US Olympic Photos

mehfesto

Thought you might enjoy this, guy & gals. Some awful photos from a recent press summit with Olympic athletes.

LINK

From the link:

The internet has been buzzing about the quality of the photographs by photographer Joe Klamar at the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Media Summit in Dallas, Texas. The complaints came as a whole, but primarily from photographers, who claim that these photographs do not represent the upcoming U.S. Olympic team very well.

It goes on to say that there were time issues that may have led to the poor quality of images. There were 100 athletes to be shot over three days and a number of photographers in the room to shoot them (Sports Illustrated, Time etc., etc.) and each photographer had 4-5minutes only, with each athlete. That said, HERE are some photos from the same meet. They're quite good, indeed.

I'm surprised the Olympic association of the US isn't more protective of it's stars, to be honest! I always thought photographers for things like these were vetted somehow!

AnCatDubh

Comment from Slate

As a photo editor, my initial reaction was relief. I never thought the day would come when people would cry out en masse not because a photo is too sexy or controversial (more common complaints), but because the lighting and composition were bad. In a world where photo budgets are being slashed, and great photo stories are replaced with snapshots by writers and crowdsourced iPhone images, it is comforting to know that the same people who share blurry cat photos on Reddit also get enraged when an official portrait is not up to par.

interesting angle/fair comment though the outrage may be patriotic in nature rather than artistically motivated.

magicbastarder

i don't see what the fuss is? they invited multiple photographers to do a shoot, and one turned out to be below par. hardly worth a news story.

the_doctor199

magicbastarder wrote: »

i don't see what the fuss is? they invited multiple photographers to do a shoot, and one turned out to be below par. hardly worth a news story.

Maybe for an amateur it'd be fine, not the chief photographer at one of the worlds biggest photo agencies.

Borderfox

They are awful, doesnt suprise me it comes from the head of a photo agency.

mehfesto

mehfesto wrote: »

That said, HERE are some photos from the same meet. They're quite good, indeed.

To be fair, those are the same poses over and over with each person.

The guy who's being slated as having done a bad job seems to be, at least, trying something new, and clearly his photos that are on show have not seen any editing process at all (which I'd assume they are intended to be edited).

The photos that look 'good' all look like they've had at least a quick edit going for them.

Story seems a bit one sided to me, personally. Would like to hear what the photographer has to say about them.

the_doctor199

Deleted User wrote: »

Would like to hear what the photographer has to say about them.

He's responded here http://blogs.afp.com/correspondent/?post/2012/07/05/Pixels-and-piety%3A-Photographing-Olympic-icons

the_doctor199

the_doctor199 wrote: »

He's responded here http://blogs.afp.com/correspondent/?post/2012/07/05/Pixels-and-piety%3A-Photographing-Olympic-icons

Meh.. that whole article seem to be just ass-kissing. I don't hate the photos myself (though obviously they're in dire need of photoshoppery) but that article seems hellbent on defending them regardless of the majority opinion.


That said, as a standard portrait shot, the photo of the guy with the blue background and the hatchet lighting across the face is very good in my opinion (needs to be edited a bit, but all in all, I like it).

Borderfox

His explaination makes it all the more inept, if you go to a press call bring more than one flash and some triggers.

Wasnt there one photographer that used an iphone and instagram to provide pictures to press, his were better than these offshoots that should have been deleted...

Syferus

That Slate editor managed to come off as aloof, whiney, condescending and unlikeable all in one breath. And he threw in some sort of attempt at humour just to make the confection complete. Impressive.