Whatever happened to Pascal Riben?

thestranger

thestranger

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Rowan
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Hi everyone,
I was just thinking the other day about my favourite photos that I've seen on this forum and it made me think of Pascal Riben, the infamous photographer who I think was a prominent member here last year (or maybe the year before.) Some of his work, to me anyway, was genuinely brilliant stuff with a real air of Bresson about it, while the man himself sent a few waves through the community, often bigger than the photos themselves. I remember critique threads becoming 100 message-long sagas of arguments, accusations & slander, with people fighting on both sides to either defend or criticise Pascal. In the end, it all culminated with Pascal going on a slightly crazed rant about Slack Media Ltd and the ulterior motives of Talkphotography and then pretty much every trace of him being removed from the forums. I guess the point of this post is just to ask whether anyone ever talks about or references him? He was kind of the talk of the town in almost every thread for a few weeks and the whole debacle raised some really interesting questions about the validity of photo critique and how much we should accept, or appear to accept, other people's criticism's of our work (one of the main sticking points for forum members was Pascal never seeming to accept anyone's comments on his photos.)
Rowan
 
He's on facebook, and his images are still just as 'interesting' .
I thought his 'bird' set were great.
 
I missed all that shenanigans but I've just had a look at his website.

Wonderful, wonderful stuff IMO.
 
I was thinking about him the other day too, as I was looking at a picture that had a bird in it.
He was a strange character.
And then there was Lord Josh? or some such.
Some people do not integrate well into society.
 
Plenty of stuff available on the 'net from him... just seach for his name - he's pretty shameless in pushing his name forward (which may have been part of the problem of how he didn't get a particularly warm reception here - percieved as just here for SEO purposes)...

(hint - use some other search than Google... for "some reason" he appears to have done a bit of a google-takedown on quite a few results that went a similar way to a couple of threads on here...)

My personal opinion (removing my mods hat)

Interesting, sometimes challenging, sometimes rather iffy, and occasionally a bunch of "over arty flowery w***" pictures from an arrogant person who didn't play well with others or respond well to helpful hints from concerned members.
 
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TheBigYin said:
- he's pretty shameless in pushing his name forward (which may have been part of the problem
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He posted on Cameralabs too about 5 yrs ago. Also used Photoo-555 (or similar)
 
TheBigYin said:
Plenty of stuff available on the 'net from him... just seach for his name - he's pretty shameless in pushing his name forward (which may have been part of the problem of how he didn't get a particularly warm reception here - percieved as just here for SEO purposes)...

(hint - use some other search than Google... for "some reason" he appears to have done a bit of a google-takedown on quite a few results that went a similar way to a couple of threads on here...)

My personal opinion (removing my mods hat)

Interesting, sometimes challenging, sometimes rather iffy, amd occasionally a bunch of "over arty flowery w***" pictures from an arrogant person who didn't play well with others or respond well to helpful hints from concerned members.
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I agree with a lot of this, especially about the SEO, but I think that Riben's photos did expose the narrow-mindedness of some members in this forum. A lot of the critique on his shots was along the lines of 'the bird's too small', 'you need to use the rule of thirds' and 'you clipped this person's body off in the photo'; a photo can still be brilliant even with multiple technical faults and I think Pascal was right to dispute criticisms such as these, even if he went about this in an often somewhat rude way.
 
thestranger said:
I agree with a lot of this, especially about the SEO, but I think that Riben's photos did expose the narrow-mindedness of some members in this forum. A lot of the critique on his shots was along the lines of 'the bird's too small', 'you need to use the rule of thirds' and 'you clipped this person's body off in the photo'; a photo can still be brilliant even with multiple technical faults and I think Pascal was right to dispute criticisms such as these, even if he went about this in an often somewhat rude way.
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You expect anything else on here?
 
kendo1 said:
And then there was Lord Josh? or some such.
Some people do not integrate well into society.
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Yeah, but at least Pascal could take a decent photo, Lord Tosh(Josh), was just that, tosh
 
thestranger said:
I agree with a lot of this, especially about the SEO, but I think that Riben's photos did expose the narrow-mindedness of some members in this forum.
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It certainly exposed it in a few members of certain sections of the forum. To be honest, most of his problems originated with his initial postings being purely a link to his website. When taken to task on that (by members and a number of staff) he began posting thumbnail sized images, again with a link to the website - the thumbnails being so small as to be almost impossible to even discern the "bird" that may (or may not) have been in the frame.

To compound this by posting the said images in the Bird Photography section on here - which, as most of us are aware is largely populated by wildlife photographers, many of which are excellent at their stock-in-trade - i.e. Large, Colourful, Sharply Rendered pictures of Various Exotic / Rare Species birds. Now, these type of images may or may not be to your taste - it would be easy (if not particularly interested in wildlife/ornithology) to dismiss them as "yet another bird on a stick". Personally, they're not really what floats my boat, and while I appreciate the technique, fieldcraft and patience that goes into them, they're never really going to do much for me, but i'd never run down that type of shooting - it may well be a "record shot" - albeit a very, very, VERY well composed and executed one, but that's fine, not everything HAS to be art.

However, to post a series of shots where the main subject in frame was a building, or a plain sky, or a telegraph pole and wires, in grainy black and white, with a bird in frame that was unrecognisable in species in the Bird Photography forum was never going to end well. I dare say, if he'd have posted the first four or five images say, in maybe the "creative" or indeed "film and conventional" (as most of the shots did have more grain than RHM's main storage silos), with a short write up stating what he was trying to explore, then he'd have had a far more warm reception. Sadly, when advised by staff that this might be the case, he chose to delete all the pictures from his threads, rant and rave via PM's at pretty much all the staff that had tried to help him and generally "go off on one".
At this point, sadly, many of the membership rounded on the chap, and it became a bit of a "firebrands and pitchforks" mob situation - something I'm personally not exactly proud of, and frankly I'm glad that steps were taken by Marcel to clear some of the wreckage away.
 
I remember the threads about the birds very well - I was just beginning to get more interested in the TP forum and the discussions were remarkable.
Just looked a his b&w stuff on his Flickr and they are really engaging, particularly his use of light.. Partic like the shot of the child with dog on lead in Venice - but I am sure many of us would say that it was not straight :D
 
jakeblu said:
Yeah, but at least Pascal could take a decent photo, Lord Tosh(Josh), was just that, tosh
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Then of course there was ArtMessiah... advocator of the fabled 'love toast.'
 
Was just reading over the 'THIS IS ART' thread again, Hacker's comment is pure, unbridled genius
 
I think I missed these threads... and certainly no idea who Pascal whatshisface is.
 
thestranger said:
Was just reading over the 'THIS IS ART' thread again, Hacker's comment is pure, unbridled genius
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'a vast dollop of neo-maternalistic, neo-Marxian mayonnaise.'

Thanks for reminding me of that, it still cracks me up :lol:
 
TheBigYin said:
It certainly exposed it in a few members of certain sections of the forum. To be honest, most of his problems originated with his initial postings being purely a link to his website. When taken to task on that (by members and a number of staff) he began posting thumbnail sized images, again with a link to the website - the thumbnails being so small as to be almost impossible to even discern the "bird" that may (or may not) have been in the frame.

To compound this by posting the said images in the Bird Photography section on here - which, as most of us are aware is largely populated by wildlife photographers, many of which are excellent at their stock-in-trade - i.e. Large, Colourful, Sharply Rendered pictures of Various Exotic / Rare Species birds. Now, these type of images may or may not be to your taste - it would be easy (if not particularly interested in wildlife/ornithology) to dismiss them as "yet another bird on a stick". Personally, they're not really what floats my boat, and while I appreciate the technique, fieldcraft and patience that goes into them, they're never really going to do much for me, but i'd never run down that type of shooting - it may well be a "record shot" - albeit a very, very, VERY well composed and executed one, but that's fine, not everything HAS to be art.

However, to post a series of shots where the main subject in frame was a building, or a plain sky, or a telegraph pole and wires, in grainy black and white, with a bird in frame that was unrecognisable in species in the Bird Photography forum was never going to end well. I dare say, if he'd have posted the first four or five images say, in maybe the "creative" or indeed "film and conventional" (as most of the shots did have more grain than RHM's main storage silos), with a short write up stating what he was trying to explore, then he'd have had a far more warm reception. Sadly, when advised by staff that this might be the case, he chose to delete all the pictures from his threads, rant and rave via PM's at pretty much all the staff that had tried to help him and generally "go off on one".
At this point, sadly, many of the membership rounded on the chap, and it became a bit of a "firebrands and pitchforks" mob situation - something I'm personally not exactly proud of, and frankly I'm glad that steps were taken by Marcel to clear some of the wreckage away.
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As I said at the time, if his work was looked at in a series, or if you took all his posts together, then it would have made an interesting and thoughtful exhibition. But as we know on here, conceptual art doesn't go down to well, with many members still not understanding or prepared to think about anything different than technical merit, the 'rules' of photography or accept anything other than pretty pictures. Even now, in any art discussion, trying to get people to move past 'it's crap' as a comment is difficult. It's ok if you don't like things as art is subjective, but explain why, don't just dismiss.

Lord Josh was funny, inflated sense of belonging based on his upbringing and age, classic trying to be as successful as the father.
Pascal was interesting, but immediately attacked. Partly his fault but I had the feeling English was his second language and he put up with a lot of abuse before throwing his toys out the cot. It should be remembered as TP's lowest moment and something we as members should be ashamed about.
 
jakeblu said:
'a vast dollop of neo-maternalistic, neo-Marxian mayonnaise.'

Thanks for reminding me of that, it still cracks me up :LOL:
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And thanks for pointing me in the direction, it must have been before my time.
 
Ha ha! I do remember the "Careful with that axe Eugene" statement from Andysnaps :)
 
Byker28i said:
As I said at the time, if his work was looked at in a series, or if you took all his posts together, then it would have made an interesting and thoughtful exhibition. But as we know on here, conceptual art doesn't go down to well, with many members still not understanding or prepared to think about anything different than technical merit, the 'rules' of photography or accept anything other than pretty pictures. Even now, in any art discussion, trying to get people to move past 'it's crap' as a comment is difficult. It's ok if you don't like things as art is subjective, but explain why, don't just dismiss.
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Well said but isn't that going to be true of literally any large public forum?
 
chuckles said:
Ha ha! I do remember the "Careful with that axe Eugene" statement from Andysnaps :)
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Weirdly, I was listening to that on m way home this morning! (Then felt the urge to play Grantchester Meadows for the cat when I got home... :whistling:
 
simonbarker said:
Well said but isn't that going to be true of literally any large public forum?
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We have a few members who can be intolerant to new members, usually it's not too bad. Some forget everyone was new once (and it's not only new members who don't read the rules...). On this occasion though i thought it turned ugly. Not our finest moment, but if we remember that and can act politely, then this forum will remain the brilliant, friendly, informative forum that it is.
 
Byker28i said:
We have a few members who can be intolerant to new members, usually it's not too bad. Some forget everyone was new once (and it's not only new members who don't read the rules...). On this occasion though i thought it turned ugly. Not our finest moment, but if we remember that and can act politely, then this forum will remain the brilliant, friendly, informative forum that it is.
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persnally i thought he got what he asked for ... yes by all means be polite and helpful towards new members, but when you spend half a page carefully and politely explaining how a shot could be improved (such as by not doing a desaturation B&W conversion leading to mid tone muddy grey) complete with links to tutorials etc only to get an airbourne teddies response because you failed to say "OMG I love your work its so creative" then anything that follows is fair play

End of the day most new members are treated fairly and with respect - the ones that arent tend to be the ones who throw all their teddies out of the play pen because when they wrote " Please give me critique" what they meant was "please blow smoke up my arse about how orsum I am" and they arent able to deal with the honest critique that they pretended to request.

Personally I thought 'the bird' set was crap - and that doesnt mean "I didnt get it" , I go it, i just thought it was crap - however the reason mr ribena got torn appart wasnt because people didnt like or didnt get his work , it was because of the way he reacted to people giving anything other than positive crit (see also Pistnbroke and various others throughout TP history)

Lord tosh was different as he knew full well that his shots were crap and was just trolling for a reaction (and using the site to promote/improve the SEO of his crappy videos)
 
thestranger said:
(one of the main sticking points for forum members was Pascal never seeming to accept anyone's comments on his photos.)
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Thing was, most of the comments on his work weren't very useful or well thought out.

Funny how people say you must accept my criticism of your work! But, no, I will not accept any other response from you than, "yes, good point, I will try that". Very few people on here are interested in entering into a proper discussion about photography. They want to say how they would have done it "better" (or how they read you're supposed to do it, from some internet celebrity's blog), and they expect you to accept that without question. Often people aren't interested in hearing from the photographer, why they shot it the way they did, if they dared to do something vaguely interesting.

If you're allowed to critique someone's work, then you're allowed to critique someone's critique - or at least respond to it without agreeing to everything they say.

Pascal is clearly pretty pushy with his work online, but at least some of that work is a bit interesting and has some thought behind it.

big soft moose said:
End of the day most new members are treated fairly and with respect [...] mr ribena
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:rolleyes:
 
Jayst84 said:
Thing was, most of the comments on his work weren't very useful or well thought out.

Funny how people say you must accept my criticism of your work! But, no, I will not accept any other response from you than, "yes, good point, I will try that". Very few people on here are interested in entering into a proper discussion about photography. They want to say how they would have done it "better" (or how they read you're supposed to do it, from some internet celebrity's blog), and they expect you to accept that without question. Often people aren't interested in hearing from the photographer, why they shot it the way they did, if they dared to do something vaguely interesting.

If you're allowed to critique someone's work, then you're allowed to critique someone's critique - or at least respond to it without agreeing to everything they say.

Pascal is clearly pretty pushy with his work online, but at least some of that work is a bit interesting and has some thought behind it.



:rolleyes:
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I agree completely, this pretty much echoes what I argued earlier on in the thread here:

thestranger said:
I agree with a lot of this, especially about the SEO, but I think that Riben's photos did expose the narrow-mindedness of some members in this forum. A lot of the critique on his shots was along the lines of 'the bird's too small', 'you need to use the rule of thirds' and 'you clipped this person's body off in the photo'; a photo can still be brilliant even with multiple technical faults and I think Pascal was right to dispute criticisms such as these, even if he went about this in an often somewhat rude way.
Click to expand...
 
Jayst84 said:
Thing was, most of the comments on his work weren't very useful or well thought out.

Funny how people say you must accept my criticism of your work! But, no, I will not accept any other response from you than, "yes, good point, I will try that". Very few people on here are interested in entering into a proper discussion about photography. They want to say how they would have done it "better" (or how they read you're supposed to do it, from some internet celebrity's blog), and they expect you to accept that without question. Often people aren't interested in hearing from the photographer, why they shot it the way they did, if they dared to do something vaguely interesting.

If you're allowed to critique someone's work, then you're allowed to critique someone's critique - or at least respond to it without agreeing to everything they say.

Pascal is clearly pretty pushy with his work online, but at least some of that work is a bit interesting and has some thought behind it.



:rolleyes:
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I agree but if the conversation goes (and obviously i'm paraphrsing)

BSM - the greys in this image are all very similar and dont have much tonal range

PR - how could i have done any better ?

BSM - *about an A4 side of text on various techniques for m,aking more punch B&W conversions including links to tutorials

PR - I know these techniques but choose not to use them, my work is completely perfect in every way because it is art

hes got to expect that the next response is going to be

"a) if you already know how to do it WTF did you ask for ? , and b) if you think your work is completely perfect why are you asking for critique ?

I don't expect critique to necessarily be taken on board - but theres a difference between saying "thanks for your input but i wanted the greys to be muted" which is fine , and saying " how dare you suggest my work is not completely perfect in everyway, this is outrageous *flounce*

End of the day if you post for critique theres no requirement to agree with everything people say, but if someone takes the time to give you critique it is disrespectful not to at least consider what they are saying and if you don't agree wit it to explain why in a reasoned manner.

the reason that doesnt happen is because a lot of peopleare used to the FB/Flickr etc reaction where even mediocre shots get " OMG this is sooo good URs perfkt" - and when they say they want crit, what they are really saying is "I am a photographic god, fall down and worship me, peasants"
 
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