The best photographer I have seen in a long time!

Messiah Khan

Messiah Khan

Messiah Khan

Soldato
Joined
1 Sep 2005
Posts
10,001
Location
Scottish Highlands
Just watching a programme on BBC4 about people of the north, and it is following the photographer Ragnar Axelsson. I LOVE his work. Some of the best B&W work I have ever seen, beats old Ansel imo (Not that I am a huge Ansel fan). Definitely worth checking out;

http://www.rax.is/Index.htm









:)
 
Oooh, is it on iplayer?

His photos go well given that either his background (snow) or subjects (sheep) seem to be often white... Haven't yet looked at the pictures from Africa.
 
Looks interesting, I shall have a proper look later. Thanks for the heads up :)

I've been going through a lot of older stuff recently, I really like the work of Elliott Erwitts. Although from the thread I posted recently I'm on my own with that one! :D
 
Thing is, 'Black & White' isn't really a branch of photography. It's a technique. Ansel Adams was by far the best landscape photographer in my eyes. Ragnar may be good, but most of those shots don't seem to be landscapes, and the ones that are don't have a patch on Adams.
 
I don't get it, I know nothing of the background to any of these photos and just looking at them by themselves makes me think "meh".
The top one is slightly interesting, but I particularly dislike 2 and 4. I mean in the 2nd I'm looking at the man, but he's right down in the bottom corner, it's at a weird angle and the background is lost in a load of mist, without knowing any more about why this photo was taken what am I meant to get out of it?
 
bam0 said:
I don't get it, I know nothing of the background to any of these photos and just looking at them by themselves makes me think "meh".
The top one is slightly interesting, but I particularly dislike 2 and 4. I mean in the 2nd I'm looking at the man, but he's right down in the bottom corner, it's at a weird angle and the background is lost in a load of mist, without knowing any more about why this photo was taken what am I meant to get out of it?
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You talk sense.

If a newbie had posted an unprocessed version of no.2 on here, they'd have been laughed off the forum. :p
 
Sometimes photographers are classed as good because of what they shoot - travelling thousands of miles to find some of Earth's great wonders is sometimes more important than having impeccable photographic technique. Doesn't mean you can't do both though :)

But as long as you know how to hold a camera, it's a pretty good bet that a photo taken in some obscure beautiful mountain range will be better than one taken what you've spent an afternoon somewhere within an hours drive of your house.
 
Superewza said:
Sometimes photographers are classed as good because of what they shoot - travelling thousands of miles to find some of Earth's great wonders is sometimes more important than having impeccable photographic technique. Doesn't mean you can't do both though :)

But as long as you know how to hold a camera, it's a pretty good bet that a photo taken in some obscure beautiful mountain range will be better than one taken what you've spent an afternoon somewhere within an hours drive of your house.
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I've got say that for the majority of landscapes I tend to think "Oh that place looks nice", before I think "nice photo". All depends on content\type of shot obviously.

I really like #2 above, I find it really interesting, the old chap, the location, what on earth is going on etc.

I still haven't got round to watching the link above though! :o
 
I love 2, but my guess is one must have a certain status to frame in such a bizarre way and get away with it. At some point the people at the very top get a license to take things out the norm.

Much like some of the rubbish on fashion show catwalks, if a fashion college girl put some of those outfits together she would get laughed at, but an if an established fashion designer does it... its art!
 
Some stunning shots when combined with the story, but they are, as the photography himself said, photo essays, not photos. I don't see much art in them individually, though there are a few stunners.

I also get the feeling that a lot of the shots would be total rejects in colour, and while that's sometimes okay, I don't like the idea that black and white photography makes a photo inherently artistic, which is something I couldn't help but notice seemed to crop up a few times in his work.
 
adamau5 said:
Much like some of the rubbish on fashion show catwalks, if a fashion college girl put some of those outfits together she would get laughed at, but an if an established fashion designer does it... its art!
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I'm with you on how it works in photography/art/literature, I don't think it's totally the same phenomenon in fashion. In fashion, what I assume you're referring to is mainly haute couture, which design houses have to be selected for and it is a legally protected term. The labels can 'get away with it' as the haute couture phenomenon is purely for the art, whereas a fashion college girl wouldn't have the budget for the shows or the renown in the world of pret-a-porter or actual clothing. Obviously there's trash from designer labels and they're not infallible, but it's like the difference between Picasso creating his work, while having the technical ability to create photorealistic sketches of incredible quality, and some 19 year old thinking he can't be bothered to sketch so he'll throw some curvy lines together.
 
There seems to be a few average to decent images in there tied in with the really good stuff by the processing techniques used. However, many of those are brilliant, and I love this type of mono work.
 
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