Madagascar Fakin´

[Rob C]

I just love the video, Michael, reminds me of my early self-employed days when I had a commission to shoot a travel brochure which took in the Costa Brave in Spain.

It was fun shooting hotels in an effort to show their prime location by the beach without blowing it by disclosing the main drag and also the railway that lay between the two, forcing young families, not to mention the cuba libre fired brigade, to risk life and limb negotiating the route from hotel to sand... Now, I would see my earlier conduct as immoral and grossly unfair to those poor sods blowing their saving on an annual holiday doomed to despair. On the other hand, I did acquire an extensive collection of plastic flowers over/through which to frame those shots, so it wasn´t all bad ;-)

Sometimes, as with Ray and the Tigers, mysteries are best left unexplained. Or are they?

Rob C

[Ben Rubinstein]

I liked the bit about cloning out the people, taking 'cloning the can' rather further. Personally I applaud it but was suprised that there weren't many photographic purists up in arms and calling 'fake'. I couldn't care less, the art of photography is all about what you want to say and nothing to do with the purity of the capture (which is a joke anyway) IMO. Can't see that there's any difference between that crop suggesting a difference to the reality - and cloning to do the same thing. If you want to show the scene as 'X' then who cares how you do it?

[Mort54]

There's not a person who frequents this site, or any photographer for that matter, who doesn't use judicious cropping and every other compositional trick in the book to get the best shot they can out of what nature has dealt them. In the context of the shot in question, Michael is a fine art photographer, not a journalist. His mission is to capture an idea, not to capture reality. Cloning out people, cans, contrails, cars, jumbo jets - whatever - is fair game. Why suggest otherwise?

[David Sutton]

Quote: "The greatest challenge that we as photographs face is how to translate the jumbled real world into a simplified iconic representation of what we see in our mind's eye."
Gave me a moment of existential angst there for a moment. What if I am just a photograph hanging on a wall in some far off place?
No, photographs don't drink coffee.  
David

[michael]

Oh, the ever present typo. What would people do without them.  

Michael

[Rob C]

Michael, it isn´t a typo; we are but images hanging around in some vague and uncertain world, figments of another, greater imagination and doomed to dance forever to tunes we are incapable of hearing. There can be no other explanation for the apparent randomness of life, of success or even of disaster. We think we are in control?  Such a conceit seems to me but a paradox.

Rob C

[JohnBrew]

Michael, it isn´t a typo; we are but images hanging around in some vague and uncertain world, figments of another, greater imagination and doomed to dance forever to tunes we are incapable of hearing. There can be no other explanation for the apparent randomness of life, of success or even of disaster. We think we are in control?  Such a conceit seems to me but a paradox.

Rob C

I agree 100% with Rob. I probably couldn't say it quite so profoundly, however   .

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I agree 100% with Rob. I probably couldn't say it quite so profoundly, however   .

Oh, you probably could, if you'd been drinking whatever Rob was drinking.    


- "i am a photograph"

[JohnBrew]

Oh, you probably could, if you'd been drinking whatever Rob was drinking.    


- "i am a photograph"

Say, Rob, what is that in your coffee anyway? I'd like some.

[Rob C]

Say, Rob, what is that in your coffee anyway? I'd like some.

No you wouldn´t; it´s cough mixture against the long-life ´flu that seems to have gripped me. Fortunately, it grabbed me before the Mexican version hit the news - as there are so many South American folks working here in Spain, you never can tell, though - and I´ve been coughing, spluttering and feeling generally miserable for about a month. I had exactly the same thing in October and that lasted weeks too; guess it´s part of the cosmic plan.

Ciao

Rob C