Nick Brandt does NOT add animals

[Marco B]

OK, just found another reference to Salto and his founder Georges Charlier here in a note dated from 2008, but that still makes me wonder where the company is located now, and why they don't even seem to have a simple website up with contact info...:

http://www.rolanddg.be/Applications/Testimonial/Georges%20Charlier/

[Richard Wasserman]

I think photo-eye are going to Art Chicago. If they are, I'll try and remember to ask them to take a couple of the platinums with them.


Thank you, I'll be there!

[nickbran]

OK, just found another reference to Salto and his founder Georges Charlier here in a note dated from 2008, but that still makes me wonder where the company is located now, and why they don't even seem to have a simple website up with contact info...:

http://www.rolanddg.be/Applications/Testimonial/Georges%20Charlier/

Hi Marco
Georges is very stubborn and doesn't like the idea of self-promotion, to the degree that he took down his website a while back.
They also do all of George Tice's Platinums, and have been responsible for the best printed book I've ever seen - lodima press' Edward Weston's Lifework.
I tried some of the best platinum printers in America and I thought that salto's work outdid them.

[cdowell]

Well, I'll risk going off topic as far as the technical discussion is concerned to say that I just enjoyed an hour and a lovely glass of wine while flipping through my new copy of "On This Earth." It's a beautiful book, very moving and a complete pleasure to view. That's about as much as I dare ask from a photography book, really. I'll look more closely at what I can learn from the photos next time through, but taking the book on its own terms right out of the gate, it's excellent.

[nick mulder]

The effect you get with tilt/shift lenses cannot be simulated in any kind of post-work - not in the darkroom, not in Photoshop.... I really don't want to elaborate more than that - it's just one method I want to keep to myself.

Good good about keeping it to yourself - I'd probably do the same, I can always ask huh :)

But I disagree about the tilt/shift effects, sure they wont be exactly the same as doing it on the camera - but there are ways to to trick tilt effects both in darkroom and photoshop ... In the darkroom you just tilt the paper or the lens - as for PS just search google for 'tilt effect' or similar (as sad as it is to say it is effective, for the moment at least until we 'the public' dissociate low DOF/tilt trickery with macro and correspondingly lose that ooh-ahh factor)...

Anyways, unsure why it didn't occur to me earlier but this is one way to get the appearance of multiple planes of focus - which is not the reality of it, probably done would have to be done with split diopters and/or the film itself being non-planar.

As for shift that is just a redistribution of the data across the frame which can be done easily in PS, you just have to shoot a bit wider, crop and expect a resolution drop. As for the darkroom never done it but reckon by the same methods as you would in the field it can be achieved, visualize that the paper is now the film and the neg is the subject and away you go (?)

uh huh, yes, I think I've just answered my own question - so you might be asking why I'm chirping in in the first place - I guess, sometimes you gotta open your mouth in order to hear :rolleyes: :p

[nickbran]

Hi Nick M.
No, a tilt/shift effect done in the darkroom or in photoshop can never simulate the effect in camera because at that stage you are limited by a pre-recorded two dimensional image all on the same plane. If nothing else, you'll be knocking all your grain out of focus, and you'll be limited by what you can do with the tilt of the paper. And as for doing it in Photoshop, all the versions I've seen look awful, to be honest.
Go to my website, and into A Shadow Falls 2005-2007 folder, and look at Lion Before Storm II - Sitting Profile and Baboons in Profile. I defy you to create that effect to satisfaction without doing it in camera. (You need to see the prints large to see how complex the shifting focus is through the focal planes.)

Hi Clifton
Glad you liked the visuals accompanying the wine. Please do buy A Shadow Falls when it's out again in May- it really is superior. In my opinion of course....

[nick mulder]

Hi Nick M.
No, a tilt/shift effect done in the darkroom or in photoshop can never simulate the effect in camera because at that stage you are limited by a pre-recorded two dimensional image all on the same plane. If nothing else, you'll be knocking all your grain out of focus, and you'll be limited by what you can do with the tilt of the paper. And as for doing it in Photoshop, all the versions I've seen look awful, to be honest.

I'm aware of the limitations with tilt in the darkroom (but not shift) but I'm talking about appearances, most of the people buying your book have not the faintest idea about what we're talking about. The sad part is and is a part of my point, is that an amount of them might just assume it was done by a computer and probably see that as a 'buying' point anyway :rolleyes:

Anyway, small digression - so: agreed and agreed (especially with respect to PS)

I used a helpful amount of disclaimer and italics in my post in an attempt to make it clear that this was understood :)

The images you mention - in camera - ok, I have noted that you mention 'focal planes' plural - ok, so something like a combo including at least one or more of: split diopters, vaseline type carry-on, broken lenses/filters, homebuilt lensbaby type constructions and the rest of the myriad ways to degrade an image into dreamscape and wonderblunder. However, I don't understand how I'm meant to go about being defied or not - its your image, you're not spilling your technique so er... yeh !

(but they certainly are profound, if not simply in terms of technicality but in mood and what not)

Chestnut alert: "There's no accounting for taste"

[nickbran]

Hi Nick M.
yes, you did use many disclaimers and italics to qualify. Duly noted! Re me mentioning "focal planes" plural, take no heed of that in terms of any significance/consequence - I merely mean, say, a focal plane of 6 inches, 12 inches, etc etc. PS I don't use vaseline or any smear-on substance/ingredient. The lenses/filters are clean.

[nick mulder]

er... looks like we have a different understanding of focal plane.

Anyways, I'll stop with the pedantics and get down to some photography, seems to be the thing to do in becoming a successful photographer - off to Liberia in March with a 4x5, not much time for photography but I mentally framed up some stuff last time I was there so hopefully the shots will still be intact and I'll be able to get it. Not animals, not landscape - so I wont be able to step up to your challenge, another day though !

thanks for replying personally - APUG, I'm learning every day ;)

[nickbran]

looks like we have a different understanding of focal plane.

Your use was correct. I was using it in the context of planes of focal distance from the camera - probably something I made up, but I know what I meant even if no-one else did....

[nick mulder]

Its occurred to me just now that pictorialism and obscurantism(in pyjamas) are close cousins ;)

[sdivot]

You guys are giving me a headache.
Excellent work, Nick

Steve

[Sobriquet]

Eh, Nick. Your remarks about Salto just made me curious because I hadn't ever heard of them before. Trying to look it up on the internet, turned up not a lot to say the least. They don't seem to have a website (anymore?), and I could only find a reference to their former location being sold in 2006:

So, are they still alive and where to contact them?

Marco

To the best of my knowledge Salto Drukkereij was using offset printing to emulate platinum prints. To enhance the tonal range of bw/ sepia images, printers often use additional colours to enhance contrast and tonal range. If done properly, offset can deliver results that can look even more spectacular than continuous tone images. This is why many mistake such output for large format platinum prints.

[ann]

this is an old thread