IPA Award 2008 - Congratulations to Rainer Viertlböck for his 1st Place

[Thierry Hagenauer]

Dear Rainer,

Sincere congratulations for your 1st place in the IPA Awards 2008, "Industrial" category and your 2nd place in the "Other" category.

Wonderful images.

For those interested, link here:

http://photoawards.com/08/contests/winners_detail.asp?id=58412

& other winners here:

http://photoawards.com/08/contests/2008winners.asp

Kind regards,
Thierry

 

[nicolas claris]

Bonjour rainer
Very glad for you! Bravo ! Your work does desserve this distinction!

I checked (of course!) the links provided by Thierry, amazing but also frightening images of desesperate world…

Can you tell us about this shooting? did you shoot specially for the competition or was it an assigenment? personnal work?

Sorry for all these questions, but looking at these neat images, one need to no more… ;-)

Very great job !

 

[Rainer Viertlböck]

hi nicolas. i am very glad about the awards especially because its one of my first exhibition works, which i realized in my own last year.
i realised the project ( app. 100 shots in the quality as the winning images ) after a large commercial shoot was cancelled ( bejing airport shooting couldnt be realised caused by strict restrictions of the government ) and so i had a lot of time free, which i did not filled with commercial work, but with a huge shoot of left mines.

The images are part of a photo serial about left places. You see in this work also landscapes of copper, iron and gold mines in South Spain, formerly the hugest mines in Europe. Landscapes are filled with ashes from chemical burned stones, therefor have been used chemicals as sulfur, which are no everywhere and give the stones and the earth its colors. You nearly smell the environment if you see the hi resolution prints, which are 140 x 180 cm. The photos tell a story about our industrial time and the consumption of our resources without many words ......
i was shooting many weeks in this mines and also spend weeks or months in the postpro. app. 50 images will be shown in an exhibition first time in public in 2010 in one of the largest design museum worldwide ( will be anounced soon ). The images have a size of 140x180cm each.

 

[nicolas claris]

Thanks Rainer
that's always nice to get the stories of the images…

I hope I'll be able to see your expo and wait the announcement to know where it will be…

You're right preparing big files like this does require a lot of PP time…

Hope to meet you in person during Photokina, as I guess you'll also be there…

Have a cool week-end… flying on the little cloud of happiness when job's done…

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Rainer,

Congratulations. One of your first exhibition works, and already a 1st and a 2nd place. Well done. But as the (French) expression goes: "Noblesse oblige", IOW high standing raises the expectations, or, we want to see more ... Don't hesitate to show us some of your other works.

Did you combine multiple exposures in some of the images (e.g. in PhotoAcute), or was the postprocessing based on single files?

Bart

 

[Rainer Viertlböck]

Hi Rainer,

Congratulations. One of your first exhibition works, and already a 1st and a 2nd place. Well done. But as the (French) expression goes: "Noblesse oblige", IOW high standing raises the expectations, or, we want to see more ... Don't hesitate to show us some of your other works.

Did you combine multiple exposures in some of the images (e.g. in PhotoAcute), or was the postprocessing based on single files?

Bart

they are made from multiple exposures, mostly combined to 32bit and than in an ordinary way in ps back to 16,- goal was expand dynamic, increase microcontrast to get the structures visually closer, but not to get very much of the well known HDR look, not to get a very unreal impression.
there exist many images of this work ( nearly 100 ),- but i am not free to post as much i want from them at the moment. maybe soon i will show here some ( and even publish some ) .... i have to discuss this the next weeks.

 

[Ken Tanaka]

A hearty congratulations, Rainer. Those are some compelling entries which I'd love to see skillfully printed.

Bravo!

 

[James Newman]

Hearty congraulations Rainer on your wonderful works. To get a 1st and 2nd amid such strong and wonderous competition is really a grand accomplishment. I know that downsizing images, even the amateur ones from people like me, takes away so much from the original. That said, even your downsized images from the contest website are spectacular. I can only imagine how nice they must be in all of their hi-res, large format prints. Congratulations again on this accomplishment and also what sounds to be like many more in the near future.

Now on a more selfish note, could you tell me what camera and lenses were used for these wonderful entries? Thank you.

James Newman

 

[Rainer Viertlböck]

Now on a more selfish note, could you tell me what camera and lenses were used for these wonderful entries? Thank you.

James Newman

Thanks James,

As camera i used my (custom made ) gottschalt shift camera together with sinaron/ rodenstock HR lenses.
I used an emotion 75 ( 1. edition ) back for this work.

 

[Rhys Sage]

I love those images. Where did you take them? The building and furniture look very 1970s-1980s.

 

[nicolas claris]

I love those images. Where did you take them? The building and furniture look very 1970s-1980s.

Hi Rhys

see second part of above post #3…;-)

 

[Matt Laver]

Just to add my congratulations to Rainer, good stuff. And of course to all the other photogs who won awards. Well done everyone.

I only managed the honorable mention again this year, myself. I'll have to try harder next year! ;-)

On a side note; its interesting to see how the taste/preferences of the judges changes each year. None of the style of work that was winning three or four years ago even placed this year, at least in the architectural categories, such as more classic architectural photography from Rainer and other photographers like Tim Griffith. This year there seemed to be a big emphasis on work that documented the disused, crumbling, run down parts of our environment, more 'grungy' imagery. I wonder what preferences next year's judges will bring to the table.

Again, heartfelt congrats to Rainer.

Matt

 

[Rainer Viertlböck]

thanks matt, i like your work a lot......
and you are right, this year a lot of "grundge" was selected, last year i felt that many digital "enhanced" images had won, my aereal shot from bangkok airport was one of the view not "enhanced" works at that time.
sometimes win images one never would suspect it,- so i would have voted in the submitted images of mine different... one never can know this.


"I only managed the honorable mention again this year, myself. I'll have to try harder next year! ;-)"

no... please dont do . i`d like to win again ;-)
btw. + just for interest: with what system are you shooting right now ?

 

[Matt Laver]

Thanks Rainer, you're very kind.

A lot of the work on my current website was done back in the ol' film era. I'm working on a new site at the moment which should have a selection of work more representative of these digital times.

At the moment I'm working with an Aptus 75 on Cambo WDS with Schneider's Digitars. Although i'd quite like to upgrade to the WRS body, and while we're dreaming the new AFi II 10 back looks very interesting.

Speaking of interesting, your project with Sinar to develop the ArTec looks like together you've produced a great tool. It must be a great feeling to know you have a system that doesn't limit what you can do creatively, quite liberating.

Matt

 

[Rainer Viertlböck]

Thanks Rainer, you're very kind.

A lot of the work on my current website was done back in the ol' film era. I'm working on a new site at the moment which should have a selection of work more representative of these digital times.

At the moment I'm working with an Aptus 75 on Cambo WDS with Schneider's Digitars. Although i'd quite like to upgrade to the WRS body, and while we're dreaming the new AFi II 10 back looks very interesting.

Speaking of interesting, your project with Sinar to develop the ArTec looks like together you've produced a great tool. It must be a great feeling to know you have a system that doesn't limit what you can do creatively, quite liberating.

Matt

well, it feels just to hold a tool which is a camera as i liked them , similar to a kind music-instrument which feels good on the hands and does what you want,- if you know to use it.
i was working with two cameras in the film days which i really liked in this way:
my linhof technikardan-s and my leica m4p. both have had this special "something", which i havent found again in digital mf. probably thats the reason so many people swear on their alpas, because it has this "touch" too. i would work for sure long time with one, if there would not be the "workaround" factor ..... ( mean that one has to demount the back to preview with groundglas which is a must for me ).