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Thread: Cannot Over Expose?

  1. #11

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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    I find that Tyler Shields challenges some of my notions of Art, success, aesthetics...

    On the one hand, his pictures often appeal to me. Beautiful people, cleanly lit, what’s not to like?

    On the other hand, his work seems to be devoid of any knowledge or understanding of Art history.
    Even when he obviously rips off others, his pastiche seems to miss the point of the original and always ends up a lesser work. [It is obvious in every single example shown in the article that was shared in this thread.]
    Shield doesn’t have a formal training as an artist, and has been quoted saying he doesn’t look at the works of others too much, even though he presents his work as Art, and insists that he shoots specifically with the goal of making prints and books. It almost feels like a form of arrogance ; I think (my) Art is important, I have the ambition to have my work out in galleries, but I can’t be bothered to study the Artists that came before
    The resulting work feels extremely shallow, and devoid of a unifying theme or unique perspective. In a word, it’s not self-aware as Art.

    But then there’s a third thing about Shields :
    He seems to have a sincere love of photography as a process.
    He uses a lot of film cameras, from medium format to 8x10, he often has his B&W work printed on platinum/palladium, and has printed color work with dye transfer...
    Even the fact that he has a YouTube channel sharing the kind of stories that sparked this thread : there’s no way videos like this help his sales in galleries, and they won’t raise his profile as a celebrity... I think the guy is genuinely excited about all that stuff and loves to geek out about photography.

    Maybe Tyler Shields is the most accomplished of all forum photographers?
    A guy who is passionate about the medium and the gear even though he doesn’t have any groundbreaking ideas, but he knows what the average Hollywood rich guy will like and he’s not embarrassed to give them just that.
    "I am a reflection photographing other reflections within a reflection. To photograph reality is to photograph nothing." Duane Michals

  2. #12

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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    Just my opinion... but Tyler Shields is 100% a phony. Living here in Los Angeles long enough, you eventually either run into everyone who's doing things, or you hear about them through the grapevine. A (photographer) friend's girlfriend modeled for Tyler, and when he went to pick his girl up, he saw tons of Helmut Newton books, and many others by photographers that Tyler claimed to have no knowledge of. Some (not all, but at least half, in my opinion) of the pictures in the Vice article are way too close to be coincidental. I gotta give it up to this kid for copying more than a couple of those images verbatim, then saying he doesn't look at other photographer's work. It seems to me that's the only way you could go, when the plagiarism is this bad, but the critique by the Yale person that "The issue with the work of Tyler Shields isn't so much that he's copying so many artists' work—though his shouldn't be an artistic model to aspire to—but that his appropriations replace the unique vision of the original with the cheap ploys of shock or nostalgia" is spot on, in my opinion. There's no end to the amount of kids driving around Hollywood, with trust funds (rumor has it he is a trust fund kid), using art as a cover. Just look at his pictures, then look at the originals. Especially the Sally Mann. Wowzers. His success may lie in the fact that he actually enjoys this bizarre odyssey, and if so good for him (I think?) Ok, rant over. Its low hanging fruit, anyway.
    Last edited by ColonelKurtz; 30-Dec-2020 at 00:06. Reason: typos and punctuation

  3. #13
    multiplex
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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    Quote Originally Posted by Michael R View Post
    I donÂ’t know, John, normally IÂ’d kind of agree with you but some of those were clearly all-out copies. IÂ’ll give him a pass on the biplane/crop duster because if you rip off a rip off itÂ’s fine.
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    It’s just the world we live in.
    The author died years ago..

  4. #14

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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    Tyler Shields cannot count: the difference between f5.6 and f45 is not 9 stops.

    After watching that video (unapologetic self-aggrandizement malarkey, IMO) I am annoyed by the misinformation he's promoting - namely "you cannot overexpose film". I would like to see him overexpose a sheet of film by 15 stops and then dare to persist in pandering this message. There is a limit to what you can get away with.
    Also, he's a blatant copycat - not an original idea in his portfolio, as far as I can see.
    Last edited by paulbarden; 30-Dec-2020 at 15:00.

  5. #15
    multiplex
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    Thumbs up Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    Quote Originally Posted by paulbarden View Post
    Tyler Shields cannot count: the difference between f5.6 and f45 is not 9 stops.
    39.6 stops?
    8D

  6. #16

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    Dec 2009
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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    I've long searched for the elusive "shoulder" that causes "soot and chalk" and found by trying to develop Tech Pan shot at EI 200 the real "soot and chalk" comes by overdeveloping.

    That boggled my mind a bit because I have been thinking exposure could cause it. Or that old film has a shoulder. Or that I might simulate it by using a superproportional reducer.

    But I think now that I found it. It's overdevelopment that causes that look that Ansel Adams invented the Zone System to help beginners avoid "soot and chalk". And the good negatives he helped us all achieve are simply not overdeveloped.

  7. #17
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    Underexposure causes it because you can't print detail that's not even there in the shadows to begin with (the soot).Chalk would be due to uprintable highlights due to either overexposure or overdevelopment, or both. Tech Pan is pretty uncooperative in the highs and lows anyway. It can be bullied into low contrast by the right developer, but was designed as a technical (not pictorial) film, just like the name implies. The Zone System was thought up long before Tech Pan arrived, and certainly didn't solve all the problems. Otherwise, AA wouldn't have had so much grief printing his own negs. Thank goodness the two bozos on the linked video didn't try to explain the ZS.

  8. #18

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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    Yup, you saw the pictures and the graph. It was your comment that made me realize that I'd finally found the silver bullet (for ruining negatives).

    All it takes is gross underexposure and gross overdevelopment... and that's something I never really tried before. I hate pushing.

  9. #19
    Drew Wiley
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    Sep 2008
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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    Tech Pan was a wonderful forensic film. Some guy was convinced he had discovered a missing Carravagio painting. Everything about it certainly looked old, but from clear across the room it looked like a fake to me. But instead of him spending thousands of bucks for an expert opinion, I offered to IR photograph it for a few hundred using Tech Pan. Sure enough, the underpainting was some 1920's theme.

  10. #20

    Join Date
    Mar 2018
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    Los Angeles, CA
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    Re: Cannot Over Expose?

    Quote Originally Posted by paulbarden View Post
    Tyler Shields cannot count: the difference between f5.6 and f45 is not 9 stops.

    After watching that video (unapologetic self-aggrandizement malarkey, IMO) I am annoyed by the misinformation he's promoting - namely "you cannot overexpose film". I would like to see him overexpose a sheet of film by 15 stops and then dare to persist in pandering this message. There is a limit to what you can get away with.
    Also, he's a blatant copycat - not an original idea in his portfolio, as far as I can see.
    Yeah, that is why I didn't touch the "can't overexpose film" baloney. How many times does that conversation need to be had? If anyone is truly interested, they can certainly do exactly what he did and see for themselves.

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