Just a thought...

[Jedo_03]

Was browsing at the newsagents this morning (as you do) and began to take note of the headshots of models on the fronts of magazines...
It struck me how many pics had areas of highlight blowout...
Here we are... worrying ourselves silly about blowout in our pics... and there's the So-PRO-fessionals with published images and blowouts in all their glory...
So... got home, and there's the junk-mail-catalogues... And guess what..? Models with blown-out highlights... As white as driven snow...
Are we being too perfect???
Jedo

 

[Alex_B]

lol, in the cheap magazines sometimes the printing meses up otherwise nice images.

also, sometimes slightly blown out highlights are not a problem. or if done very intensely, it can be on purpose.


in any case, blown out highlights are far less annoying in portraits than in Landscape shots IMHO.

 

[usayit]

Which publications?

I've said it several times... its business.. and the quality of a product or the cost to make it has nothing to do with making a profit/paycheck. If you can sell a piece of scratch paper for $100s of dollars, then I wish you the best.

We strive for perfection because we are passionate about photography as a hobby or art.

Not all publications strive for the same. No we are not striving to be too perfect.

 

[ksmattfish]

While people often infer that the word professional means skilled, it actually only means they get paid for their work. Professional photography has been full of unskilled hacks since the beginning.

As was said in another thread recently, the photographer with excellent business skills and mediocre photography skills will generally achieve more professional success than a photographer with excellent photography skills and poor business skills. Getting paid photo assignments is just as much about networking and who you know as it is about how good your portfolio looks.

Consider Diane Arbus. When she was a teenager she shacked up with her slightly older, photographer boyfriend. Her dad, who either owned or managed a large, upscale department store had to figure out a way to give them jobs, so he hired them as the store photographers. Even though Diane was supposedly the assistant, when it didn't work out with the boyfriend, guess who got canned? I love Diane Arbus' work, but I believe had her father not been networked in with the big-spending crowd we'd never have heard of her.

“Let me here call attention to one of the most universally popular mistakes that have to do with photography - that of classing supposedly excellent work as professional, and using the term amateur to convey the idea of immature productions and to excuse atrociously poor photographs.” -Alfred Stieglitz. I can't find the exact quote, but he goes on to say that he feels the best photographic work is being done by those who pursue photography out of passion, rather than those who do it merely for money.

On the other hand, here's a website filled with excellent, professional work (IMO). You'll notice they aren't very concerned about blown out highlights, and in fact make it part of their style.

http://www.theimageisfound.com/

 

[SpeedTrap]

One other thing to remember as well, when it comes to fashion photography, all the rules go out the window.Composition, lighting, everything.

It is all about an artistic vision and not about rules. I am not saying you do not need to know the rules of composition or exposure, but fashion pushes the bounds of these rules to highlight what they want.

 

[Joves]

Well another thing about fashion photos is they are featuring the product not the model. So if the models features are blown and, the product looks good then it is fine with them.

 

[wchua24]

most of the time models in so called magazines are edited by photoshop..now a days you cant believe what you see in magazines