Focus 2012 - impressions

Hodders

Hodders

Hodders

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Well got back from focus last night.

Lowlights:
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* Even though went on Monday still v.crowded

* Not as many seminars/demos as last year

* Loads of pervy blokes taking photos of very bored looking models in semi darkness

Highlights:
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*Canon stand which means I could get my hands on the 5d3 and the 1dx

*Flashed CPS card and got a nice coffee and a chat with a canon rep and got to play with a 5d3 at some length. It does really seem to be the answer to everything I had on my mental wishlist over and above the 5d2 which I have and love

*1Dx also looked lovely felt very fast and the high frame rate just seemed crazy

* Spent about 15 minutes in the CPS area talking to Lara Jade about life, the world and stuff. She is sickening - talented, motivated, young and nice enough you cant help but like her !

* Also went to a couple of Martin Oliver seminars that gave me some good ideas of how to improve what I do especially the sales process.

So much better than last year - some good seminars and a nice play with some bodies I am definatly going to want.....
 
Hodders said:
* Spent about 15 minutes in the CPS area talking to Lara Jade about life, the world and stuff. She is sickening - talented, motivated, young and nice enough you cant help but like her !
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Rather off topic, but I listened to a talk she gave a year or so back and spoke to her briefly and I thought she was, in the nicest way possible, really not very bright. Personable enough but I can't help but get the impression she's done very well on the back of being a pretty young women. Her work, admittedly a matter of taste, isn't exactly original or stand out brilliant in my view and the talk she gave (particularly the 'advice') was really shallow 'read it in a beginners guide to photography/business' stuff.

There are professionals who impress me with their work, their knowledge or their attitude but she's not one. She's got very lucky...
 
I was actually having a look at the workshops she offered recently.

It's wrong to form an impression of somebody you've never met though, but I know that she and another young photographer have released a training DVD for about $200. A review I read of it actually suggested that it wasn't very good and certainly not worth the money.

Women can obviously do very well as Fine-Art and Fashion photographers, as they understand fashion very well. With Lara she also looks like a model.

A friend of mine is a Pro Fashion Photographer and does very well out of it... is she the most technical, or enthusiastic or best photographer I know... nope.
 
Nexus said:
Women can obviously do very well as Fine-Art and Fashion photographers, as they understand fashion very well. With Lara she also looks like a model.
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Obviously yes, I wanted to be clear here I'm not even slightly saying she's not competent because she's a women, I only raise it as I feel she's been more successful than an equivalently talented man with the same opportunities might have been.

Fair play to her, she's got a nice career in the works and I don't want to criticise too much as it's just being personally nasty for no good reason. I don't have anything against her personally, I was just surprised at the OPs opinion as it's radically different from my experience and view of her.
 
bigredshark said:
Obviously yes, I wanted to be clear here I'm not even slightly saying she's not competent because she's a women, I only raise it as I feel she's been more successful than an equivalently talented man with the same opportunities might have been.

Fair play to her, she's got a nice career in the works and I don't want to criticise too much as it's just being personally nasty for no good reason. I don't have anything against her personally, I was just surprised at the OPs opinion as it's radically different from my experience and view of her.
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Don't worry, its easy for a point to not come across how you intend in writing, I didn't think for a second that you were being sexist though.

Here's the review that Miss Aniela (another great female photographer), of Lara Jade's training DVD. Lara's understanding of ISO is a bit hockey! :p

http://missanielablog.com/lara-jade-joeyl-dvd-review
 
To be fair I didn't go to her seminar and only looked at a few of her images. Good clean commercial stuff. What I like is that as a model first she sees it from the other way round. I see a picture in my head and the gap between that and what I end up with is a measure of how good I am getting. She gets some pretty good stuff. Sure she is maybe not technically perfect but she has a damm good "eye" !

Still she is happy to spend 15 mins talking to a small time photographer from Wiltshire and came across as really unaffected - and most peopel in her position usually have a fair bit of arrogance to them.
 
Phate said:
I've got that DVD, I should really get round to watching it.
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At full whack?

I'd probably buy it myself, as it looks like an interesting watch.
But £200 is steep - had it been the price of your average Photography book, then I would have gone for it.
 
I went to the show yesterday, I got there at 10am and left at 6pm and every minute was accounted for. I've been to one before and agree that there wasn't as many seminars as before however there were a few and plenty to fill a day. The adobe seminars were outside of the main hall which confused me at first but they were running every 45 mins. The lighting demo was very good (the one being run by the america guy - forget his name) and very informative.

I actually went there with a bit of a shopping list so that also occupied some time. Overall a good show (if not as good as past) and next year I will certainly go for 2 days as there was still so much I missed.
 
At risk of contributing to what is fast becoming a Lara Jade thread :P

^^ Yeah I've seen that, she says she's too short which I agree with. Of course stunning modelling work can be done by all sorts particularly beauty shots, Lauren Calaway being my time and again example of this, but doing it as a career can be hard, and if she wants to shoot rather than be shot, that's her choice. It's the choice I'd make.

Also from the Miss Aniela review, so much truth here:
"Probably my main critical observation was lack of discussion of inspirations. Photographers don’t exist in a vacuum. Work doesn’t birth itself on another planet free from all external influence. All artists’ work is a collective flow of ideas: like water running its rivulets into the work of each single artist in existence; the water can’t collect in a self-contained pool and say ‘this is it, this is where it begins’. To gain more of a credible glance at their processes, I wanted to hear about what influences went into the outcome of each of Lara and Joey’s shoots, and what inspires them generally. The complete absence of this conflicted with their expectation that their own work on the DVD will inspire others."
 
Hodders said:
Top marks to anyone with the confidence to chat her up - I was just trying not to dribble ! And yes she does look alarmingly like that IRL.
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I am not sure now but a year ago she has a boyfriend, James [Some Italian surname], the guy had piecing and tattoos, about the same height as me and very skinny. She used to mention him quite a lot in her twitter feed and about the videos he shot. He is from NYC. I met them both a little over a year ago.

ElDude said:
I think she is. If you google her name, a mountain of images OF her, rather than by her come up as top hits. If that is actually her, I'd say she's better known as a model.
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She is not, not professionally. All those online images of her, or at least the majority of them are self portraits. If you read her website, the About Me section, she talks about this specifically, how when she was started, she used herself as the model, to practice with. She would work out what looks good and what doesn't. She would do makeup on herself and her friends and just shoot.

Hodders said:
* Spent about 15 minutes in the CPS area talking to Lara Jade about life, the world and stuff. She is sickening - talented, motivated, young and nice enough you cant help but like her !
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She is indeed!

To be honest, I much prefer her earlier work. She call it Fine Art. Personally I also think it has a lovely dark undertone which is missing in a lot of her editorial work. It is still there underneath but it is nowhere as strong as it was before. May be the brief of her assignments dictates a certain look, may be it is just a journey that she went through and this is the voice that she was found now, and who knows where she will be going. Whatever it is, she has the eye for great photos anyway, alway have been from the start.

Going back to the point that her new editorial work has departed from her old work. Look at http://www.emilysoto.com/ and you will find someone equally as impressive with a portfolio that is very similar but perhaps less edgy.

p.s. I am so glad I bought 2 of her early prints before she got famous. :)
 
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