快樂牛郎

The pose is not for me. I guess it's the "Asian pose"? It actually turns me off.

快樂牛郎

One time I bought the best selling book from Asia called "500 best portrait poses". 99% of them are ugly as hell. I guess that speaks about the Asian aesthetics.

快樂牛郎

I forgot who said this, but some famous guy said that China/HK photography is 10-15 years behind Japan and Japanese photography is 10-15 years behind American.

快樂牛郎

Scanning my shoot from last weekend. Here is the first one.

I was already shooting at f8 but still there's zero dof.

快樂牛郎

It's too big, almost scary. I need to exercise caution next time before I put on that extension tube.

快樂牛郎

快樂牛郎

I deleted the first one -sorry. I like this one more.

快樂牛郎

LOL, that person must be US American.
chobit 發表於 2012/5/1 00:49

Not really. China is big on conceptual photography these days. Most of the prominent artists use photoshop extensively to create surreal illustrations. But none of them has any foundation in traditional photography. As a result, while their shots look "cool", there's simply no history to it.

Japanese, lots of influential masters but they mostly became active in the 60s and 70s. But Robert Frank already redefined photography in 1958. So the time gap is about right. I am not familiar with Japanese color photography but I believe it didn't gain status until the last couple decades. But in the US, Steve McCurry and William Eggleston have been doing this since the late 60s/early 70s.

快樂牛郎

Portrait: moment and personality is everything.
Here is a quick photo before heading out to dance  ...
Look4chrisng 發表於 2012/5/1 08:17

good - I try to stay away from this traditional center vertical portrait but yours looks good.

快樂牛郎

Portrait is really an interesting area. There are so many ways to do just one thing.  At some of the shoots that I go to, I have seen other photographers with huge umbrellas and lighting, but at the same time they come up with shxt poses in front of a garbage background. I also blame that on digital. It totally disrupted the regular process that people go through to learn and refine their craft.  Instead they pore through the internet to look for what is cool and simply copy it with their digital camera. So nowadays you have millions of uninspiring and copy-cat stuff floating everywhere.

I just started reading Joyce Tenneson's stuff.  In the old days, artists went through years of refinement and self-exploration before they finally broke loose and created their unique vision. There are still artists like that today, but most of them still shoot film and go through the tried and true process.  Those that practice digital fast-food simply won't get anywhere.

Sharing another shot from last weekend.