Photographer harshly criticized for ‘shoddy’ Olympic portraits

Has anyone taken the time to visit his site and read his blurb?
Might make a little more sense if anyone is bothered, doubt it, people are quite happy to sit behind their keyboards typing "Mr angry" posts.
"oh i could have done better"
"these are ****"
Whatever.
 
Phil Young said:
he could of at least polished the turd with PP.
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Not doing the normal post processing and showing the actual image that came out the camera is one thing, and something I could understand, and even applaud to show how much what we see in magazines and media may not be what came out of the camera, but to take deliberately bad pictures boggles the mind. :shrug:

Stuff like this can be done for 'artistic reasons', but without the usual BS that has to accompany such things, it leaves the images, and the images are poor.

If anyone put images like that on here to show, then I think they would get similar opinions, though maybe not so forthright because they probably wouldn't be a professional with images like those.

And if the hypothetical person then said, 'it's my personal artistic statement', then the reply would be 'er OK mate, but they're not very good'.
 
KIPAX said:
Has any of you got in touch with the guy to express your concerns about his work?.. or just happy to do it behind his back?
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what do you think of star wars?

Or do you need to have a discussion with george lucas before you can answer that question?
 
theres not much doubt that he did these deliberately - if you look at his site he is certainly capable of much 'better'.

questions that come to mind are

a) did he do it deliberately with this reaction in mind - in the 'no such thing as bad publicity' vein - or was it an artistic statement that backfired

and

b) were they 'on brief' - one presumes he would have been given some direction as to what the client wanted - if they were on brief then no problem, if not then you wonder what he's playing a as taking deliberaely contreversial shots when that isnt what the client wanted is neither big nor clever.
 
Its hardly the whole story

why didnt a proffesional of his calibre have back up kit ?

why did he publish them with no PP

etc - i still tend to it being deliberate
 
big soft moose said:
Its hardly the whole story

why didnt a proffesional of his calibre have back up kit ?

why did he publish them with no PP

etc - i still tend to it being deliberate
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The one swimming just has to be deliberate and artistic right, I mean it looks bloody horrible, but its quite effective as a water line juxtaposition type thing I think.
 
I understand circumstances wasn't on his side.

And we can conclude that these were not intentional, so why didn't he try to clean them up with PP?

QUICK: SOMEONE EMAIL TO ASK!!!

Fine, circumstances meant a bad shoot. But even so, there's no excuse for no pp if you're trying to make nice images that portray the top athletes of a country.

...or...am I wrong?
 
Phil Young said:
I understand circumstances wasn't on his side.

And we can conclude that these were not intentional, so why didn't he try to clean them up with PP?

QUICK: SOMEONE EMAIL TO ASK!!!

Fine, circumstances meant a bad shoot. But even so, there's no excuse for no pp if you're trying to make nice images that portray the top athletes of a country.

...or...am I wrong?
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As far as im aware he is a reporter, shoots documentaries and the like, therefore not allowed heavy post process
And anyway why should he, its his vision! Its the way he wanted it.
Its like saying to dali "ang on dali mate, you do know elephants don't actually look like that" of course he bloody knows.
 
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yeah but he's not doing reportage - he's doing olympic photographs - so surely he's allowed to do whats necessary - also even reporters ae allowed to remove dust bunnies and such
 
Just a quick post to thanks all those negative, I'm so perfect posters here.....

And mods no need to ban me - this thread has just finished TP for me.

Utterly pathetic replies - get a bloody grip! It's this sort of pretentious holier than thou crap.

Can you not see what this guy has done........of course not , because you're all too up yourselves with rules and readiness to slate anything that don't comply.

I'm out of here
 
big soft moose said:
yeah but he's not doing reportage - he's doing olympic photographs - so surely he's allowed to do whats necessary - also even reporters ae allowed to remove dust bunnies and such
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How do we know he wasn't shooting from the sidelines of another photographers setup?
This is what's amazing about these images and photography in general, its a mystery that only he knows and the whole worlds pulling their hair out because of it.
In my eyes he's won on so many counts lol
 
Before you run away - great olympic class :dummy: btw - perhaps you could claify what "this guy has done" because as far as i can see all he's acheived is some not particularly good shots which don't fulfil the brief of representing his countries olympians - I assume you are saying he did this deliberately , but why he thought tha would be a good idea (unless it was purely for viral publicity) would bear considerable explanation.
 
Simon photo said:
How do we know he wasn't shooting from the sidelines of another photographers setup?
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because he was briefed to take the photos ? , because if that were the case he wouldnt have realsed these shots as the official olympic portraits ?

Simon photo said:
This is what's amazing about these images and photography in general, its a mystery that only he knows and the whole worlds pulling their hair out because of it.
In my eyes he's won on so many counts lol
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He's certainly got his name out there - but being known for taking crap shots is hardly a win , when your general standard of photography is much higher.
 
Simon photo said:
As far as im aware he is a reporter, shoots documentaries and the like, therefore not allowed heavy post process
And anyway why should he, its his vision! Its the way he wanted it.
Its like saying to dali "ang on dali mate, you do know elephants don't actually look like that" of course he bloody knows.
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Lol come on, it's not really a vision and what he really wanted if he didn't have the amount of time wanted and lighting busting up on him...plus...are these photos for reportage?
 
big soft moose said:
Before you run away - great olympic class :dummy: btw - perhaps you could claify what "this guy has done" because as far as i can see all he's acheived is some not particularly good shots which don't fulfil the brief of representing his countries olympians - I assume you are saying he did this deliberately , but why he thought tha would be a good idea (unless it was purely for viral publicity) would bear considerable explanation.
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He's from Slovakia
 
Simon photo said:
He's from Slovakia
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okay so they arent his countrymen - but the point still holds , he hasnt fullfilled the brief of presenting the american olympians , so i have to wonder why he thought it would be a good idea (assuming he's good enough not to have done it by accident) - yes he's got a degree of viral publicity - but its of the Gerald Ratner " all my jewelery is crap" variety
 
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There is no way any photographer with a mind for composition would make these mistakes. … If you were to tell me to set up shots to be as ugly as possible, but to not get caught, I would do these same setups. For that reason, I think he must be making a statement about the way society paints athletes as perfect. Showing flaws in the photos to illustrate the fact that they are people, not gods. … The mistakes are intentional. Especially considering about half the mistakes could be fixed by any redditor that has photoshop (Smooth backgrounds, basic color corrections, straight shots, cleaned textures, etc.)Hiranyagarbha – Reddit commenter

just about sums things up i think.
 
but if thas true why is he making excuses about working conditions and broken lights ?
 
big soft moose said:
but if thas true why is he making excuses about working conditions and broken lights ?
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he made that up.. so people won't know how to replicate his 'style' :naughty:
 
big soft moose said:
Before you run away - great olympic class :dummy: btw - perhaps you could claify what "this guy has done" because as far as i can see all he's acheived is some not particularly good shots which don't fulfil the brief of representing his countries olympians - I assume you are saying he did this deliberately , but why he thought tha would be a good idea (unless it was purely for viral publicity) would bear considerable explanation.
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pedantic I know, but Joe is Czech. He's not representing his country with these. Maybe that was the plan :thinking:

I suspect there is something else to this, for whatever reason we can't see it. I just think he's too good for this.
 
It's cock up. Some of them are perfectly ok.

This week he's been mostly photographing Lindsey Lohan in a court room.
 
boyfalldown said:
pedantic I know, but Joe is Czech. He's not representing his country with these. Maybe that was the plan :thinking:

I suspect there is something else to this, for whatever reason we can't see it. I just think he's too good for this.
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The more I think about it, the more I realise he's just got to have done it on purpose, not much else makes sense . ...Impressive expression if he did I think, hats off to him.

Edit. so im guessing the conditions bit is a bluff real or not Pete.
 
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cyclamens said:
Just a quick post to thanks all those negative, I'm so perfect posters here.....

And mods no need to ban me - this thread has just finished TP for me.

Utterly pathetic replies - get a bloody grip! It's this sort of pretentious holier than thou crap.

Can you not see what this guy has done........of course not , because you're all too up yourselves with rules and readiness to slate anything that don't comply.

I'm out of here
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Wow! Photographers expressing opinions about photographs....on a photography forum...who'da thunk it?

Some very thin skins around here.
 
I would say his style doesn't suite studio work, these shots could have been very different if taken in the right surroundings/light, but I must say the first one just looks oof and a couple of others don't show the athletes in the best light.
 
...he is showing snobbery by suggesting you lot don't get it because you like lesser more simple to appreciate things.
 
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