Best Nikon color photographers

MattKing

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DREW WILEY

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Interesting. A handful of the Giverney ones. Don't know why; maybe the Museum wanted something more permanent than Ektacolor 74. But DT's would have been done in editions, for sake of potential collectors too. The color signature is still blatantly Vericolor, and probably printed using pan matrix film by a particular big lab that wasn't very good at it. I always felt the muddy CN hues with its cyan-inflected poison greens of that time were a total mismatch for the gardens of Monet anyway.

A few of that era gang have had some their early 35mm work recently reprinted in DT, namely Meyerowitz and Eggleston. 35mm
suited Eggleston best; many of the others predominantly transitioned to 8x10 for quite awhile. I got to see a variety of their early contact prints; only Meyerowitz had the patience to make high quality contact prints, but even he switched to enlargements made by a pro lab. A very innovative time, with a number of iconic images, but plenty of bellyflops too. They were experimenters.
 
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Alan Edward Klein

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Rowell switched to Velvia 50 and did most of his work for Outdoor Photography.
 

koraks

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DREW WILEY said:
Don't know why; maybe the Museum wanted something more permanent than Ektacolor 74. But DT's would have been done in editions, for sake of potential collectors too.
Click to expand...

These particular prints were gifted to the museum by gallerist Peter MacGill and were apparently part of an edition of 50. So they were not made because the museum 'wanted something more permanent'. The prints were made in 1984 when Shore's reputation was already pretty solid, so in all likelihood these prints were intended to be sold commercially. I expect MacGill played a role in the prints having been made; he opened his gallery just a year before and may have commissioned these prints as a matter of 'business as usual'.
 

DREW WILEY

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Thanks. I just recall that the Giverney project was based on a grant, and certainly seemed to be a misfit for Shore's own style.

As far as Galen Rowell goes, he doesn't belong in the same conversation. He was an accomplished endurance climber who lived next door to a backpacking pal of mine, and made his living as an auto mechanic until he got a lucky break with NG. Best known as an adventure travel guru. A machine gunner who wasted hundreds of shots for an occasional lucky one, of the ski poster and SUV commercial ethos; made most of his money on stock shots for advertising, prior to the GoPro craze. A lot of tasteless filtration fakery, and eventually blatant PS abuse. Real "mountain light" wasn't his forte. More humble in person than his marketing persona. Just another climber with a camera, and he knew it. Another friend of mine who had a local lab made his R prints. Later bit inkjet prints were made for his short-lived gallery in the Eastern Sierra - obnoxious touristy fare, gussied up with fake color. That venue is now gone.
 
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koraks

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DREW WILEY said:
certainly seemed to be a misfit for Shore's own style.
Click to expand...

I'm not intimately familiar with Shore's work, but at first glance, I found those Giverny photos kind of puzzling as part of his larger body of work. There's Monet, of course, and I wonder whether perhaps Shore was kind of 'stuck' with this subject matter and then saw himself forced to make the best of out far outside of his comfort zone. Just speculation though...
 

Paul Howell

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When I worked for Reuters I used my personal gear which I had serviced at the London Nikon service center. The manager told me that he thought the F2 was the strongest pro level body that had been made to that time. I don't know how he came to that conclusion, but I took his expert opinion. I upgraded to an F3P, never had an issue with it and most seem to be good working order.
 

DREW WILEY

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Koraks - Shore was brilliant by how he so carefully balanced what would have otherwise been an obnoxious clash between his pumpkinish warm & flesh tones versus off-greens. It was a matter of exact proportionality, and most evident in the early book, Uncommon Places (with the sole exception of that Chevron gas station image with its dominant blue instead of green). But at Giverney, that whole strategy or template falls apart. But if Eliot Porter, for example, had shot those gardens using chrome film instead, it would have been a whole other story, and a better fit for DT too.

The success of Shore's early work revolves around the native idiosyncrasies of Vericolor L and Ektacolor 74 C prints. His later work seems more cerebral rather than visual to me - disconnected from his original formula.

When someone asks about a great Nikon color photographer I think of Ernst Haas. He didn't shoot just Leicas.
 
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Don_ih

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koraks said:
at first glance, I found those Giverny photos kind of puzzling as part of his larger body of work
Click to expand...

Me also, but only in terms of subject matter. The viewpoint seems pretty Shore to me. And those photos make you think, "Well, that's a crummy park. Someone really needs to whack the weeds."

@Alex Benjamin likely disagrees with me
 

DREW WILEY

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I like overgrowth and weeds, although I certainly whack down those on my own property due to fire hazard. I just thought that Shore's Giverney pictures were ho-hum, and could have been done by anyone using a misfit film.
 

Alex Benjamin

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Don_ih said:
Me also, but only in terms of subject matter. The viewpoint seems pretty Shore to me. And those photos make you think, "Well, that's a crummy park. Someone really needs to whack the weeds."

@Alex Benjamin likely disagrees with me
Click to expand...

Hey !!!


Oh wait....


You're right .


Actually, I don't know what to make of these. I can't figure out what he was going for, other than a purely documentary purpose, which is actually what he might have been asked to do. He was commissioned by the Met Museum to chronicle the restauration of the Giverny Gardens, but that doesn't say anything about how he approached that job, or what he thought of it afterwards. None are shown on his website, and he doesn't mention these in Modern Instances, even though there is a short chapter about the aesthetics of gardens, with two of his photos, one of the Stourhead Gardens in the UK, another of Tivoli, in New York. He might just have seen this assignment as an interesting challenge, which is fine.

That said, there are some I really like in the portfolio, like the view from afar, putting them in perspective with their surroundings.

The Giverny Portfolio

saksglobalartcollection.com
 

Don_ih

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Alex, let's just say they're not really his most compelling work.
 

Alex Benjamin

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Don_ih said:
Alex, let's just say they're not really his most compelling work.
Click to expand...

Oh that's a given. And Shore might actually agree with us. Still, if I ever get to meet him, I would ask him about what he had in mind, what he was aiming for, and if he thought he succeeded or failed. Would make for an interesting conversation, I'm convinced.
 

DREW WILEY

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It's all about understanding the color signature of various films. Kodachrome had its own special look; but so does and did the various Ektachromes, Fujichromes, and Agfachromes. A lot also depends on how the image is reproduced. Sure, I'd like to be shooting some 8x10 Kodachrome; but if ordinary E6 chrome film is now running around $50 a shot with processing, what would Kodachrome that size hypothetically cost per sheet today - $400? And what would be the point unless it were Kodachrome 25, and not that subsequent K 64 "crap". Those would sure be some long exposure times at f/64. (The largest Kodachrome film shots I've ever seen were taken on 5X7 sheet film - and wow!)

... "Best Nikon photographers" should include those who use Nikon large format lenses!
 
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jeffreyg

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Having read many of the comments, I wonder which/how many of the well known photographers mentioned were gifted cameras, lenses and film by manufacturers so their products would be associated with excellence and sought by a wider market ? Cheap effective advertising.
 

DREW WILEY

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There were obviously a few, Jeffry, Galen Rowell being one of them in his later years, around the time he was experimenting with a Nikon N90 and being given a lot of Fuji 35mm film for sake of his classroom. He distinctly taught his students to "shoot as much film as possible" in order to get the best shots. I don't know if that advice just mimicked his own personal style, or more likely was done to please Fuji. I had a short incidental conversation with him about it. But my own approach as a large format photographer was the radically different sniper philosophy, rather than machine-gunning and hoping to get lucky. Let's just say we didn't see eye to eye, but were mutually polite.

I primarily worked in a non-photographic field in a purchasing agent position which included many equipment reviews and endorsements, and was gifted all kinds of things to test for decades, and certainly not just expendables or little stuff. My published reviews were especially thorough, objective, fair, and unbiased. They understood that from the start; I made it clear up front. No exceptions. But that inherently attracted manufacturers of the best and most reliable quality, so it was a win-win. And I had an especially close relation to my pro clients; they trusted my recommendations. That client or customer base included some big lab owners; and I got gifted some serious gear from them too, when they decided to move on.
 
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