Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

**csant** · 4-Nov-2009, 00:34

Paul Floyd Blake wins this year's Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize with a beautiful portrait of Rosie Bancroft.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertain...re/8339985.stm

Does anybody know something about the technical aspects of that shot? Somehow it "feels" and "breathes" something of large format… but I couldn't find anything about the technical aspects.

**Sascha Welter** · 4-Nov-2009, 04:55

The LF-look is probably due to that vertical lines are vertical (or almost vertical in the case of the door, could be crooked) and low depth-of-field. The image on his web site is a little bit bigger. The description "was captured on camera during a short interval in a busy training day" doesn't sound too much like LF to me.

His other work doesn't look much like LF to me, but of course I might be totally wrong on either one :-)

**eschatologized** · 4-Nov-2009, 07:40

It could be medium format, or just 35mm (more likely a DSLR) with a fast lens. I think there's some convergence in the door frame. Of course, he could be a large format photographer who prefers to use minimal, or no, movements; difficult to determine format from a small digital image.

**Frank Petronio** · 4-Nov-2009, 08:15

I can't figure why that shot wins $20K and the next perfectly good one doesn't, it seems like you'd get better odds with the lottery or Vegas....

**arkady n.** · 4-Nov-2009, 11:44

Originally Posted by eschatologized

It could be medium format, or just 35mm (more likely a DSLR) with a fast lens. I think there's some convergence in the door frame. Of course, he could be a large format photographer who prefers to use minimal, or no, movements; difficult to determine format from a small digital image.

"Blake eschews digital technology: he uses a 5x4 Wista field camera, a modern version of the 19th-century plate cameras. "To get the same quality with a digital camera, you're looking at £20,000," said Blake. "It's got bellows and lots of different movements which I tend not to muck around with. I'm not [German photographer] Andreas Gursky."

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesi...tography-prize

**csant** · 4-Nov-2009, 11:47

Hah, thanks! Nice to see confirmed my "feeling"

**eschatologized** · 4-Nov-2009, 11:55

I guess I was also right that he doesn't use movements much.

**bill kehoe** · 6-Nov-2009, 07:30

has it occurred to anyone that when you "correct" perspective on architectural elements, eg. convergence in a doorframe, you also "correct" perspective on everything else in the image, eg. the subject? when correction doesn't cause distortion it still effectively alters the point-of-view of the camera, and i for one like the point-of-view just as it is. in my opinion, there is a stillness to this photograph that is dynamic rather than static; not easy to accomplish in lf. the fact that others weren't sure what format was used seems to support my impression and should be considered a compliment by the photographer. i haven't seen the other entries in the competition but i fail to see why anyone would find this one to be undeserving of an award.