Alex Webb is favorite of mine and I own a couple his books including some with his wife. I loved your project and I can see his influence in your images. Thanks for sharing and providing insight into his and your work. I’m not a professional photographer and find your channel very informative and helpful.
Thank you for the lecture. I got a feeling of depth in his pictures. Is he inspired by William Eggleston? I think this is what is called a open composition
I was shocked to see how well the rule of thirds grid fit. Do people skilled at pattern recognition see it immediately? Thanks for pointing out the kid peeking round the corner.
I have a problem with this photo: See the hand in the foreground, on the right? Why isn't the face of the guy on the left lit like that? Why is he so dark when his face is in direct sun? And why is the kid in the back ground in silhouette? He should be as well lit as the two women, yet there isn't even any bounce light on him. When I tweaked the photo I could see he is wearing a white shirt. Did Alex do some diddling here?
Hi A.C. No I don't think so. If you look at the woman's shadow, the light is coming from a high point on the RHS. There is probably some structure above the man and boy and a shaft of light is touching the man's face and hand and just a tiny spec on the boy's nose (LHS). - if he wanted to blacken that face he would never have left that speck of light. The same goes for the silhouetted boy in the centre - you would have to know what the structure looked like above them. The light in Haiti and in Africa is incredibly harsh, so things are either in the sun or they are in deep shadow. You also have to look at someone's whole archive of work to see if Alex would be likely to try construct extra contrast. My vote is that it is legit!! A wider shot would explain all your doubts.
@@PhotoConversations Graeme, - any thinking person with fresh eyes can see straight away!, the boy in the center should NOT be blacked out like that. Impossible.
@@PhotoConversations Betty, good for you for your critical thinking. Did you see my latest comment (the long detailed one)? Are you wondering why Graeme has not replied? I give 5 more examples of altered Webb images.
Hi Your videos are very interesting and enjoyable to watch, but in this one, in my humble opinion at least, you are losing the point with all this hyper analysis (all those lines, all those arrows etc.). Even Alex Webb himself would be really surprised by watching this. And, also, he wouldn’t be able to see the point of so many words, because when he made the picture he didn’t think anything of those. He just saw harmony in the small box that his camera focal length was able to catch. The human brain has the ability to recognize patterns in the surrounding world. Some brains can see them better than others and most important they can do that more quickly, almost instantaneously. This is what Webb did here. He saw a pattern which was about to last for a minute fraction of time, 1,2, 3 seconds only. And he was lucky to be there, in the right time, in the right position, with a camera ready to shoot. That’s all. He didn’t think about lines and arrows. He just shot. I said above that he was lucky, except of talented of course, as we must not underestimate luck in photography. Without luck even the elite of those great artists would have done very little. Just see the example of Garry Winogrand. He left behind 200-300 great photos but in his career as a photographer he shot more than 4 millions. Where are the rest? Same with Robert Frank, one of the greatest. To end up with about 87 pictures in the Americans he made more than 28.000 shots (as he said, maybe it’s more and vanity is human). So, where are the others? Where are the remaining 27.913, which are not in any photo album and they will never be? Please, don’t get me wrong. I would never dare to say that those few men and women that gave us all this beauty were not talented and gifted and they were just lucky. But they were also lucky. And they were dedicated professionals, not Sunday shooters like us, who did that job 24/7, 365 days a year. And in this process, they made tons of junk. To make a long story short, for us, the viewers it’s only the aesthetics. The joy of seeing the harmony in the whole without analyzing so much. Sorry for the long comment and for my English (it is not my native language).
Alex Webb is favorite of mine and I own a couple his books including some with his wife. I loved your project and I can see his influence in your images. Thanks for sharing and providing insight into his and your work. I’m not a professional photographer and find your channel very informative and helpful.
Brilliant! Thanks Glenn for the feedback.
Just found this video. It has the best explanation of Alex Webb's work I've found. Thanks.
Thanks Ben I appreciate your feedback.
I agree! Thanks!
Thank you for the in depth analysis! Amazing! I learned so much! Thank you!!
Excellent analysis of one of my favorite images of Alex Webb.
Eddit: I am still waiting for the ash to drop. :)
Gotcha! You did comment. Thanks
Thank you for the lecture. I got a feeling of depth in his pictures. Is he inspired by William Eggleston? I think this is what is called a open composition
I doubt that his aesthetic developed out of Eggleston - They are looking very differently
I was shocked to see how well the rule of thirds grid fit. Do people skilled at pattern recognition see it immediately? Thanks for pointing out the kid peeking round the corner.
yes, but I don't think it is a conscious thing.
Interesting that you use the word 'instinct' to describe a lucky moment with a fast eye. I like it
Brilliant
I have a problem with this photo: See the hand in the foreground, on the right? Why isn't the face of the guy on the left lit like that? Why is he so dark when his face is in direct sun? And why is the kid in the back ground in silhouette? He should be as well lit as the two women, yet there isn't even any bounce light on him. When I tweaked the photo I could see he is wearing a white shirt. Did Alex do some diddling here?
Hi A.C. No I don't think so. If you look at the woman's shadow, the light is coming from a high point on the RHS. There is probably some structure above the man and boy and a shaft of light is touching the man's face and hand and just a tiny spec on the boy's nose (LHS). - if he wanted to blacken that face he would never have left that speck of light. The same goes for the silhouetted boy in the centre - you would have to know what the structure looked like above them. The light in Haiti and in Africa is incredibly harsh, so things are either in the sun or they are in deep shadow. You also have to look at someone's whole archive of work to see if Alex would be likely to try construct extra contrast. My vote is that it is legit!! A wider shot would explain all your doubts.
You don't want to see the proof, eh? Says a lot about who you really are.
@@PhotoConversations Graeme, - any thinking person with fresh eyes can see straight away!, the boy in the center should NOT be blacked out like that. Impossible.
@@brettymike We'll agree to disagree.
@@PhotoConversations Betty, good for you for your critical thinking. Did you see my latest comment (the long detailed one)? Are you wondering why Graeme has not replied? I give 5 more examples of altered Webb images.
Hi
Your videos are very interesting and enjoyable to watch, but in this one, in my humble opinion at least, you are losing the point with all this hyper analysis (all those lines, all those arrows etc.). Even Alex Webb himself would be really surprised by watching this. And, also, he wouldn’t be able to see the point of so many words, because when he made the picture he didn’t think anything of those. He just saw harmony in the small box that his camera focal length was able to catch.
The human brain has the ability to recognize patterns in the surrounding world. Some brains can see them better than others and most important they can do that more quickly, almost instantaneously. This is what Webb did here. He saw a pattern which was about to last for a minute fraction of time, 1,2, 3 seconds only. And he was lucky to be there, in the right time, in the right position, with a camera ready to shoot. That’s all. He didn’t think about lines and arrows. He just shot.
I said above that he was lucky, except of talented of course, as we must not underestimate luck in photography. Without luck even the elite of those great artists would have done very little. Just see the example of Garry Winogrand. He left behind 200-300 great photos but in his career as a photographer he shot more than 4 millions. Where are the rest? Same with Robert Frank, one of the greatest. To end up with about 87 pictures in the Americans he made more than 28.000 shots (as he said, maybe it’s more and vanity is human). So, where are the others? Where are the remaining 27.913, which are not in any photo album and they will never be?
Please, don’t get me wrong. I would never dare to say that those few men and women that gave us all this beauty were not talented and gifted and they were just lucky. But they were also lucky. And they were dedicated professionals, not Sunday shooters like us, who did that job 24/7, 365 days a year. And in this process, they made tons of junk.
To make a long story short, for us, the viewers it’s only the aesthetics. The joy of seeing the harmony in the whole without analyzing so much.
Sorry for the long comment and for my English (it is not my native language).