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codyjgraham
18-Jul-2012, 13:10
does anyone know what film sally mann used for her color landscapes of mexico?

like these?7743277433

SpeedGraphicMan
18-Jul-2012, 13:21
Well I know she uses an old beat-up 8x10.

Looks like a reversal film to me IMO.

Lachlan 717
18-Jul-2012, 15:59
Seeing the shots for the first time makes me wonder if you're asking so that you can avoid ever using it?

Brian C. Miller
18-Jul-2012, 16:46
Another possibility is that Sally Mann used an old, damaged lens which didn't cover the 8x10 format, and the gawd-awful look of the film could be from darkroom manipulation.

Old thread: Bad lens suggestions for an 8x10. (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?5506-Bad-lens-suggestions-for-an-8x10)

vinny
18-Jul-2012, 16:51
an early version of instagram?

cosmicexplosion
18-Jul-2012, 17:32
the one with bricks makes me feel like i am there...about to die of heat exhaustion...effective...sure. the other has a spy glass look, we dont all want to look like digital replicas do we now>?

codyjgraham
18-Jul-2012, 18:58
Seeing the shots for the first time makes me wonder if you're asking so that you can avoid ever using it?

Actually quite the opposite, I love the Colorado and dreamyness of it all, how surreal it is

Lachlan 717
18-Jul-2012, 19:07
Actually quite the opposite, I love the Colorado and dreamyness of it all, how surreal it is

Fair enough.

Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to produce images this crap. However, On ne discute ni des goûts, ni des couleurs...

codyjgraham
18-Jul-2012, 19:13
Fair enough.

Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to produce images this crap. However, On ne discute ni des goûts, ni des couleurs...

I don't understand why you're so against the images? Just because they're not techniquely perfect? She wasn't named Americas best photographer for no reason

adam satushek
18-Jul-2012, 21:23
Ha....so glad you guys said what I was thinking about the images......I had similar thoughts in my head but decided that 'if I can't say anything nice, that I shouldnt say anything at all.'

But of course to each their own.....I'm sure many people like them.

Frank Petronio
18-Jul-2012, 22:23
I don't understand why you're so against the images? Just because they're not techniquely perfect? She wasn't named Americas best photographer for no reason

I like her images fine but she is hardly America's best photographer even if such a pronouncement was credible instead of being complete bullshit. I respect her and her work but fawning over her considered and calculated sloppiness seems at least as vapid as whatever the dogged but boring perfectionists waste their time doing....

As for which film, I have no idea but suspect it would be color neg and some really beat-up, scratched and funky old Brass lenses. The kind that Eddie and Galli drop and drive their cars over. She probably buys a dozen mint ones and then sits around sandpapering the glass to get that just ever so perfect degradation.

welly
18-Jul-2012, 22:31
I don't understand why you're so against the images? Just because they're not techniquely perfect? She wasn't named Americas best photographer for no reason

If that's the case, based on the two images posted, I'd hate to see what America's second best photographer comes up with.

pbryld
19-Jul-2012, 05:05
I've been wondering as well.

You don't get those colours from bad, beat-up lenses. It's the film or the darkroom. The first one the OP showed doesn't seem overexposed at all, but it still has those extremely soft and subtle colours, so I guess it can't be that?

cosmicexplosion
19-Jul-2012, 06:03
she could of hand coloured them.

one thing i can say is they may not sit well with all the lens polishers, but stick a big print up on the wall and it may give your room a mood, a certain mood, a feel, yes, maybe she is trying to create a mood over any thing else, maybe she is just bored to death with strait shooten, maybe she is going blind...

there is also a big trend at the moment to do the whole polaroid washed out impossible look, its all over the fashion mags, you know the whole 70's revival, lace, polaroids, well here in oz any way...gee i hate it that ozzy dead beat ozzbourne stole our country's name.

to hell with the yanks, they cant sing or take photo's!

Brian Ellis
19-Jul-2012, 06:11
Seeing the shots for the first time makes me wonder if you're asking so that you can avoid ever using it?

It isn't my cup of tea either but I respect what she apparently was trying to do and what the images are intended to portray.

"Working with color film, Mann focused her camera on the fragmented pyramids, palaces and stelae which appeared through the haze of the sweltering heat. In her photographs, we feel the oppressive humidity as we wander through dense foliage stumbling upon temples now inhabited by the forest. Through muted colors and an antique camera lens, Sally Mann has captured the energy of the Mayan culture which vanished more than two thousand years ago. Whether standing alone along a shrinking shoreline or next to a tree branch growing through the foundation of a Mayan pyramid, one is
constantly aware of nature's power to consume years of history, reclaiming places of worship, commerce and ambition. Through Mann's images, we witness the transformation of a place once teeming with human presence into an area resonating with ancient history."

http://www.edelmangallery.com/archive20.htm

I haven't liked any of her work from "What Remains" forward. To me she went off the deep end with that book and hasn't resurfaced. But then there are many photographers whose work I don't personally care for but who I nevertheless respect. She's one of them.

codyjgraham
19-Jul-2012, 06:54
She was using a Kodak negative film. Since they were done in 1999, that film is now long discontinued. Portra 160 would be the closest replacement.

She was called America's best photographer for her "Immediate Family" series. "Yucatan" is not that series.

Yucatan was also more recent then 1999

codyjgraham
19-Jul-2012, 06:56
Finally some one with sense and respect!

E. von Hoegh
19-Jul-2012, 07:03
Ha....so glad you guys said what I was thinking about the images......I had similar thoughts in my head but decided that 'if I can't say anything nice, that I shouldnt say anything at all.'

But of course to each their own.....I'm sure many people like them.

Had I produced images like that, I'd be embarrassed to let anyone see them. I've never "got" the whole Sally Mann thing.

David Higgs
19-Jul-2012, 07:05
pretty sure Ozzy is from Birmingham - England!

Michael Graves
19-Jul-2012, 07:13
So people from Birmingham can't sing either? Ozzy did play a pretty mean guitar when he could still remember how.


pretty sure Ozzy is from Birmingham - England!

Thom Bennett
19-Jul-2012, 08:46
77458

Perhaps it was this lens. I've always liked Mann's work of her children, neighbors and her husband in that it is all very personal and that she used an 8x10 to do it over an extended period of time. Of course, I dig the whole Southern, gothic, romantic thing as well. I was not familiar with her color work and find it really beautiful. If you like seeing photographers at work you should watch the video about her, "What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann."

MDR
19-Jul-2012, 08:54
I am not really a fan of her early family portraits, but her later work including these landscapes is superb. I think Mann is really about feeling, personal feelings, feeling of a place etc... and that's what differentiates her work from a lot of other photographers work. Her photographs recreate the feeling of a place or a past event, as opposed to most landscape photography that is about reproducing the place not the feeling.
I second Thom suggestion the What remains docu is a must see. I also believe that she used an old uncoated lens that doesn't cover the film format for this work.

Dominik

codyjgraham
19-Jul-2012, 12:10
I am not really a fan of her early family portraits, but her later work including these landscapes is superb. I think Mann is really about feeling, personal feelings, feeling of a place etc... and that's what differentiates her work from a lot of other photographers work. Her photographs recreate the feeling of a place or a past event, as opposed to most landscape photography that is about reproducing the place not the feeling.
I second Thom suggestion the What remains docu is a must see. I also believe that she used an old uncoated lens that doesn't cover the film format for this work.

Dominik

ive seen it, multiple times haha. I agree her work is more about feeling, thats why its more fine art photography then "portrait" or "landscape"

pbryld
19-Jul-2012, 12:31
She was using a Kodak negative film. Since they were done in 1999, that film is now long discontinued. Portra 160 would be the closest replacement.

She was called America's best photographer for her "Immediate Family" series. "Yucatan" is not that series.

Surely, in 1999, Kodak didn't make a film that just had that look?

MDR
19-Jul-2012, 13:39
Pbryld you can get this kind of results with any color negative film, she shot into the light with an old uncoated lens that has seen better days, she seems to have overexposed her shots by quiet a lot and I don't know how fresh the film was.

Dominik

E. von Hoegh
19-Jul-2012, 13:47
Surely, in 1999, Kodak didn't make a film that just had that look?

From the look the film was made in 1979, exposed in 1999.

codyjgraham
19-Jul-2012, 15:23
Pbryld you can get this kind of results with any color negative film, she shot into the light with an old uncoated lens that has seen better days, she seems to have overexposed her shots by quiet a lot and I don't know how fresh the film was.

Dominik

that makes sense! what does coated vs uncoated mean?

Lachlan 717
19-Jul-2012, 16:18
Finally some one with sense and respect!

I have no "sense and respect" because I disagree with your aesthetic? Nice dose of arrogance, champ.

cosmicexplosion
19-Jul-2012, 22:40
looks like a kodak 2d?

cosmicexplosion
19-Jul-2012, 22:41
can you see the way she hold her mouth....interesting.

Jim Michael
20-Jul-2012, 04:58
that makes sense! what does coated vs uncoated mean?

Coatings lessen reflections at the air/glass interfaces thereby increasing the contrast of the lens. A single coating is optimized for a single wavelength (e.g. green) and mult-coatings for two or more wavelengths. Older lenses typically had a single coating of MgFl. A lens with a coating usually exhibits a blue or purplish color.

codyjgraham
20-Jul-2012, 06:04
Coatings lessen reflections at the air/glass interfaces thereby increasing the contrast of the lens. A single coating is optimized for a single wavelength (e.g. green) and mult-coatings for two or more wavelengths. Older lenses typically had a single coating of MgFl. A lens with a coating usually exhibits a blue or purplish color.

Oh okay thanks :)

Gary Tarbert
20-Jul-2012, 06:50
Sally Mann is possibly the most overated photographer in the world !! , Just my opinion , Cheers gary

E. von Hoegh
20-Jul-2012, 07:03
Sally Mann is possibly the most overated photographer in the world !! , Just my opinion , Cheers gary

Yeah. She has a gimmick; some schtick, that gets her attention. Kind of like a large format Holgatographer.

MDR
20-Jul-2012, 07:23
I don't think that Sally Mann is a photographers photographer, people respond to her work on emotional level that goes beyond the simple ooh and aahs that the grand landscapes of certain photographers provoke.
Some photographers prefer technique and some can master technique and don't have to shove their mastery in the viewers face.

Cody an uncoated lens is a lens without antireflection coating on the lens elements, these lenses usually produce muted sometimes unclean colors when used with color film

Dominik

E. von Hoegh
20-Jul-2012, 07:31
I don't think that Sally Mann is a photographers photographer, people respond to her work on emotional level that goes beyond the simple ooh and aahs that the grand landscapes of certain photographers provoke.
Some photographers prefer technique and some can master technique and don't have to shove their mastery in the viewers face.

Cody an uncoated lens is a lens without antireflection coating on the lens elements, these lenses usually produce muted sometimes unclean colors when used with color film

Dominik

I've seen "oohs and aahhs" personally, when I showed a friend some of Edward Weston's peppers, nautili, etc. As far from a grand landscape as you can get, and technically superb.... made with an old uncoated RR lens, a simple camera, and contact printed under a lightbulb. There is no lack of mastery, nor is it shoved in the viewer's face.

Ms. Mann seems to make a big deal out of using wrecked equipment - as if that is neccessary to the inclusion of "feeling" in a photo. Schtick is what it is, maybe a bit if reverse snobbism as well. Perhaps she cannot make a technically good photo with any equipment, and so uses the beat up stuff.

As for the uncoated lenses, there is more than that going on. I've used Fuji 50 behind an uncoated lens and got superb results, not once but repeatedly.

cosmicexplosion
20-Jul-2012, 07:40
schtick
Yiddish slang meaning "gimmick" that has come to mean "someone's signature behavior." In the 1940's, Jewish comedians in the Catskills referred to their comedy routines as their schtick.
"Joey's schtick is talking too loud."

2. schtick
presentation or sales pitch, from yiddish slang, implying phoniness or slickness, lack of substance with focus on style.
Grandma Zeidel gave her usual shtick for serving take-out for dinner instead of cooking, claiming that her oven was broken and the cleaning lady forgot to do the dishes again.


well at least i know the proper meaning of schtick now, cheers E. Von Hoegh.

ric_kb
20-Jul-2012, 07:47
cross processed ektachrome

MDR
20-Jul-2012, 08:35
Emil first I wasn't refering to Weston whom I believe to be one of the trully great photographers (still prefer Brett though) but to an american landscape deity who imho is the most overated photographer in the history of the medium but that's all it is a personal opinion. Ms. Mann is at home in the gallery scene which requires a as you call it schtick otherwise you are hard to sell. Mrs Mann early work is technically perfect, so are the enlargments of her wetplate work. So she knows her technique quiet well. I've seen a Mann hanging next to a St. Ansel and guess what I vastly prefered her work but then again I also like work produced with the Holga, Diana, and other Toy cameras.

To the OP
I had the same results from an overexposed roll of Konica centuria 100 (miss that film most beautiful pastel tones :( ) ric_kb could be right though

E. von Hoegh
20-Jul-2012, 08:46
Emil first I wasn't refering to Weston whom I believe to be one of the trully great photographers (still prefer Brett though) but to an american landscape deity who imho is the most overated photographer in the history of the medium but that's all it is a personal opinion. Ms. Mann is at home in the gallery scene which requires a as you call it schtick otherwise you are hard to sell. Mrs Mann early work is technically perfect, so are the enlargments of her wetplate work. So she knows her technique quiet well. I've seen a Mann hanging next to a St. Ansel and guess what I vastly prefered her work but then again I also like work produced with the Holga, Diana, and other Toy cameras.

To the OP
I had the same results from an overexposed roll of Konica centuria 100 (miss that film most beautiful pastel tones :( ) ric_kb could be right though

Thank you, I did not know about her wet plate mastery.
I don't think St Ansel is overrated, but I do think he is unjustly deified by those who cannot tell a good postcard from a bad still-life. He also did much more than the grand landscape (which is emphatically not "my thing"). Ansel also did a great deal of work to make his skills attainable by anyone who wished to put in the time and effort.

J. Fada
20-Jul-2012, 10:25
The early work with her family and her later work of her husband are really good. Some of the stuff in the middle is disappointing. Her work with cadavers was calculated to be shocking but it had the reverse effect and was repulsive and almost cost her dearly. I get the impression that when she couldn't take the same pictures of her family since her children were maturing, and started to get tired of it all by their own admission, she didn't know what else to do. In a lot of interviews I have seen of her she comes across as a little insecure when she talks about the non-family images. I think all of the studied affectation in her imagery stems from that insecurity.

MDR
20-Jul-2012, 10:26
Emil I admit that I like some of Ansel Adam's work and I think his and Fred Archer's (why is his contribution never mentioned) zone system is very usable. I also admit that I have his three books (the camera, the negative and the print) and often read them. But he also had a schtick Yellowstone whose existence is more related to William Henry Jackson than to Adams. His Portrait work leaves me completely cold including his docu work of the japanese internment camps.
As a photographer he is overrated as a teacher he is not. I wouldn't want a world without his books or his teachings, same counts for Mortensen. I also believe that the Art world has changed considerably since Ansel's time and Mann has to sell her work in today's art world, which quiet frankly often disgusts me the art world that is. I've heard that Mann used to do workshops as well.

Dominik

Kodachrome25
20-Jul-2012, 11:20
LOL, show a couple of her shots without permission and then tar and feather her, what a class act...;)

MDR
20-Jul-2012, 11:27
I don't believe that this was the OP'S intention at all he seemed really interested in how she did it and the rest is logical either one likes a photographer or one don't. It's the same with Annie Leibovitz mention her name in this forum and most people will state that she lacks any kind of talent which is of course BS.

Dominik

J. Fada
20-Jul-2012, 11:51
I neglected to say above that I like her work. Some of it is incredibly beautiful. I just find the affectations distract me from the beauty of the actual image.

E. von Hoegh
20-Jul-2012, 11:52
LOL, show a couple of her shots without permission and then tar and feather her, what a class act...;)

My position was and still is, that if I made two images like the ones in the first post, I would be embarrassed to have anyone see them. I'm sorry if that offends, but I did not expend the effort of learning photography to produce crap.

MDR
20-Jul-2012, 12:18
Let's hope that she won't retire on island and get as fat as a whale :) Good Analogy by the way as good as Sir Laurence Olivier was as an actor I always felt that his acting was too calculated he was too much in control.

Dominik

E. von Hoegh
20-Jul-2012, 12:25
I see that as kind of the Laurence Olivier approach: he spent time perfecting his craft, so he was damned sure every performance displayed it. That is opposed to the Marlon Brando approach where he knew his craft, but had the balls to try things different every time to see what might happen, good or bad.

Oh, I have the balls to try different things. I just destroy the ones that are crap, as failed efforts. I don't really care if anyone acknowledges my craft - it's doubful they will, as I rarely show any of my photos to anyone. I think that if a person develops a skill, then they should honor that effort by actually using that skill, sort of a form of noblesse oblige.

pbryld
20-Jul-2012, 12:25
People, please. This is not about whether you like Sally Mann's work or not, but simply how she achieved a certain look when she did a series of colour images. If you don't have anything to say about that, you shouldn't be posting in this thread, but rather in another.

Does the look solely come from the film and exposure? It's the only explanation people have come up with so far.

MDR
20-Jul-2012, 13:25
pbryld you forgot the lens, the lens seems to be a huge part of it, look at the out of focus area they look like those from a Petzval or Aplanat/Rapid Rectilinear. The lack of coating + the lack of coverage + exposure = these pictures the film is irrelevant imho buy the cheapest color negative film you can buy if it's out of date even better. You can get these results with slide film as well but it's more of a hit and miss.

Good Luck
Dominik

pbryld
20-Jul-2012, 13:27
Right, no coating, but that still doesn't sufficiently account for the extremely soft colour rendition. I know nothing about colour photography, are you sure there aren't being performed tricks in the darkroom?

E. von Hoegh
20-Jul-2012, 13:32
I did not mean to imply anything about the size of your testicles, nor your willingness to try things with them. I was referring to Mann's ability to print vs. what she chooses to display. Having met her, I can say that she carefully considers everything she does in her photographs, despite what she says in the documentary.

I was using "balls" in the metaphoric sense. (winking smiley)

MDR
20-Jul-2012, 13:40
Uncoated lenses create a soft color rendition especially if said lenses have difficulties focussing all three colors on the same plane which is often the case with early lenses. Veiling Flare degrades the image even further coupled with overexposure you get these tones no Darkroom tricks necessary. Since you live in Denmark, maybe Gandolfi is willing to borrow you one of his darlings on the other hand you can use a loupe and might be able to get similar results.

Dominik

Frank Petronio
20-Jul-2012, 14:35
People, please. This is not about whether you like Sally Mann's work or not, but simply how she achieved a certain look when she did a series of colour images. If you don't have anything to say about that, you shouldn't be posting in this thread, but rather in another.

Does the look solely come from the film and exposure? It's the only explanation people have come up with so far.

I said it was the lens, probably a trashed one. Like sandpapered glass.

codyjgraham
20-Jul-2012, 20:00
People, please. This is not about whether you like Sally Mann's work or not, but simply how she achieved a certain look when she did a series of colour images. If you don't have anything to say about that, you shouldn't be posting in this thread, but rather in another.

Does the look solely come from the film and exposure? It's the only explanation people have come up with so far.

Thanks you! I was looking on how she achieve this aesthetic, I don't care if you don't like her, I honestly don't care, so take your negative attitude toward some where else. I didn't realize this forum was for hats... sorry my bad.


But thank you to the people who have helped me out, how do I know if my lens is coded or unfixed? I have a Kodak Ektar 127 f/ 4.7 (I believe I'm not sure of the f stop but its a 4. something) on a speed graphic

Frank Petronio
20-Jul-2012, 20:30
It is probably single coated, unless it is pre WW2. Not many that old.

Sorry to have missed this obvious point, but most of the look comes from printing the images "wrong" with color that is false to the scene, too light or dark, muddy or too contrasty. This is the major factor in the look, her deliberate break from traditional photo aesthetics. Compound that with a soft focus and likely inaccurately focused lens, with its scratched, dirty, and hazy glass - pointed into the often harsh light - you have a perfect storm of flare and general bad technique.

The film choice plays a minor role when you're trying to muck things up this hard. It really won't matter, any film will look like this if you do what she did.

If you are trying to copy her, in a large format Lomo sort of way, then your sharp little Ektar isn't ideal. But if you want to abuse the lens, miss focus, tilt and swing the standards without regard, and shoot into harsh light sources then you will come close. The rest can be poor filtration when printing from the enlarger or playing with Curves in Photoshop. Maybe drop the wet film on the floor for good measure.

To put her work in context, back in the 90s the Starn Twins were making mint $$$ with their distressed photos and she was trying to tap into that trend. Of course fast forward to present and it's an Instagram filter. Frankly I'm skeptical of anything like this, the wave crested and broke years ago. Just like typography, people will come back around and want clean photos that couldn't possibly be done with an iPhone.

cosmicexplosion
21-Jul-2012, 05:56
if sally finds the right old lens, points it at the sun, over exposes it, tilts it, blurs it, scratches it, filters it, does a voodoo chicken dance on it, soaks it in the sea, squirts her breasts milk on it, then under develops it, dodges it burns it, looks at it, ignores it, dreams it up, lets her imagination float away with it, pulls a swifty with it, bangs it, sandpapers it listens to it....

how is that of less value than someone who exposes a film according to the directions on the box?

my support goes behind any one doing something different.

even if i dont like it. it shows creativity, to just go with what you like as an artist, and like van gogh, people might only catch on years later...

but my answer would be.... i think she gets that effect from experimenting.

Bill_1856
21-Jul-2012, 08:03
It appears to me that she's just trying to make her pictures look in color like what she's been doing for the last several years in B&W. My guess is that she's using a negative material, not a transparency film.
Have you tried emailing her directly?

codyjgraham
21-Jul-2012, 08:28
It appears to me that she's just trying to make her pictures look in color like what she's been doing for the last several years in B&W. My guess is that she's using a negative material, not a transparency film.
Have you tried emailing her directly?

I have not tried that, I might do that, thanks!

pbryld
21-Jul-2012, 11:40
Someone also mentioned cross processing. Seems quite plausible.

Thoughts?

Brian C. Miller
21-Jul-2012, 12:35
Why bother yourself over how Sally Mann did it then, and just look at the Cross Processing (http://crossprocessing.info/) site? Unlike Forest Gump, "Every roll of film you develop is like a box of rabid hamsters. You never know what you're gonna get!"

You can load film forwards or backwards. You can process film in B&W, E-6, or C-41. Underexpose! Overexpose! Try them all!! Use really, really old lenses. Load lots of cheap, uncoated (Tiffen) filters on the front of your lens and point it into the sun. Find some horribly expired film.

Pondering has its limits!!! Take your camera, now, go forth and have some fun!

jennirose
27-Sep-2012, 11:11
Ms. Mann seems to make a big deal out of using wrecked equipment - as if that is neccessary to the inclusion of "feeling" in a photo. Schtick is what it is, maybe a bit if reverse snobbism as well. Perhaps she cannot make a technically good photo with any equipment, and so uses the beat up stuff.


The only time I've ever seen a big deal being made out of the equipment she uses is by folks on this forum...If you take a look at her older work you can see that she can produce technically excellent prints, but instead chooses to provoke certain moods and produce fine art as opposed to certain definitions of "perfect". I (obviously) personally enjoy her work, and the evolution it has taken. How boring it would be if she had just continued to take the same kind of picture for the past 30-odd years. Shows growth, in my opinion.

Frank Petronio
27-Sep-2012, 11:40
I remember her early B&W work. At risk of being slammed as a sexist old white man calling a spade a spade, she played off the fact that she was an attractive young female using a view camera - I knew a few of her teachers and contemporaries who were infatuated with her, much to her benefit. Not an insult to her as much as them because she couldn't help it if she was charming.

Those post-student/pre-kids pictures themselves were no great shakes and kind of muddy rather than using a full tonal range. So I can see her evolution and it's coherent, and she's to be respected for continuing to shoot throughout her life... I think her high point was with her kids when they were young and she's been struggling ever since. She's still an interesting photographer but now that she is no longer an attractive college girl or making provocative photos of her kids, she's having to confront the struggles and hardships that most of us oppressed, beaten down, unattractive, older white males have had to deal with for most of our miserable lives.

jennirose
27-Sep-2012, 12:20
Man, I sure hope that bolded part was sarcasm. Not gonna touch that one.

Frank Petronio
27-Sep-2012, 18:01
I'll stand by that, we're all victims of affirmative action and political correctness where mediocrity is rewarded based on some physical characteristic.

Michael_4514
27-Sep-2012, 18:14
I'll stand by that, we're all victims of affirmative action and political correctness where mediocrity is rewarded based on some physical characteristic.

Satchel Paige.

And getting back to the Sally Mann discussion, I like her work. I don't think that her success is disproportionate to her talent, I just think that most people with her level of talent don't achieve the same level of success.

jennirose
28-Sep-2012, 07:09
And getting back to the Sally Mann discussion, I like her work. I don't think that her success is disproportionate to her talent, I just think that most people with her level of talent don't achieve the same level of success.

I do agree there. In any creative field there are extremely talented people that don't make it. (Or, to look at a different area, just think about jazz musicians. So many of the most revered, talented musicians--people who actually made it in that industry--hardly made enough money to live off of.) And I think art is so subjective anyway, it's impossible to debate someone on why you do or don't like something because you're not going to change someone's visceral reaction to a body of work.

And Frank, sure mediocrity gets rewarded all the time but you can't be serious in your assertion that white male artists are being oppressed. Women and people of color have always had a harder time becoming respected in the art world (or, you know, the world in general). Just because a few have garnered praise as of late doesn't erase hundreds of years of history, or make them any less deserving of that praise. It's fine to not like her work but don't blame that on her being a woman, I hate to say it but it's coming off a bit misogynistic.

Vaughn
28-Sep-2012, 07:50
...where mediocrity is rewarded based on some physical characteristic.

In the past that physical characteristic was a white penis. At least with 'affirmative action and political correctness', the pool of qualified competent people available for jobs has been greatly increased in size.

Sally was founder and member of the Image Continuum, along with Ted Orland, David Bayles and others.


The Image Continuum Press was founded in 1973 as a support group for artists, concentrating on the private publication and circulation of original collaborative artists’ portfolios, journals and letters.

So what contributed to Sally's success was her activity with other artists. She just did not make photographs, but she was/is actively involved with the world of photography. She was not just sitting around mumbling about how no one appreciates her work, or that she was not getting the kudos that others were getting...or complaining on internet forums. She was/is doing real work.

EdWorkman
28-Sep-2012, 08:10
Frank
Lemme splain PC to you
You are not allowed to say the obvious out loud
You might get away with "But the Imperial Personage has no clothes"
Go back and read Orwell again
Now then about the pics- too late to ask now, but who here, without reading the label , would say "gee i like that, it's stellar"
rather than, "well nice first effort but why not try....."

Frank Petronio
28-Sep-2012, 09:28
ISo what contributed to Sally's success was her activity with other artists. She just did not make photographs, but she was/is actively involved with the world of photography. She was not just sitting around mumbling about how no one appreciates her work, or that she was not getting the kudos that others were getting...or complaining on internet forums. She was/is doing real work.

That's great. It doesn't make her work any better though. It just means she played the game well and achieved some success by virtue of outside factors. I am sure that is the case with most popular artists.

It might be more constructive to understand why Ted and David lavished so much attention on an attractive female student 15-20 years younger than they were when there was a surfeit of talented but male students struggling to get similar attention?

It's another form of sexism, it just happened to benefit her.


Women and people of color have always had a harder time becoming respected in the art world (or, you know, the world in general).

I'm sure they did in the past but now the pendulum has swung in the other direction. I never discriminated against women and I never owned any slaves. If anything my ancestors were slaves back in the old country. Why should I have to pay the price for sins of several generations ago? Equality should mean equality, not added benefits for descendants of earlier victims.

Vaughn
28-Sep-2012, 09:45
Perhaps doing some reading about the Image Continuum, how it was formed and what they did might help you realize that what you just wrote is so utterly wrong...but I doubt it.

There is a surfeit of both male and female students struggling for 'attention'. Sally became part of the group because of her talents, contributions, intelligence, and ability to work with a group of fellow artists...qualities lacking in most struggling students -- male and female.

Your gender bias, showed by your words and seen in much of your images is one of the reasons I have never cared for much your work...which is not a reflection of your work itself, but just my response to it.

jennirose
28-Sep-2012, 10:03
It might be more constructive to understand why Ted and David lavished so much attention on an attractive female student 15-20 years younger than they were when there was a surfeit of talented but male students struggling to get similar attention?

It's another form of sexism, it just happened to benefit her.


Because that's what some older men do? Do you really think women feel comfortable having attention lavished on them by older men? Maybe she took advantage of a system that had, for centuries, been anti-woman. Maybe she just fell into her fame. But honestly I don't think this is the right place for this discussion, as you seem to be harboring a lot of hostility toward women, not to mention your completely unfounded perception that female attractiveness somehow grants someone an easier road. If anything, it means they're taken less seriously. Her work is not your cup of tea, there's no need to pretend that in a male-dominated, male-centric world this is somehow an example of sexism toward men.

RichardSperry
28-Sep-2012, 14:03
I don't think this is the right place for this discussion

Where is the proper forum?


unfounded perception that female attractiveness somehow grants someone an easier road. If anything, it means they're taken less seriously.

It's observably true, so why would you write that it's unfounded.

Compare Lee Miller to Man Ray, both were employed by Vogue. Ray took photos of attractive women for the magazine, Miller took photos of dead NAZIs lying in water etc., a far more serious project. Maybe Miller was just allowed some gender slack because her name is androgynous, maybe she got a leg up because she was attractive.

Anyway, I really don't think that any male photographers would be allowed any tolerance taking pictures of naked children. They would probably end up in jail, not even close to Mann's success with the subject. So yes, there appears a gender bias; it's evident. Why is the discussion of that obvious gender bias not allowed? And why is namecalling of those who wish to discuss that topic allowed?

Jody_S
28-Sep-2012, 16:06
From the OP's question, I don't think the film matters as much as technique, especially re. image #1. I've made dozens of similar images (accidentally!) as I first started to experiment with Petzvals, before I got my Speed Graphic and spot meter. Take a crap projection lens with no aperture, that doesn't cover the format, grossly over-expose your negative, develop normally or screw up the developing (intentionally or not), you're going to get images that look somewhat like that. I have a shoebox full of them (does that mean I'm an unrecognized photographic genius?)

Vaughn
28-Sep-2012, 17:26
Where is the proper forum?


Down in the lounge, actually.

Alan Gales
28-Sep-2012, 19:43
that makes sense! what does coated vs uncoated mean?

Old lenses had no coating on them. Later lens manufacturers put a coating on the lens glass to reduce flare. We call this single coating. Eventually this led to multi coating the glass to further reduce flare.

Single coated lenses and non coated lenses are not bad. You just have to take more care that they are shielded from the sun or studio lights. It's good advice to always use a lens shade no matter what lens you use unless of coarse you desire lens flare.