darkroom print.
I doubt here is any printing. It looks like negs scans, with his name added in the Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop software, not the prints from the darkroom.
Honestly, I can't find anything solid in his pictures. Just something related to the gear, film and territories.

BBC article about Hasselblad shooter in Britain

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency