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A Portrait

One from today

Corine_18_augustus_2008_%2841_of_53%29.jpg


Greetings,
Frank
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Simply jaws down on floor…
My favorite of yours posted here… Lighting is perfect, looking so natural!

MF I guess… ?
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Frank;
I have looked at your fashion work for some time. I admire your technical skill and I fully realize that the work you show reflects both the work you want and what your current clients want.

But I have to say that your images have an utter lack of humanity. The lighting, the models' styling, the poses, the pore-less post-processing all makes for a completely CGI look.

Once again, I do not write this to insult you. I realize that delivering such imagery is popular for marketing to kids/early adults and that everybody's doin' it. I salute your skill at producing this stuff so well. But, with all respect, I just find it absolutely vapid, particularly when it's not accompanied by any sales pitch (i.e. clothing, booze, cell phones, cars, etc.). It's purely technician photography.

Do you have any personal work, outside of this realm, that you can share?

EDIT: I found some of your personal work at http://www.frankdoorhof.com/portfolio/ .
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ken,

Frank's primary job skill set is to teach lighting. That he does very well.

As to the humanity not being there, that's also style. The model's eyes hardly engage with the camera in many of his photographs. That might be what you are missing. In fashion, when one is preparing material for buyers, say for spring 09, the look of the model's face may be chosen to be engaging, haughty, trashy, seductive or whatever the client wants. This changes with each set of clothes and plan of the marketers. So the actual facial expression that Frank shows is not what anyone would likely use for each shoot. However, the lighting if used, would be near perfection!

Asher
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Asher (and Frank),
I really do not mean to offend or be provocative here. It's extremely rare for me to offer such commentary, especially on an Internet venue. OPF is the only place I really feel comfortable with such occasional discourse.

So, preamble aside, no it's not the eyes that prompt my remarks. As I noted, it's the whole ultra-stylized, caricature, inhuman look of this style of photography that prompted them. Yes, I know that Frank is just copying the "look" like hundreds of other "fashion" photographers. His work is, to my eye, among the best examples of this style so I guess I'm unjustly picking on him. Thankfully I think that this look is falling out of vogue so it will soon become a "retro" look.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Ken,

I was not really directing any comments to you. Just that Frank tried hard to show what can be done with the Leaf and 1DsIII cameras and simple but highly professional lighting. Don't feel that I in anyway have any criticism of anyone. I'm just trying to clarify Frank's purposes as best I understand.

Most fashion and glamor photographers hardly ever share. Frank is very generous. He's been criticized for using the same model, the same dress, no humanity and if we keep seeing his work will get to know many nuances. That's common. We'll also see faults that recur. Just give feedback so he gets the benefit of your insight.

I have been photographing with Frank and he's very open to new ideas! So feel free to criticize him. He can take it!

Concerning styles of posing models, when a new clothes collection is being prepared for next year, the company may already have honed in to some photographic style that appeared somewhere this year. Maybe there will be a new modification to that style brought by the photographer. Still the company wants to be classed in the market segment they are competing in and at the same time they want to differentiate themselves. So there's cloning of ideas and rarely revolution, just evolution and recycling.

The one thing that unites all the styles is that the clothes are being sold and are the subject and the model may or may not be required to get a dominant attention.

Asher

P.S. I think some styles are an affront to the senses, totally in one's face, distant looking cold models. Then we may get a different wave of passion or attitude. Then there's the skin which a lot of people "Ooh!" and "Aah" at and you and I may want to put our fingers down our throats! So there's a huge variation in response. The women, however, are not looking for what they might find in the mirror. Instead, they are looking a modern version of a perfect living breathing woman that they might emulate but does not exist!



Asher
 
Hi,
No offence taken but I always say, look at the 100% crops and you will see a whole load of detail, problem is going from 22 or 33MP back to 799 on the longest side you will loose alot of detail.

Here a 100% crop of a shot that also looks very flat online:
crop2.jpg


This is the normal detail you will see in my shots.

About the not human comment.
It all depends on your viewpoint and what you want as a photographer.
I absolutly love Douglass bizarro (www.dbem.net) but I also love airbrush and SF.
In my work I try to make a bridge between the airbrush and photography, in other words it's a choice I personally prefer.

There are clients that will prefer an out of the camera look and they will get it, however most of what I post here is free work or shot during workshops so that's the way I personally want the photos to look.
For me a shot straight out of the camera is nice but not done for STUDIO work.

Take for example this shot (same day, other setting).
Corine_18_augustus_2008_%2847_of_53%29.jpg


This shot is 100% untouched, straight from the camera and shot with available light.
I bet if I did not say that some people will still claim that I retouched it too much, that's one of the "problems" with Corine, we are thinking about making a label for her (photoshop already applied :D)
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Hi,
...

About the not human comment.
It all depends on your viewpoint and what you want as a photographer.
I absolutly love Douglass bizarro (www.dbem.net) but I also love airbrush and SF.
In my work I try to make a bridge between the airbrush and photography, in other words it's a choice I personally prefer.

There are clients that will prefer an out of the camera look and they will get it, however most of what I post here is free work or shot during workshops so that's the way I personally want the photos to look.
For me a shot straight out of the camera is nice but not done for STUDIO work.

Noted, Frank. Once again, you're very good at styling and lighting (and selecting models) for this look and I'm sure your workshops are popular.

I think what prompted me to make a remark at all is that you titled this thread "A Portrait". To me, a "portrait" is an image (photo, painting, drawing) of a person that attempts to reveal something of that person's nature and/or the artist's familiar impression of that person. But that first image struck me as anything but a portrait, although maybe that's really how this gal sees herself. (I've known a few models who could very easily be summed that simply.)

I think in general I'm just becoming eye-weary with the "cool" extreme fictive commercial marketing scenes that have become so overused and overdone in recent years.

Thank you for not taking offense. None was intended, Frank.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I think in general I'm just becoming eye-weary with the "cool" extreme fictive commercial marketing scenes that have become so overused and overdone in recent years.

Yes, Ken,

I, too, long for a different kind of advertising. There is, however, a cultural interplay between the ideas of the fashion industry and the buyers. When they that test-drive a new concept and when the buyers go for that "bait", the whole pack of MFRS swing in the new direction. They're like a flock of migrating birds or school of fish.

As for this model, the paint and Frank's lighting, this arrived after I dropped a power supply on the floor (and it broke) and my wife left for Palm springs for a "Girl's Day". So the so-called, "Portrait" was a refreshing delight that "appeared" at the right time and delighted the eye. That's maybe why advertising works!

Thank you for not taking offense. None was intended, Frank.

Ken, on this there was no reading that I had of any offense. Far from it. Only by really giving opinions and impressions to we benefit. Most of us have a core set of admirers. They do not help us with the unexpected feedback as much as someone outside our circle who sees things differently. For sure, the last thing we must do is hold back. The special character of OPF is we are professional, collegial and courteous in giving our views. You especially have helped to sustain this atmosphere of being honest and considerate and it's appreciated!

Asher

P.S. I admit that in "polite society", it's really dangerous to be open about things as people can feel offended where no offense is intended. Still, we must be open or we'll be talking about how many lenses we own! However, Nicolas claris and I have always had faith in the balance that would occur, here in OPF, in an open community, where an example of respect was set and new members come in and followed suite. So far, with a few exceptions it has worked very well.
 
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