Master of Photography is back

Cagey75 said:
Looking at them again, I think he should have got the boot over Maria. I wasn't fond of hers as they were like staged shots for an advert but they were better than Richard's I think.

Someone mentioned here last week about the odd settings some of them use, I noticed a few were shot at F16/F22 and they weren't long exposures or anything, the settings just seemed strange for the images shown.
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You’d get some diffraction at that end on canon lenses, you might have thought they’d know that
 
jamesev said:
You’d get some diffraction at that end on canon lenses, you might have thought they’d know that
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You'll get it on most lenses out there no matter the make, even higher end macro lenses that are designed to be stopped down a lot. That's what i thought was odd, some images that didn't seem to be shot in overly bright conditions shot at F16, really strange. Unless the producers are displaying the settings incorrect - can't think of any other side explanation
 
Finally over. I think that Jan was the right choice overall. When the three subjects were revealed, I personally thought that the conductor would have been easiest and the Chef most difficult. I think Richard could have done better with his subject. He appeared to take many shots which included the subject and orchestra but had only one weak image to offer which he did not include. Richard's portrait used a very shallow DOF so the eyes were in focus but nose and hair out of focus; I really do not like such portraits and prefer at least f5.6. Based on my interest in Michelin* cooking, I would have considered that attempting photography during a live service was too difficult and it should have been set up prior to the service; I think Rankin hinted at that as well. While Jan's entry was excellent again, I did think he captured several exceptional images during the shoot which were not offered for the final panel.

Dave
 
Dave Canon said:
Finally over. I think that Jan was the right choice overall. When the three subjects were revealed, I personally thought that the conductor would have been easiest and the Chef most difficult. I think Richard could have done better with his subject. He appeared to take many shots which included the subject and orchestra but had only one weak image to offer which he did not include. Richard's portrait used a very shallow DOF so the eyes were in focus but nose and hair out of focus; I really do not like such portraits and prefer at least f5.6. Based on my interest in Michelin* cooking, I would have considered that attempting photography during a live service was too difficult and it should have been set up prior to the service; I think Rankin hinted at that as well. While Jan's entry was excellent again, I did think he captured several exceptional images during the shoot which were not offered for the final panel.

Dave
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I just watched it. When they were taking the photos I exclaimed in disappointment that I just knew Richard was going to B&W his whole set because it saved him last week and lo and behold he did. And again he did the shallow DoF because I think he feels it’s his safe place and he thinks it adds dramaticism to photos. But I think this just emphasised that maybe he’s not as photographically flexible as was required. The point where he used the word “idiosyncrasies” just killed it for me harking back to the references to the whole series being a little pretentious.

Glad that Jan won especially after the last three weeks where he’s really stepped it up from a thinking through the assignment point of view
 
Jan was the right winner, thought his set was excellent and made use of the 5 rather than just using 3 images.

Richard was poor, very poor. Piano was a good idea but not great, the view up I did like but the portrait was boring.
 
cambsno said:
Jan was the right winner, thought his set was excellent and made use of the 5 rather than just using 3 images.

Richard was poor, very poor. Piano was a good idea but not great, the view up I did like but the portrait was boring.
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The whole black white keys, black white waist coat thing was such an after thought
 
It was hard pick between the final 2 tbh, no surprise if either of them got it but I did predict Jan before we watched it here.

They finally had a guest photographer that I recognized too :D
 
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I thought that the guest photographer was also more in tune with what the judges wanted as well.

Dave
 
Considering Rankin is one of, if not the highest paid photographers in Britain he is much more down to earth than most other well knowns IMO. He can be a bit of a cocky git, [Saw him state on a docu about him in the past that he won't get up out of bed for less than £10K, and that was years back] but he's always maintained that common language no pretentious BS.
 
I think, throughout the competition, Jan has always had good vision of the task and pretty good images from a technical perspective. Sidar's work does seem to carry a bit more emotion though. Can't grumble at the final two, and I reckon Jan edged it. Richard was an embarrassment really....
 
Jelster said:
I think, throughout the competition, Jan has always had good vision of the task and pretty good images from a technical perspective. Sidar's work does seem to carry a bit more emotion though. Can't grumble at the final two, and I reckon Jan edged it. Richard was an embarrassment really....
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Nice summary, I don't like that Richard has gotten a nice scholarship out of it too when that should have gone to Sidar
 
Cagey75 said:
Nice summary, I don't like that Richard has gotten a nice scholarship out of it too when that should have gone to Sidar
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Maybe they thought that of the three he was the one that most needed mentoring...
(Lesson 1: How to remove the flash.)
 
Cagey75 said:
Nice summary, I don't like that Richard has gotten a nice scholarship out of it too when that should have gone to Sidar
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Do you think that the judges awarded Richard the scholarship because he needs more help than Sidar and on another day Sidar may have won?
 
Chortes said:
Do you think that the judges awarded Richard the scholarship because he needs more help than Sidar and on another day Sidar may have won?
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Faldrax said:
Maybe they thought that of the three he was the one that most needed mentoring...
(Lesson 1: How to remove the flash.)
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It was Toscani that offered it himself, and I guess he sees something in Richard that we do not. I just think it was done a little unfairly, third place worked out better than second ... afaik there is no compensation for 2nd at least?
 
Cagey75 said:
It was Toscani that offered it himself, and I guess he sees something in Richard that we do not. I just think it was done a little unfairly, third place worked out better than second ... afaik there is no compensation for 2nd at least?
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Yeah completely agree. Hopefully Sidar will get loads of job offers etc....
 
Cagey75 said:
Considering Rankin is one of, if not the highest paid photographers in Britain he is much more down to earth than most other well knowns IMO. He can be a bit of a cocky git, [Saw him state on a docu about him in the past that he won't get up out of bed for less than £10K, and that was years back] but he's always maintained that common language no pretentious BS.
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:agree:

I think the "Get out of bed" quote was intended to be a bit "tongue in cheek."
He seemed pretty down to earth to me.
 
Brian G said:
:agree:

I think the "Get out of bed" quote was intended to be a bit "tongue in cheek."
He seemed pretty down to earth to me.
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Yeah I'm sure it was [though I think £10K would be his absoloute base price for a shoot] It was on the series where he took on a bunch of wayward teens and taught them. Good little series that was, I remember being very jealous of these teens who didn't give a monkey's about photography handling Phase One cameras in his studio
 
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Cagey75 said:
It was Toscani that offered it himself, and I guess he sees something in Richard that we do not. I just think it was done a little unfairly, third place worked out better than second ... afaik there is no compensation for 2nd at least?
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But at least Sidar if free from Toscani's pretentious BS, Richard has to suffer it for weeks to come :LOL:

More seriously, I do agree that Sidar was more deserving than Richard, though I do recall wondering what he was up to when he asked the Conductor to face into the sun as that would show her eyes (which promptly narrowed to almost slits due to the bright light...).
Sidar does at least know that you can take a shot without using a flash!
 
Faldrax said:
But at least Sidar if free from Toscani's pretentious BS, Richard has to suffer it for weeks to come :LOL:

More seriously, I do agree that Sidar was more deserving than Richard, though I do recall wondering what he was up to when he asked the Conductor to face into the sun as that would show her eyes (which promptly narrowed to almost slits due to the bright light...).
Sidar does at least know that you can take a shot without using a flash!
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Ha true, 6mths with Toscani for me could well end up with a prison sentence! :D

Sure, he made some mistake, but the scholarship is designed to teach photographers who have basic talent to begin with. Hopefully he can at least use his 2nd place to gain some photo work from it
 
Cagey75 said:
Considering Rankin is one of, if not the highest paid photographers in Britain he is much more down to earth than most other well knowns IMO. He can be a bit of a cocky git, [Saw him state on a docu about him in the past that he won't get up out of bed for less than £10K, and that was years back] but he's always maintained that common language no pretentious BS.
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I've read that Rankin has offered an internship to Brooklyn Beckham. Make of that what you will :D
 
Ste_S said:
I've read that Rankin has offered an internship to Brooklyn Beckham. Make of that what you will :D
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I guess there's zero risk involved, if he turns him out to be a decent photographer then it'll look great, if not people will say it was an impossible task to begin with - Brooklyn is certainly using mumsie and dadsy to get ahead. He was away with David Attenborough in Kenya, and apparently it was portraits of David with some tribesmen in Kenya that caught Rankin's attention. Maybe he has improved a lot?
 
I definitely think Jan's were the best this week by quite a margin, however whether he was the best throughout the series I"m not sure, he did have a couple of weak sets imo.

I'm with cagey, I think the scholarship should have gone to Sidar, I didn't see much in Richard's work throughout, but then what do I know :LOL:
 
Maybe behind the scenes, it was initially offered to Sidar but he refused?

6 months residential training may not be a good idea when trying to have a baby with his wife.
 
snerkler said:
Bizarrely this has made some main news. Apparently no basic technical knowledge, but this can obviously be learned.
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Apologies, I don't tend to follow "main news" The Petapixel article quotes from the Sun and the Daily Mail, neither of which I would consider to be authoritative sources.

Presumably the "lack of basic knowledge" could also be taken as a "lack of basic interest" but as you say, these things can be learned, which would seem to be the whole point of the exercise.
 
The story originates from the Sun of all places, must be a shortage of Z list 'celebs' cheating on their partners.

It would be very strange for Rankin's own staff to slate an apprentice, which is what he is I guess. Since it was Rankin himself who selected him, he apparently saw something in his recent work and took him on. The story is that these 'insiders' state that he is clueless when it comes to lighting a scene, I'm sure many an experienced photographer would be overwhelmed by the mound of gear at a Rankin workshop. They will be using gear they've never touched before, they'll be nervous and feel pressured with a team of supposed experts watching their every move. People who are supposed to teach them, not belittle them because they're making some mistakes. I'd love to hear what Rankin himself had to say about these rumours.

I couldn't care any less about the guy, I think he's privileged and most likely doesn't deserve the chance when there's some amazing young photographers out there who will never get such a look in. But if any of this is true it sounds like butt hurt bullying from established employees. I wouldn't be happy about that if I was the boss.
 
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I guess this show is dead now?

Shame. Had good potential. Just poorly executed. And arguably got worse, not better. Ho hum,
 
furq said:
I guess this show is dead now?

Shame. Had good potential. Just poorly executed. And arguably got worse, not better. Ho hum,
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The Great British Photography Challenge hosted by Rankin that was on last year was pretty good imo, although I was gobsmacked at the lack of basic knowledge of some of the togs. One lady in particular didn't understand the exposure triangle (couldn't understand why her images were so dark) and had no clue about the effect that aperture has :eek: Somehow she still managed to produce some good photos :thinking:
 
snerkler said:
The Great British Photography Challenge hosted by Rankin that was on last year was pretty good imo, although I was gobsmacked at the lack of basic knowledge of some of the togs. One lady in particular didn't understand the exposure triangle (couldn't understand why her images were so dark) and had no clue about the effect that aperture has :eek: Somehow she still managed to produce some good photos :thinking:
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It was also a bit random on what they shot with - sometimes their own camera, sometimes everyone using an identical camera / lens selected by the show.
I also have a recollection that in deciding the 'winner' they decided one of the contestants was good enough not to need to win, so selected one of the other contestants (this was probably inferred, and my read on it, rather than being stated directly).
I did enjoy it though, better than the Masters of Photography, where the trick was to be good enough not to be eliminated, but not to excel in the early rounds, as 'progress' was considered an important factor.
 
I watched these but always had issues with them.
If a photographer has to explain what they were trying to achieve in a photo the photo has already failed in my view.
 
Be a funny show if they had to be mute the whole series! :D It was imperfect but I liked seeing how they approached each task. I found one of the judges beyond rude.
 
Chipper said:
Be a funny show if they had to be mute the whole series! :D It was imperfect but I liked seeing how they approached each task. I found one of the judges beyond rude.
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It's one thing explaining to the viewers but they explained it to the judges.
 
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