Exposure technique Kratochvil style?

[Kerbouchard]

hmmm, that's what I have tried to do several times and it seemed I got similar results / so it doesn't seem to be some kind of sophisticatd secret technique / anywya you said "Noisy" do you think the Clooney shot were not even made using film cameras? I know Kratochvil used to use Nikons with 28 mm, but recently switched to digital

For my use of the word 'noise', if that shot was done in film, I suppose 'grainy' would have been the appropriate word. It could be that he is using a high ISO film or the lab is pushing the rolls resulting in the contrast and the grain.

Honestly, I only looked at a few of the shots on his portfolio, but none of them looked 'sophisticated' to me. I doubt what you are trying to emulate is any sophisticated secret technique. More likely just a good lab processing his shots to get usable photos off of whatever he is turning in.

 

[ryunin]

hmmm, that's what I have tried to do several times and it seemed I got similar results / so it doesn't seem to be some kind of sophisticatd secret technique / anywya you said "Noisy" do you think the Clooney shot were not even made using film cameras? I know Kratochvil used to use Nikons with 28 mm, but recently switched to digital

For my use of the word 'noise', if that shot was done in film, I suppose 'grainy' would have been the appropriate word. It could be that he is using a high ISO film or the lab is pushing the rolls resulting in the contrast and the grain.

Honestly, I only looked at a few of the shots on his portfolio, but none of them looked 'sophisticated' to me. I doubt what you are trying to emulate is any sophisticated secret technique. More likely just a good lab processing his shots to get usable photos off of whatever he is turning in.

Based on some documentaries and interviews I saw, it seems Kratochvil has some very solid technical background and through his career gradually simplifying everything up to the hard bone basis (my expression I guess). He ended up shooting digital, jpg, directly in BW mode without any post processing. It resembles the career of Matisse who started with academic drawing and sophisticated painting skills and ended his career with just a few simple shapes, three or four colors.

 

[Kerbouchard]

hmmm, that's what I have tried to do several times and it seemed I got similar results / so it doesn't seem to be some kind of sophisticatd secret technique / anywya you said "Noisy" do you think the Clooney shot were not even made using film cameras? I know Kratochvil used to use Nikons with 28 mm, but recently switched to digital

For my use of the word 'noise', if that shot was done in film, I suppose 'grainy' would have been the appropriate word. It could be that he is using a high ISO film or the lab is pushing the rolls resulting in the contrast and the grain.

Honestly, I only looked at a few of the shots on his portfolio, but none of them looked 'sophisticated' to me. I doubt what you are trying to emulate is any sophisticated secret technique. More likely just a good lab processing his shots to get usable photos off of whatever he is turning in.

Based on some documentaries and interviews I saw, it seems Kratochvil has some very solid technical background and through his career gradually simplifying everything up to the hard bone basis (my expression I guess). He ended up shooting digital, jpg, directly in BW mode without any post processing. It resembles the career of Matisse who started with academic drawing and sophisticated painting skills and ended his career with just a few simple shapes, three or four colors.

Personally, I don't believe in things like that. When an 'established artist' starts to regress, my opinion is it's most likely because somebody who used to do a lot of the work for them is no longer in the picture. In this case, the transition from film to digital is a perfect example. He used to have a lab full of techs who would correct his images. Moving to digital might be exposing a flaw rather than showing an artist simplifying things.

Like I said, I don't know the guy from Adam. It may be like you said, that he is just simplifying his work or whatever. Personally, I'm not a fan of whatever it is that he is doing. Just my .02.

 

[ryunin]

Hmm, I think it happens to lots of pros these days who used to shoot film and circumstances made them switch to digital / like Salgado, so now Salgado is looking to make best use of digital plugin simulating film and grain to achieve the style of photographs he got when he shot film.Kratochvil is a pro working for different publishers so they just make the guys do things digitally. Of course, for collectors, the classical prints will be the only option, usually and I hope Kratochvil or Sagrado will still shoot and print film to make us film lovers happy.

 

[joealcantar]

Looked at a few shots and was not really impressed. Noisy and unfocused.
-
Shoot well, Joe

 

[e.rose]

One problem i having is i've tried that link 3 times in 3 days and it either takes ages to load or i get a blank page.Wish i could see what these photos look like. Do you have another link to a different page ?

just try www antoninkratochvil com

then go to stories

george clooney

done

If I were to base my opinion just off of the shot of Clooney... (seeing as how that's literally the only one I've looked at thus far... I'll get to the rest in a minute...) I'd say I'm not a fan of this photographer.

Clooney looks like a floating head on a solid sea of black.

Maybe there's appeal for that somewhere, but it doesn't really speak to *me* personally.

 

[ryunin]

interesting how successful he was :

Antonin Kratochvil (born 1947) is a Czech-born American photojournalist. He is a founding member of the VII Photo Agency. He received his BFA in Photography from Gerrit Rietveld Academie which is located in Amsterdam, Holland. Kratochvil has photographed a wide variety of subjects, including Mongolia's street children for the Museum of Natural History and the war in Iraq for Fortune Magazine.He has one son Wayne Anthony Cooper Kratochvil who also is a photographer.​

[h=2]Awards and Grants[/h]

He has received numerous grants and awards for his photography, most recently the 2005 Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Photojournalism and the 2005 Golden Light Award for Best Documentary Book.​

[h=3]1990s[/h]

• 1991 Infinity Award: Photojournalist of the Year
• 1994 Leica Medal of Excellence for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Photography
• 1994 Dorothy Lange Prize
• 1994 Ernst Haas Working Grant
• 1995 Hasselblad Foundation Grant for Photography
• 1995 Ernst Haas Award
• 1997 Gold Medal for Photography from Society of Publishing Designers
• 1997 First Prize, World Press Photo Portrait Series, Amsterdam.
• 1997 (Eissie) Alfred Eisenstadt Award for 3Eyewitness Essay2 Life Magazine.

[h=4]2000s[/h]

• 2000 Gold ARC Award for Best Annual Report, NGO Category, for Rockefeller Foundation 1999 Annual Report.
• 2003 First Prize World Press Photo Amsterdam (2 awards same year)
• Medal from the City of Prague for Photography
• 2005 Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Photojournalism
• 2005 Golden Light Award for Best Documentary Book for the book Vanishing

 

[Kerbouchard]

And recently a photo sold for 4.3 million dollars that most of us would have hit the delete button or never taken in the first place because there would have been more interesting angles. http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photographic-discussions/262514-sometimes-its-surprising.html

Successful photography at that level has a lot more to do with marketing and 'who you know' than it has to do with technical or artistic proficiency.

Just because someone is successful doesn't make them a good photographer...it means they have convinced people who have a lot of money or who give awards that they are special. Some even make a ton of money convincing people they are special because of their mediocrity.

We are living in an Ellsworth Toohey world...

 

[ryunin]

And recently a photo sold for 4.3 million dollars that most of us would have hit the delete button or never taken in the first place because there would have been more interesting angles. http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photographic-discussions/262514-sometimes-its-surprising.html

Successful photography at that level has a lot more to do with marketing and 'who you know' than it has to do with technical or artistic proficiency.

Just because someone is successful doesn't make them a good photographer...it means they have convinced people who have a lot of money or who give awards that they are special. Some even make a ton of money convincing people they are special because of their mediocrity.

We are living in an Ellsworth Toohey world...

Hmm, this guy is successful based on his war and poverty regions photographs to which he added atmosphere, rather than just shooting whatever horrible was going on around him. Plus he was inspired by Italian neorealist cinema, which is no argument at all, I know. But that explains why he likes deep or "blocked" patches of black in his photographs.

Anyway, it is impossible to argue about this as it is more about how we feel about the world and what we recognize intuitively. There isn't much logic to it. The OP was trying to find out whether some kind of special technique is necessary, now it seems it is just making sure there is enough contrast and printing like that.