Cure For The Smugs

[Rob C]

For anyone feeling too self-satisfied: a reality check.

http://www.wibagency.com

Click on Photographers and get grounded!

;-)

Rob C

[Rob C]

Nope, meant every word.

Feurer's revamped series is as good as I have ever seen anyone manage; I'm sorry he edited out some lovely stuff I know about -the older I get the more I am convinced he's the best there ever was.

Fred Meylan and Mary Rozzi are quite different, but they share a simplicity, and a sense of understatement that I think is so much more attracive (to me, at least) than any of the suer-duper-over-produced stuff that seems to be flavour of many months. Meylan also has a touch of photoreportage about his work that helps make it real in a world of fakes and lies.

But hell, nobody will ever think the same as anyone else over a stretched gamut - probably just as well for the rest of the folks!

I use to be much in favour of Marino Parisotto Vay for a long time, but that kind of gloss has turned boring to me now.

Rob C


EDIT: Fred, do you know this agency in Barcelona?


http://www.gianfrancomeza.com

[fredjeang]

EDIT: Fred, do you know this agency in Barcelona?


http://www.gianfrancomeza.com

Yes. They have one of the photographer-videographer I'm working with.

About the wibagency Rob, and fully trusting your view, I'll have another look.



Cheers.

[Riaan van Wyk]

Rob, I immediately thought of Lucien Clerque's pictures in a book I have (on Nude and Glamour photography) when I saw Fred Meylan's work. In the book is a picture of a wave tumbling over a woman's tummy area taken up close that I could stare at all day long. And probably for a week or so more too. But it is probably my fascination with water that makes me say this and not my fascination with the sublime beauty of the female body    

[fredjeang]

Rob, I went again into the agency you linked after calming down my "bad" day and yes, there are some really top works! Toutes mes excuses pour mon premier post.

Feurer is a master with long focals. I really like how he plays with the d.o.f and dynamic movements. Enjoyed very much Mary Rozzi too.

In fact, I found the agency wired in the sense that there is not IMO a similar level or line. It is not a criticism.

But back to the models, and this is something generalized, I find the current woman's imagery very boring in general. Fashion should be a place where strong characters shine but what we end to see are
sadly, very elaborate images but sophisticatly flat. I think that this is where the big difference stands with guys like Lindberg or Feurer. They go further the clichés, they simply go further.
Thanks for sharing.  

[Rob C]

Fred - no need for excuses; if anything, I'm pleased to see you willing to call a difference of opinion where you hold it!

It also revealed something else: on reading your first post I returned to wiba and to my surprise, I found my confidence in what I had seen to be a little bit shaken. In other words, I began to doubt my own judgement on what I imagined that I had felt on looking at the site just before I posted. What that shows me is that in such things as taste, it is a very fragile path we tread! Outside or conflicting opinion can really shift our own perceptions of right or wrong. That's a reality that I suppose politicians and social activists have always used, and perhaps the best way to handle these choices is to go with our first impressions, which are then our first impressions and the measure of what we really like or enjoy.

Regarding the Gianfranco Meza agency, I first discovered the site some years ago and they had a larger and possibly more exciting list of shooters. I think I remember Javier Vallhonrat being part of the équipe (remember his much copied mania for figures inside boxes?) but he seems missing now. Parisotto Vay wasn't with them when I found him - he was on the pages of French PHOTO and with the Calypso de Sigaldi agency. What an incestuous world is photography.

Would I want to do it again? I think the truth is that the sensible reply to my own question would be NO! but that the truth would be that I couldn't imagine spending my life doing anything else. That basic paradox is what allows those who exploit photographers to continue to so do, and probably for ever.

Rob C

 

[Rob C]

Rob, I immediately thought of Lucien Clerque's pictures in a book I have (on Nude and Glamour photography) when I saw Fred Meylan's work. In the book is a picture of a wave tumbling over a woman's tummy area taken up close that I could stare at all day long. And probably for a week or so more too. But it is probably my fascination with water that makes me say this and not my fascination with the sublime beauty of the female body    

Riaan

Even a brief look at my site reveals that the coast and women are the best combination I can come up with! I also share your fascination with the water: I almost persuaded my wife we should live on a yacht. Thank God she was the more sensible of the two and had the strength of character to tell me I was crazy! Yes, the sale of the house would have bought one (smallish...) but the first few years of maintenance would have bankrupted us; that was a part of the experience I didn't know anything about until much later, not that I knew much about sailing, either, except that I enjoyed it!

Rob C

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Riaan

Even a brief look at my site reveals that the coast and women are the best combination I can come up with! I also share your fascination with the water: I almost persuaded my wife we should live on a yacht. Thank God she was the more sensible of the two and had the strength of character to tell me I was crazy! Yes, the sale of the house would have bought one (smallish...) but the first few years of maintenance would have bankrupted us; that was a part of the experience I didn't know anything about until much later, not that I knew much about sailing, either, except that I enjoyed it!

Rob C

Rob,
The first thing to know about a yacht is the proper definition. It is "a hole in the water into which you pour money."
My brother has a yacht. I do not.

Eric

[Rob C]

Rob,
The first thing to know about a yacht is the proper definition. It is "a hole in the water into which you pour money."
My brother has a yacht. I do not.

Eric

I shot this for our host: maybe your brother should see it? Or add to it!

[fredjeang]

Rob,
The first thing to know about a yacht is the proper definition. It is "a hole in the water into which you pour money."
My brother has a yacht. I do not.

Eric

Curious...it sounds to me like the definition of MFD

Maybe there is a correlation yacht/MFD...

[Rob C]

Curious...it sounds to me like the definition of MFD

Maybe there is a correlation yacht/MFD...

Fred, you are wiser than your years!

Rob C

[Riaan van Wyk]

Rob,
The first thing to know about a yacht is the proper definition. It is "a hole in the water into which you pour money."
My brother has a yacht. I do not.

Eric

It is said that there are two highlights in a boat owner's life. The day he takes delivery of the boat and the day he sells it.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

It is said that there are two highlights in a boat owner's life. The day he takes delivery of the boat and the day he sells it.

+1.

[Rob C]

It is said that there are two highlights in a boat owner's life. The day he takes delivery of the boat and the day he sells it.

That's why nearly all the boats I see in the marinas here have "Se Vende" signs on them even during their first season; it's to cut the losses and spend nothing on repairs. If company-owned, maybe there are fiscal advantages of which I know nothing.

It was a good business, shooting bespoke yachts, if you could crack into it; the brokers seem a very tightly-knit group, and a small nucleus of shooters did all the work during the period I was involved with boats (as in sailing, not snapping). I never knew of a broker who owned a boat.

Rob C