Emerging Photographer Grant Recipient Named.

AnCatDubh

The Emerging Photographer Grant is in it's second year and seeks to recognise leading edge and emerging photographic talent. A short list of 11 photographers submitted entries hosted by burn magazine (curated by David Alan Harvey - Magnum) and the winner has just been announced as Alejandro Chaskielberg with their essay "The High Tide".

The jury of the award was;

• Maggie Steber - Photographer
• James Nachtwey - Photographer VII
• Carol Naggar & Fred Ritchen - Historians-Authors-Analysts
• Eugene Richards - Photographer
• John Gossage - Curator
• Scott Thode - Director of Photography Fortune Magazine
• Gilles Peress - Photographer Magnum
• David Griffin - Director of Photography National Geographic Magazine
• Martin Parr - Photographer Magnum

The announcement thread and comments is located here.

The winning essay is located here

Other finalists can be found here

If you wish to find out where this definition of the "cutting edge" takes photography then the above links are highly recommended.

I'm interested for forum users here to post their assessment of it. I'm assuming it being 'bleeding edge' stuff will gather a smattering of varied opinion liking or disliking it (as can already be seen from the comments on the links above).

So what do you think? / Where does this take photography?

(At time of posting the web site linked appears to have crashed - I suspect more traffic than it can handle, so if you can't click through then do try again later)

ThOnda

Links do not work for me

It works but takes a long time to load.

wersal gummage

had a look through those sixteen pictures. have to say, not one of them has any kind of wow factor for me. not even one of them would catch my eye or make me want to spend any longer looking at it than the slide show gave me.

there's a website i look at sometimes called 1x.com - nearly every picture i've ever seen on that site is better than this 'rising tide' !!

mrmac

Alejandro Chaskielberg - The High Tide

Love it!

Wonder what kind of setup you'd need for these kind of shots?
Lense, aperature, shutter speed?

Tallon

They're not bad pics but as wersal said, there not awe inspiring .

They look a bit tilt-shifty too.

Personally they wouldn't be my cup of tea

Crispin

Tallon wrote: »

They look a bit tilt-shifty too.

^^^ yeh I was gonna ask "is it tilt shift stuff?"
I like it though. Some of them look like scale models

DaireQuinlan

Crispin wrote: »

^^^ yeh I was gonna ask "is it tilt shift stuff?"
I like it though. Some of them look like scale models

I was thinking there was a bit of selective blurring or something going on, but they were taken as long exposures under the full moon which accounts for a good deal of it. There's definately some manipulation of the focal plane aswell in some of them though.

I really like them. The light is astonishing. Some are a bit too posed (they're all set up shots) but even those have a quite unique atmosphere to them. It brings to mind latin american magical realism, only in photographic form

mrmac

Tallon wrote: »

They look a bit tilt-shifty too.

I don't think it's tilt shift.

From reading the guys brief, it seems he has tried to use the natural light from the Full Moon to illuminate his scenes! That's what gives it a weird light, and (I'm guessing) that due to a long shutter speed, some items appear out of focus due to movement. To me, that adds to the scene, as my attention is drawn all over it, adding to the experience.

I'm going to stretch my neck out here a bit, and say that I probably like these shots so much, because I enjoy Impressionist Paintings

I think it's inspired, in it's simplicity - but then I'm a big fan of people who try to push boundaries, without resorting to photoshop!
(BTW - I'm sure there's loads of PS in this!)

Fionn

it's a style he has! but hardly anything new, maybe he was using software like this. It doesn't strike me as leading edge stuff. Perhaps it has more appeal in print?

Tallon

mrmac wrote: »

I don't think it's tilt shift.

Me neither, it's deffo not. Just looks tilt-shifty

DaireQuinlan

Fionn wrote: »

it's a style he has! but hardly anything new, maybe he was using software like this. It doesn't strike me as leading edge stuff. Perhaps it has more appeal in print?

Winner of one of the more prestigious competitions around for emerging photographers. Competition curated by highly regarded Magnum photographer. Somehow I don't think he's accomplishing this by using alienskin plugins in photoshop. Somehow. What would you suggest next, that he uses HDR or something ?

I'd say he's shooting large format. Probably film, either 4x5 or 8x10. probably 4x5 given the locations.

AnCatDubh

I think I had read somewhere that this guy does indeed shoot film and everything that you see comes straight out of camera - no post processing whatsoever. Also as someone mentioned it is interesting that the winning essay is shot under the light of the moon. Bit of a surreal feel to it.

Tallon

Just looked at his website and his 'Nocturama 2007' set is un-believable
I mean i really like it