On this world, a shadow falls...
Nov/20/09 16:33 Filed in: Art on the
web
African fine art wildlife photography by Nick Brandt.
His
fine art photography work is to become a book
trilogy, with the book titles building a complete
sentence: "On this world (part 1), a shadow falls
(part 2) - with the third title still unknown,
since he is currently working on his third book.
He is using a Pentax 67 camera (you can read about this camera on the luminous-landscape page) with three lenses: 55mm, 105mm and 200mm. His film of choice is Kodak's T-Max 100. Apparently it is fine grain film, which allows to still show animal details when the large print image shows the animal only in a small part of the photo.
His background as a painter certainly influences the fine art look he gives to his images. I find it to be a very calming style. Yet those photographs have a power and such a strong... luminosity to them that it makes me shiver. Nick does not deny the partially heavy use of Photoshop for grading, although he uses a lot of grad ND and other filters for the amazing skies he shoots as backgrounds. He is however very secretive about his other in-camera techniques to achieve that amazing depth of field that some images have. Take a closer look for example at the "Elephant mother and two babies, Serengeti 2002" image in his portfolio (you find it on his page in the "On this earth" portfolio).
The depth of field
looks absolutely fake, yet it does not. At first I
thought that this is Photoshop DOF work. But
looking at it over and over again and looking at
his other work made me rethink that again. And
digging around on the internet, I found this
fantastic thread at photo.net, where his style is
being discussed. Go ahead and read it - the master
himself comments down on the bottom of the thread,
which makes some of the readers' comments sound
quite, well, foolish.
Here is (one of his) replies:
Nick Brandt, Feb. 23rd 2006: "A friend told me about this thread. Reading through it, I felt compelled to address some of the questions and many inaccuracies!
Firstly, 90% of my photos are taken from the safety of a vehicle. Only the chimps and one special herd of giraffes are photographed on foot. Neither I nor anyone else could ever get this close to wild animals any other way. Forget about safety - most of the animals would run away (and a few would attack).
Secondly, the depth of field issue. I'll say it categorically - NONE of the depth of field thing is done in Photoshop - it is all done in camera. You could not get those focal planes shifting in focus in the same plane in the way that they do in Photoshop and expect it to look like this. Don Satalic is soooo wrong. Oh, and I don't use soft focus lenses. Don't even know what they are. The longest lens I own and use is a 200mm. Great lens. Tried the 300 once and hated it. Too conventional. So yes, I am close, but safe.
All anyone really needs to know is that I work in a very very impractical way - very manually - and lose a crazy number of potentially great shots with all the faffing around I do. But I do it because occasionally something great comes out of such impractical methods. My friend Rocky Schenck taught me not to reveal my trade secrets some time ago. As for my EX-SF dealer's comments, I don't know where that came from.
Grading - I nearly always use a heavy ND grad for the sky, and often a red filter, to get the sky dark. But there is significant grading done in Photoshop - the vignetting is invariably photoshop - I'm a sucker for it.
Okay, so if anyone is still reading this thread, there you go.
PS What is a 'bokeh'?"
Another interesting, worthwhile interview with him about this work is found at www.bowhouse.com
But what are you waiting for: go and take a look at his stunning images at www.nickbrandt.com.
I would love to have one of his prints on my wall - but his pricing is currently out of my range. But his books might be under the Christmass tree...
He is using a Pentax 67 camera (you can read about this camera on the luminous-landscape page) with three lenses: 55mm, 105mm and 200mm. His film of choice is Kodak's T-Max 100. Apparently it is fine grain film, which allows to still show animal details when the large print image shows the animal only in a small part of the photo.
His background as a painter certainly influences the fine art look he gives to his images. I find it to be a very calming style. Yet those photographs have a power and such a strong... luminosity to them that it makes me shiver. Nick does not deny the partially heavy use of Photoshop for grading, although he uses a lot of grad ND and other filters for the amazing skies he shoots as backgrounds. He is however very secretive about his other in-camera techniques to achieve that amazing depth of field that some images have. Take a closer look for example at the "Elephant mother and two babies, Serengeti 2002" image in his portfolio (you find it on his page in the "On this earth" portfolio).
Here is (one of his) replies:
Nick Brandt, Feb. 23rd 2006: "A friend told me about this thread. Reading through it, I felt compelled to address some of the questions and many inaccuracies!
Firstly, 90% of my photos are taken from the safety of a vehicle. Only the chimps and one special herd of giraffes are photographed on foot. Neither I nor anyone else could ever get this close to wild animals any other way. Forget about safety - most of the animals would run away (and a few would attack).
Secondly, the depth of field issue. I'll say it categorically - NONE of the depth of field thing is done in Photoshop - it is all done in camera. You could not get those focal planes shifting in focus in the same plane in the way that they do in Photoshop and expect it to look like this. Don Satalic is soooo wrong. Oh, and I don't use soft focus lenses. Don't even know what they are. The longest lens I own and use is a 200mm. Great lens. Tried the 300 once and hated it. Too conventional. So yes, I am close, but safe.
All anyone really needs to know is that I work in a very very impractical way - very manually - and lose a crazy number of potentially great shots with all the faffing around I do. But I do it because occasionally something great comes out of such impractical methods. My friend Rocky Schenck taught me not to reveal my trade secrets some time ago. As for my EX-SF dealer's comments, I don't know where that came from.
Grading - I nearly always use a heavy ND grad for the sky, and often a red filter, to get the sky dark. But there is significant grading done in Photoshop - the vignetting is invariably photoshop - I'm a sucker for it.
Okay, so if anyone is still reading this thread, there you go.
PS What is a 'bokeh'?"
Another interesting, worthwhile interview with him about this work is found at www.bowhouse.com
But what are you waiting for: go and take a look at his stunning images at www.nickbrandt.com.
I would love to have one of his prints on my wall - but his pricing is currently out of my range. But his books might be under the Christmass tree...