http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola An entire Lightstalkers thread via RSS/XML. en-us Hi all, Congratulations to all the prize winners of the WPP contest 2008. Any ideas about the metalic colour works done by Francesco Zizola in his award winning story Violence in Colombia? Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:57:07 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola Film. Can't make snaps look like that with a stupid digicam. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:30:45 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112930 Is only photoshop Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:57:29 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112935 Sorry Mr Stupid (or Mr photographer) but that look is a very well done photoshop work and digicam setting. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:03:53 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112936 Abir I am also learning to be like Zizola. Because all that wins and gets noticed is Photoshop... Just got myself a camera and a pirated photoshop to become a winner... ha ha ha Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:21:47 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112946 Could be film or digital - and maybe a bleach bypass without the final desaturation, or just adjusting the radius and tonal width of the shadows and highlights. There's an advertising photographer that gets a metallic effect to the max. Jim Fiscus http://photoawards.com/photo%5Fcontest/pastwinners.html Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:02:58 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112959 Hi Angela and all my LS friends, I am following all the WPP threads for a while. Just one question in my mind: Do you think such manipulations like toning, color effects, etc. can go with news photography? as it goes with ad or fine arts photography? Thanks and regards Santanu Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:33:56 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112968 Hello Santanu and friends, I do not think such manipulations belong in news photography. This is how I was trained and abide by them.. I think this has been central to the discussion(s) -- while on the subject -- what affects do you think were used on the Italy/Amusement Parks and Sports Story winners? Thanks in advance for your feedback. http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=1145&Itemid=187&bandwidth=high http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=1122&Itemid=187&type=&selectedIndex=4&bandwidth=high Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:45:09 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112970 his pictures have this hip, modern, plastic, photoshop feeling. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:53:21 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112972 I think that taking a picture is already a manipulation. When people shoot B/W, saturated film, cross process, flash etc... they are anyway manipulating... even framing! I mean for me you just don't have to set-up actions (portraits are almost always set-up for say) or modify things in ppictures (taking away a leg of a guy that had both, taking away antenas, posters or stuff from the picture...) Before people will do a lot of stuff on darkrooms too. Just now it got easy to do with computers and photoshop. For Italian amusement parks it's overexposure with neg and large format. Once you calibrate it to your taste it works. (you can do it with 35 too but the plastic effect is less) for the people in the marathon is a good use of flash and photoshop to pump up contrast. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:57:12 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112973 Thank you Giovanni! For me I like the amusement park series. It's an "art" series and I think it adds to the feeling, but I do no think an effect like this belongs in the *news* realm. Perhaps I am old-fashioned this way. Okay. For the marathon runners I thought perhaps the Photoshop color "desaturation." It's all a learning experience. Thanks for your reply. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:02:35 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112974 god.....and PS is any different (delegitimization or legitimization) than any other photographic tool.... the "reporting" of the "news" (already by a predominantly western:oriented/trained/learned/satisfied/hungered/fed/yearning class of photographers) is itself a manipulation...so to the negotiation of what constitutes the story and its interpretation constitute.... that as a profession, we're still hobbled by the reaction and re-reaction to these questions is still what perpetuates the inadequacy of the insight that the membership here seems so often to bemoan.... the arresting of a temporal moment is a manipulation, a priori, so too the reporting of an event of which the reporters have little or no cultural, geographical, national, spiritual, historical relationship is also, a priori, a manipulation and yet we all subscribe for we accept, generally, this discord as part of our "awareness" and hunger to negotiate meaning in the world.... the lamentation that all this photography is shit or less than the former "news" photographic is just a stupid and pretentious slop... issues about what stories are promoted/covered/honor, there's an interesting topic, but the same banter that's been a point of contention seems terribly superficial to me.... b Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:12:05 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112975 and I still dont like it Bob. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:15:05 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112976 interesting choice and manipulation of vocabulary Bob! Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:19:48 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112978 No manipulations do not belong in News Photography. But in pre-PS days photojournalists/news media would print for highlights or shadows and adjust tonal range, saturation and color, and I believe that is acceptable as long as it doesn't alter the content by blowing something out, or darkening something so much that it becomes unreadable, or artificially directing the eye via PS manipulation of tone, shadow, light etc. Most guidelines for News photography say: basic colour correction, subtle lightening/darkening of zones, sharpening, removal of dust and other minor adjustments are acceptable - I guess they need to clarify - 'basic', 'subtle' and 'minor' - which are all relative to whomever is doing it. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:22:21 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112980 and again there is a question Bob: then why all those ethics rules coded regarding manipulation of photographs in photojournalism? I have heard that some punitive actions have been taken against some photographers for this... Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:22:32 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112981 That's your personal taste. How is this metalic effect more of a manipualtion than bw? Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:23:47 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112982 giving the highest photojournalism awards to these pieces send a strange message... while some are getting fired from their jobs others are being rewarded. My other question about this is what is the story? Is a portrait series a story or is repeating information? Or is a series of shacks telling the story of hardship of homeless people? Perhaps I am too narrow to get it. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:31:38 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112984 Hum! - I wrote a comment re: Bob's post - issues etc being interesting and it's disappeared into the void, has happened to a few of my posts, maybe the post is self-censoring and didn't care for my comment:) Has this happened to anyone else? Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:54:45 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112992 Angela: Just coming back on-line. I believe the server went down for a few hours. Noticing a few of my posts too are missing..Perhaps they are slow to post due to the server being down? Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:09:28 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112996 A quick reply :))... at the heart of "ethics" lay "interest": the reason why we discuss ethics (within the context of journalism, or any other profession) as it relates to behavior has to do to a belief (right or wrong) that behavior has a deleterious or abusive effect upon another (this too is a long argument). I do not think there is an "ethic" with regard to what a photograph looks like (and by this standard I find much of the ethics of "manipulation" simply a mission of delusion and grandstanding: the "we're superior" attitude, and that goes with much of the traditional paradigm hoisted on us...same shit was level, by the way, on James Agee and Walker Evans for their remarkable "journalistic" book "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"... I find the condition of photography people during a certain moment often "unethical" but also accept that we abide this for some (right or wrong) reason: we "need" to know about what happens...one can, yes, argue that the entirety of "photojournalism" is "unethical" with regard to certain understanding, but that's probably absurdist and reductionist, right? ;)))... the fact is this: we placate ourselves thinking that no "manipulation" means "truth", "ethics" "real" "honesty" etc, when this, itself, is a complete fabrication. For me, the ethics lay in intent. This is only my own orientation...it's why i dont toss the word "ethical" around lightly...especially about journalists...and it's why i found much, much of that argument about last years awardwinners and the other fauxtography stuff utterly reductionist and empty-headed, born from politics (on all sides) then any real or rich conversation about ethics (ethics of war anyone? ;) ).... many photographers have been sacked for "manipulating" a photograph and i too find this ridiculous...i know, personally, PJ's and some very well photographers who violate my own idea of ethics, including "creating" photographs (telling subjects where to stand or to stay still whily they "compose" the shot, which in the realm of fine art is cool, but in "documentary" is bollucks, but that's also a personal code, not a universal one) and have one (including this year) WPP or other awards... what i personally find stupid and frustrating is that, as a profession, we're hung up on minutae and the preservation of something that should not have been an important issue to begin with, instead of the bigger issues... for example: why is the photograph of a dead gorilla in the Congo more essential (based on coverage) than the 6,000,000 people killed there?...why to we persist in having awards like this to begin with?... those who seem troubled by the photographers/pictures chosen, seem to miss the more important question...and getting that upset about it, too, seems to miss the bigger picture... is it the "less is more" argument (what is less manipulation?).... for me the question remains: why photograph and what does this suggest and what does it accomplish and also, in the negative bracket, what does it perpetuate?... this question is more rich and more interesting and more complicated...that's all im suggesting... to me, as a photographer, the question of why trumps the how, for the how changes, continually, but the why lay at the heart of the issues that still dog us, as a profession and as a species...what have we learned and not?" ;))... running b Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:45:08 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#112999 metallic finishes,blurs,holgas,fancy use of flash, etc etc are not a question of ethics,they are a question of aesthetics. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:56:10 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113000 Abir, its three levels of exposure, altered in Photomatix Pro , see you in Amsterdam. B Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:17:19 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113003 Again, the discussion for me is the contents no the forms. I think some prizes are reiteratives, there are superposition of distinctions. I suppose that in a world class award there are more issues to tell. I understand the use of photoshop to get more impact in a century of supersaturation of images from diverse media. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:07:41 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113007 Can't help but stupidly wonder if anyone here has gone to the "source":http://www.zizola.com for a closer look at his work, or "watched and listened":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIrRUVaUu0A to him. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:50:32 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113020 Yes, would recommend looking at his site, compelling work, beautifully photographed. Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:14:24 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113035 Surely not film when the pixel dimensions of the images (4368 x 2912) correspond perfectly with the size of a Canon 5D's output... Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:25:08 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113036 Looks like I'm living up to my stupid name as far as my film declaration is concerned. PM with crow recipes. Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:41:36 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113039 i never doubted you for a second stupid, it does look a little like HDR. Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:13:23 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113043 I am photographing a particularly picturesque shack in a slum area. Only, you see, the people in this particular shack actually have a satellite dish on the roof. And today, my story is just about poor people in shacks - not about people who live in a shack but still manage to put up a satellite dish. So I have 2 choices: shoot from a not-very pleasing angle that hides the satellite dish behind the, ohh ... pumpkins on the roof, or shoot from a pleasing angle and Photoshop out the satellite dish. Which is the lesser manipulation? How is one illegal manipluation and the other just choosing an angle that tells the particular story that needs telling today? Riddle me that, Lightstalkers ... Tobie Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:55:08 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113050 hey Stupid! seams like you're not so stupid if you are able of autocritic ;-) Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:59:20 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113069 tad off topic but what the hell are these http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=1138&Itemid=187&bandwidth=high are they photos of paintings? why are they in a photography competition? and how is it journalism? Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:21:49 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113072 Tobie that's not about photo ethics but journalism ethics. I mean if you were writing about the people that lived in this shack and you didn't write about the satellite dish you'll be doing it wrong. Maybe nobody would notice but that's not the aim of journalism. Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:26:12 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113073 Sacha, it's not photos of paintings. It's Afghan women without Burka photographed through a cloth. Kind of saying how they'll look without Burka but seen through one... It's portraits. Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:49:20 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113079 hi everyone, Photography it´s a free creative form of expression, if it´s art or photojournalism depends of what we are able to "see"(and to publish), there has been nothing said about this work http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=1122&Itemid=187&bandwidth=high i believe it´s incredible. Cheers. Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:23:51 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/wpp-winning-photos-by-francesco-zizola#113082