Agreed with the first part.

I didn't find his work appealing at all though. Just not my thing.

 

When photography is not photography anymore.

He has a vision and some creativity, but it's shame that the photo industry has taken this look on way too much.

 

sweet pictures.

 

Bottom line is, he's shooting magazine covers which is putting loot in his pocket!

 

There is a fine line between too much photoshop and just enough. We used to do post production in the dark room as well with dodging and burning the negative. Any pro or amateur photographer uses photoshop, there is nothing wrong with it but there is a line and you don't want to over do it.

 

Oh geez, not the "darkroom vs. computer" thing again.

Ok so most people don't care for this style. Fair enough. As for me, I can appreciate a good or well executed example of just about any style, even if it doesn't cater to my specific, rather narrowly defined or so-called "tastes".

I should have titled and presented the thread differently. It's my fault for using adjectives like "Amazing" in the title. That's a highly subjective and opinionated term and in this case, downright distracting.

Mostly I thought the HKS Fit shot was cool and that it was neat to see the originals and how they were ultimately treated on the Siphon cover-- a magazine that we Fit owners are likely familiar with as it is the only one that caters (heavily) to the Fit.

If you have seen that issue of Siphon, this same guy does the entire shoot on the HKS Fit, and the cover is the ONLY one with any sort of advanced Photoshop-type treatments. The rest of the shoot is quite classic in terms of style and presentation.

 

The way I see it, whether or not you like it is your personal taste. However, I don't think there's any validity to arguing about whether it is photography or not, since I really don't see his career being one of using photography as an art of any sort. This is pure commercialism here and it's going to sell cars and products, not capture something beautiful or artistic.

 

Don't get me wrong I like most of his photos, very good shots and good lighting. I'm just talking about people who said post production is not photography but post production has been use back before computer days. I just see so many people over photoshop their photos like using HDR and over filter them.

 

Cool cool. It's all about the old "eye of the beholder" stuff I suppose.

I fear that I have strayed off topic for this forum though, so I will shut my big mouth on this matter and sorry about the stray.

 

I think it would be more interesting if the only "fine tuning" program allowed by professional photographers was MS Paint. That would take skill.

 

Well, since I started off the whole thing let me put one last post in by me here.

When you say AMAZING I automatically assume that he is one of the best. His stuff is good but not good in the sense that i would consider him to be the best or even classified with the best and also for making the amount of money he is making taking those pictures he really should be alot better. If he spent as much time behind the camera as he did behind a computer his pictures would like 10x 100x 10000x better.

Another thing is he takes some good pictures but some of his stuff is so computer edited I would almost think his real title should be graphic designer or something of that sort.

IDK just me not being that impressed because I know there are people out there that are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than him and they don't make any money because they just didn't happen to get the job.

 

why am i still subscribed to this?
problem solved.

 

Fair enough brother. Like I said I should have chosen my words more carefully. Damn. Now I feel like more of an idiot for posting this thread in the first place. Lesson learned. Won't happen again.

 

If you think that no photoshop was involved, I'll buy some of what you're smoking. lol

 

I knew Steve back in the days when we were still in Honda-tech before he even started doing any magazines. He was shooting for only JTuned at the time. He inspired me and many others in a lot of ways. I agree that some of his stuff look very photoshopped. I actually like his older stuff better before he went photoshop crazy lol. He definitely stands out than the rest in my mind because of how creative he is in coming up with new stuff constantly. In this highly competitive field, he needs to be different and he had accomplished just that. What surprised me is that he was showing people how he did a cover shot on his website, that's something he would have never done in the past. Best of luck to him and his career.

 

Um. It says 'not too much photoshop either'.

 

Um his definition of "not too much" can be slightly exaggerated, or understated, trust me.
I've been shooting on and off for 10 years, pre-digital says (slides being my fav, Velvia) when there weren't as many people involved in photography.

You don't have that kind of sharpness, smoothness and clarity straight out of a camera and take the time to posterize some pics with a frame and sign it and claim no photoshop - or minimal.

 

I am sure it can be, but that is still better than saying no photoshop. Eh, I could care less though.

 

hahahha are you KIDDING ME?

Most photographers..corrections ALL photographers (digital) spend time behind the computer. It's a post process that needs to be done to touch up a pic. Film photographers spend time in the darkroom while difgital photographers spend post editing in PhotoShop. I guarantee ALL I mean ALL pics in front covers have lots of PS post processing.

 

Did you even read the rest of the thread or any of the other posts I made on here? Obviously if you're shooting digital you'll be editing on the computer and not in a darkroom. But if you even looked at the pictures that we are discussing then you'd realize that the photoshop work done on said pictures are not even fathomable on film. As an ex-graphic design major, what he did is graphic design from a photographic medium.

Although not a professional I'm also a photographer and I shoot 99.99% in RAW and do edit all my pictures with CS2's RAW editer. HOWEVER, I don't go and take my pictures and add them together to make a completely different image; especially one that could not even be captured solely on a camera. Nor do I add fancy star backgrounds with faux lens flares to the head lights on cars. That is an obvious breach of a line between Photography and Graphic Designing; if you can't do it in Adobe Lightroom than it's no longer photography.

You would have also realized that everything I just said here, I already said in this thread. Apparently reading & comprehension is a skill we need to work on.