The headline feature of the Panasonic GH4 is that it’s a Micro Four Thirds camera that can shoot 4K video for under $ 2000, capturing either Quad HD (3840 x 2160) at up to 29.97p or ‘Cinema 4K’ (4096 x 2160) at up to 24p. Seattle-based photographer Erik Hecht recently took the new Panasonic GH4 for a spin to test the dynamic range and to see how well it takes color correction. See video
What started as a personal blog in 2008, a list of retouching and 3D animation studios that was used as an archive for personal learning and inspiration, has become an impressive collection of retouchers, illustrators and 3D artists and studios from across the globe. In 2013, Art Buyer’s Bible emerged when its owner and creator, Chris, decided to make something out of his list.
Today, ArtBuyersBible.com assists professionals and businesses to connect and network with advertising agencies and photographers to collaborate and serve as a pool of inspiration for young artists. FashionPhotographyBlog.com caught up with Chris from Art Buyer’s Bible to talk about his experience as a former freelance retoucher and his brainchild website.
When I asked Chris about his take on the appeal of retouching as a creative art form he replied that “There are a lot of different things that are good with retouching. For starters, it’s often a very fun and creative process to retouch images. People tell you what they are after but it’s up to you to get there. It is really rewarding when you manage to visualize what the client is looking for – when you can help get an image to go all the way; but I also have to say that Photoshop is 90% of what makes it so great. It’s such a fantastic application – maybe needless to say, but still.”
I was intrigued about how the self-starting freelance retoucher first got involved and what led him on to choose a career in photo retouching, he answered “My dad worked as an art director, so when I was growing up we always had the latest Apple computer at home, with the latest applications. Nowadays, everyone has the latest stuff, but back then (1994-96) it was not same. Many families had computers, but they were mostly used for games or word processors. I learned the overall basics at that time, but most of all I got a head start which drew me to go to a media program in high school.
After school, my cousin got me into a market department of a large fashion company and after working there for a while as an art director’s assistant, I met a fashion photographer who took a lot of pictures for the fashion company. He had a quite small company at that time, but he was hiring several photographers and retouchers as they were growing. And that sounded very fun, so I started working for him. I worked there for about 4 years and it was then I really started my retouching career. Some of the senior retouchers at the company believed in me and helped me develop. They were a big inspiration. After that, I started my own company, together with another retoucher and a photographer.”
From professional retoucher to website creator, I asked Chris how did the origins of Art Buyer’s Bible came to be, he explained “I have gotten all my inspiration from looking at other artists’ and studios’ work. Keeping watch on the big studios around the world always drew me in to create the same great work as they did. And while looking around to find other retouchers and great images I found a lot of studios. So I started collecting all of them on a blog. After a while, the list of studios was over a 100. So I decided to do something more of it and created the site. There are now over 200 studios and artist listed on Art Buyer´s Bible.”
The website offers something unique to the industry, according to Chris, “Art Buyer´s Bible has the best list of post-production studios on the web. There are endless of inspiration for both newbies and professionals. I also think we have done a really good job creating the directory overview. You can easily see what and where the great work is coming from.”
When asked about what’s on the horizon for the site and if there are any future plans to include photographers, Chris gave this answer “My future plan is to give advertising agencies personal help with finding collaborators… Since it all started with me looking for inspiration for my own work, I mainly searched for retouch studios. I’ve been thinking about if I should add photographers too. Maybe, but not in any near future. There are also so many, so then I have to think of a good way of sorting them. We’ll see.”
For people who are looking to do their own retouching, Chris recommends the following: “You need a computer with Photoshop and a big bunch of inspiration, which you can find at ArtBuyersBible.com :). Pretty soon you will also need a Wacom tablet.”
If you would like more information about Art Buyer’s Bible you can visit the website at ArtBuyersBible.com or email info@artbuyersbible.com
PHOTO CREDITS:
Picture 1: Monica Chamorro, Photo: Jenny Brough
Picture 2: Fernando Arrais, Photo: Valerio Trabanco
Picture 3: BlutsBrueder, Photographer: Matthias Zenter, Retoucher: Franz Steiner
Picture 4: Glowfrog, 100%CGI except model
Picture 5 – The Livingroom, Photo: Frieke Janssens
Branding is critical for a successful photography business regardless of the genre, and photographer Art Wolfe has built perhaps one of the strongest brands in his field. Wolfe has been shooting nature and wildlife images professionally for more than 30 years all over the world. This story on Photoshelter’s blog gives some insight on how he built his photography business. Learn more
Parrot, the maker of the popular AR Drone 2.0, has launched a new model, the AR Drone 3.0. It also flies under the name Bebop. The Bebop is essentially a flying camera with four rotors. The camera comes with an F2.2 fisheye lens with a 180-degree field of view and a 14MP sensor. Learn more
After being introduced in Japan and Europe, the white Canon EOS Rebel SL1 (EOS 100D) has made it to American shores. To avoid color clash, Canon also includes a matching EF-S 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 STM lens along with this compact DSLR. The white EOS Rebel SL1 will be available in June for $ 749.
Canon has officially announced a pair of new lenses. The first is an EF 16-35mm F4L IS USM lens, which is a cheaper version of the existing F2.8L model. For cameras that support EF-S lenses, there’s also a new 10-18mm F4.5-5.6 IS STM model, which is equivalent to 16-29mm on APS-C bodies. The two lenses will be available next month for $ 1199 and $ 299, respectively.
Rumors have been flying around the Internet in the last week about a pair of new Canon lenses. The first rumored lens is an EF 16-35mm F4L IS USM model, which could be a cheaper version of the existing F2.8 lens, or a replacement for the 17-40 F4L. The other speculated lens is an EF-S 10-18mm F4.5-5.6 IS STM which, according to the rumor mill, should be fairly inexpensive. The word on the street is that these lenses will be announced soon, so we’ll keep our fingers on the keyboard just in case.
Samsung has released a software update for the international version of its Galaxy S5 flagship smartphone. The new software is promising speedier camera and gallery app startup, plus more responsive fingerprint recognition. Apart from the faster camera startup, the update also brings improved general performance and better RAM management. Learn more
For the past couple of days, I had the song “Rise like a Phoenix” stuck in my head so I thought that I should write about the event that has just passed at the risk of embarrassing myself but revealing to the world of my guilty pleasure, that I had been following Eurovision this year. Deciding whether or not I should add my take on the music competition that stops the entire continent of Europe gluing populations across countries to their TV screens, I am going to stand my ground and say what I’ve always said, that I am always supportive of any endeavour that brings more art to this world, because the world will be a much more boring place without it.
First of all I would like to say congratulations to Austrian performer, Conchita Wurst for winning Eurovision 2014 in Copenhagen. For those of who have not followed the contest, Conchita Wurst, otherwise known by the media as “the bearded lady”, is the drag persona of singer, Thomas Neuwirth.
The journey of 25 years old, Tom Neuwirth, has been a test of trials. He first appeared on Austrian television in a singing contest show in 2006, called Starmania coming second place to Nadine Beiler. A year later, he founded a boyband, Jetzt Anders (translated as “Different Now”), which disbanded later that same year. Neuwirth returned to TV as a female drag act with a beard, in 2011 on Die große Chance (translated as “The Great Opportunity”) where she came sixth, then coming second in the Austrian preselection rounds for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. Second place once again, Cochita Wurst has since participated in reality TV shows such as “The Hardest Jobs of Austria” working in a fish factory, “Wild Girls” where a group of candidates had to survive the Namibian dessert amongst indigenous tribes, as well as Dancing With The Stars. It had seemed that the story so far had been one of always being the bridesmaid but never the bride.
When Wurst was announced as the Austrian representative for the 2014 Eurovision competition, you’d think that finally the performer has her break and acknowledged as an artist, however this wasn’t the case as controversy broke out with signed petitions emerged were submitted to have Wurst’s performance edited out of the competition, not to mention numerous Facebook hate pages that surfaced.
In all the interviews conducted, Wurst appears to approach these waves of confrontation in a very composed and graceful manner, having once been quoted saying “I have very thick skin. It never ceases to amaze me just how much fuss is made over a little facial hair”. Her victory in Eurovision has been seen as a milestone in tolerance and the freedom of self-expression as Wurst said during her winner’s acceptance speech “This night is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who are. We are unity and we are unstoppable.”
Perhaps now, Conchita Wurst can be seen as the artist and fashion icon that she is. I suppose I resonate with her story because, long ago, I too had been bullied because I perceived the world and choose to experience the world in a different way. I am a believer in the saying “If you don’t stand for something, you’d fall for anything”.
So why have I chosen to talk about Conchita Wurst on this blog. The answer is simple. She addresses the freedom of self-expression. When it comes down to the crunch, if you look at the situation, there has been uproar from disgruntled people across the globe because a guy decided to put on a dress and wear makeup, or a drag performer is wearing a beard and somehow that means the world has turned upside down? How is that different to artists like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry or Adam Lambert, who have also been shunned for their stylistic choices?
Lady Gaga wore a dress made of raw beef to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Designed by Argentine designer Franc Fernandez and styled by Nicola Formichetti, the “meat dress” was condemned by animal rights groups. Gaga explained afterward that she wore the dress as a statement about fighting for what you believe in, in response to the US military’s “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy.
In September 17, 2013, Katy Perry released her music video, “Dark Horse” that caused controversy across Muslim communities who condemned parts of the video, involving a man wearing pendent with Arabic wording that gets turned into sand by Perry’s character, as being sacrilegious and disrespectful. A petition containing 65,000 signatures was circulated demanding the removal of the video clip from YouTube
Adam Lambert In November, 2009, during a performance in the American Music Awards (AMA) the singer was seen gyrating his hips, walking his dancers by leash, kissing one of his band members on stage, and “flipping the bird” all while sporting his trademark guy makeup and heightened hairdo, as well as a silver spiked suit.
I have heard the opinion that perhaps these artists are just creating controversy for publicity and attention. I would ask a question though, what if they are not? What if they are just being themselves and the world is responding in a negative way because it goes against the grain of social conditioning.
I will not be going into all the politics around Wurst. I just wanted to say that it’s interesting when a male model with a full beard wears a pair of stilettos for a photo shoot or the runway is seen as edgy, whereas a man with a beard who sings on a stage in a dress and a wig is accused of tearing down the “fabric of society”. Are there people forgetting that performing on a stage in front of thousands and televised to millions around the world showing everyone who you are as an article can be a very daunting and exposing experience?
Conchita Wurst lifted herself above adversity of her critics and delivered an elegant and sultry performance of a power ballad, reminiscent of a musical score from a James Bond movie. She stood her ground, center stage, in a stunning dress and sung without the assistance of backup singers, dancers or music bands – Just her singing in front of the eyes of the world with a digital screen that’s so cool that I wished I had one behind me at all times projecting my mood.
The lyrics of “Rise Like A Phoenix”, the song she sang, contains deep a metaphorical message (open to interpretation of course) that can strike a chord with anyone facing challenges:
Rise like a phoenix
Out of the ashes
Seeking rather than vengeance
Retribution
You were warned
Once I’m transformed
Once I’m reborn
I rise up to the sky
You threw me down but
I’m gonna fly
So what’s the takeaway from all this? Well, as artists we may be confronted with choices that can sometimes go against the grain of society’s opinion, it could be a photograph that may be seen as controversial, a design on the runway deemed as risqué or even the decision to blog about a topic that has met with major backlash. How we handle these hurdles determines the outcome. Do we remain in the ashes or never give up and rise like a phoenix?
I hope you all will be able to respect that this is just an opinion.
Photo Credits To AFP, Jonathan Nackstrand, Thomas Lerch, Manfred Baumann & OFP.
Seene is a free app for iOS that lets you capture and share interactive and three dimensional images, just like Instagram and Vine do for 2D-images and videos respectively. The makers of the app, Obvious Engineering, are now showing off a preview of a forthcoming feature. Soon Seene will be capable of capturing a full 360-degree model of an object and export it for printing on a 3D-printer. Learn more