PENTAPRISM N°9 June 2015
m a g a z i n e reportage
nepal people at the feet of Himalaya BY JAN MØLLER HANSEN
INTERVIEW
Ralph
GRÄ F
N°9 June 2015
EDITORS: PENTAPRISM STAFF
GRAPHIC DESIGN: ELENA BOVO
www.pentaprismcommunity.org
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COVER PHOTO/ABOUT US PAGE PHOTO: RALPH GRÄF
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ABOUT US Welcome to Pentaprism, an online photo-sharing community. We are an international team of passionate photographers and artists that gathered in order to achieve common goals: show to the world great, high quality photographs, present amazing artists, allow new and talented photographers to be seen and recognized. The Pentaprism website is a user-friendly platform that guarantees easy navigation and worry-free photo uploads. We constantly work on the improvements of its interface and content. In order to ensure a high quality of photos presented on our website as well as in the Pentaprism Magazine, our curators carefully screen and assess all photos prior to their publication in our gallery. The Pentaprism Magazine is an extension to our website. We prepare it periodically in order to highlight specific works and to give a deeper insight of the photographers’ visions. The content of the Pentaprism Magazine includes special topic articles, interviews with our featured artists, photo reportages with travel stories and lots of great photographs. We believe that art has a catharsis-like quality and should be available to the masses. Therefore our website and magazine are accessible to everybody free of charge. In addition we do not allow any kind of commercial advertising on our platforms. The Pentaprism team of curators works voluntarily on a non-profit basis. If you wish to support the maintenance and development of the Pentaprism website and magazine, please feel free to make a donation. Your greatly appreciated support will be used exclusively to improve Pentaprism online visibility. Thank you for your visit and support. We hope that you enjoyed our photos and stories! We invite you to visit us again. The Pentaprism Staff
index
© RALPH GRÄF
6 INTERVIEW WITH RALPH GRÄF 32 FOCUS ON 50 REPORTAGE: NEPAL BY JAN MØLLER HANSEN 80 HIGHLIGHTS 144 SIGNALS FROM THE UNIVERSE OF COLOR BY MARCO OLIVOTTO 150 MEET THE PENTAPRISM STAFF
INTERVIEW
Ralph
GRÄ F
Ralph GRÄ F Ralph Gräf was born in southern Bavaria and spent most of his life in Munich. In 2006, his scientific career as a cell biologist brought him to Potsdam near Berlin. Photography has escorted him through his whole adulthood. Yet, it was his move to Potsdam that triggered a more intensive involvement with this medium, since here he found friends in the local photo club who gave him a great creative environment to spend a huge part of his spare time for his creative talents. With regard to his photographic subjects he focuses on his four serial projects (see interview). Together with nine of his friends he is organizing the “Photogallery Potsdam” a successful gallery project to promote contemporary artistic photography. Since 2010 he presented his photographic projects in twelve well-acclaimed exhibitions in Berlin, Potsdam, Munich and Neubrandenburg. Most recently his “Bauhaus” series even went international when it was showcased at the Milano Design Week 2015. At the 4th “Kunstallee Potsdam” (an arts fair) in 2011, he won the Arts Prize in an election of the approximately 4000 visitors. Several photos won prizes in national and international photo contests. He especially appreciated a Gold Medal of Excellence for ”In The Cold“ at one of the biggest international photo contests, the Trierenberg Super Circuit 2011. Several other photos of his portfolio were also awarded in national and international contests such as DVF contests and Al-Thani Award. In 2013 his photo ”In The Old Hall“ was shortlisted in the category architecture of the Sony World Photography Award. All of his projects are displayed on his website: www.graef-fotografie.de
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Ralph, many thanks for spending some of your time for this interview for our readers of the Pentaprism Magazine. Many of those who know your work connect your name with your project “The Traveller”. All images in this project display this archetypical figure, a man with black suit, hat, umbrella and a small suitcase in sometimes familiar, sometimes rather strange environments. What inspired you to the figure and your project? The idea for this series came in March 2010 on a tour with friends when we found an old suitcase in a bunch of bulk waste in the street. The end-of-time-feeling of the partially abandoned village with its disused train station where we found the suitcase fueled my imaginations. In my mind I saw an archetypal figure carrying this suitcase on his travel through various, sometimes odd situations. Thus, I started the series with settings in the context of travel and traffic. Yet, soon I broadened the scope of the term ”travel“ to being on the way in unusual places or through passed times. In order to provide a high recognition value to my protagonist - a prerequisite for a series project - I chose a nowadays unusual and nostalgic outfit with hat, suit, umbrella and suitcase. For the sake of convenience, I decided to play the part of the traveller myself. The basic idea was to use “the Traveller” as the eye-catcher of the photo to enhance the attention of the viewer for the scenery the traveller is acting in. Often he finds himself somehow out of place in his surrounding but he always retains his composure, even in bizarre situations. This often creates a funny aspect that keeps the photo sticking in the viewer’s mind. Your photographic activities are wider. In your portfolio we find, among others, images from abandoned places, architectural photography, landscape, urban and rural scenes. What would you consider as the main focus of your work and what is the source of inspiration for your main projects? Photography in general excites me since my boyhood and I like many photographic styles. Thus, to me it is normal to work in different genres and my photographic topics stand more or less equal beside each other. I’m inspired from many sides, sometimes from movies, music videos and imaginative books and of course also from paintings and photos that I’ve seen in exhibitions or the internet. It is difficult
to state names of other artists, who have inspired me, since there are many. You are getting influences by any picture you are watching. I try not to copy somebodies style but to develop my own one. Among my favorite photographers are Gregory Crewdson, Nadav Kander, Josef Hoflehner, Andreas Gursky, Sze Tsung Leong, Edward Burtynsky, Jeanloup Sieff and Petr Lovigin, just to name a few. Your images are not documentary photographs but rather interpreted images of a certain reality. How important is post processing for your work? Very important, but I always take care to preserve this “certain reality”. For my digital photos I usually perform some editing on colors, contrasts and retouch disturbing elements in Photoshop. I like to use filters (mostly NIK software) to create a dreamy, surreal mood. In the end processing should support the expression of the picture and help to mediate the intended mood to the viewer. In image processing you always have to take care to avoid gimmickry. A good photo always succeeds by its contents and the way it was taken and not by its processing. How would you describe your photographic style, and how has it developed over the years? I would say my style is somehow emotional and my photos have in common a very clear composition. Often they transport a melancholic mood. Maybe my photos show my other self, since I think nobody who knows me would call me a melancholiac. With regard to composition I always take care that the important parts are on their right position and I try to avoid unnecessary elements as far as possible. Sometimes the latter are erased during image processing. Less is often more. Over the years I found a lot of fun in creating staged scenes, a genre with which I started only in 2010. Another relatively late development in my style (since about 5 years ago) is the use of color editing to give my photos some moody vintage appearance. You frequently switch between analog and digital photography. How important is your photographic equipment for the development and realization of your own style? I think the importance of photographic gear is overestimated by most people. The most important thing is always the photographic eye and the capability of the photographer to imagine how the final photo will look like in a large print. I take most pictures with my digital cameras, a full frame DSLR and an APS-C mir-
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rorless camera. I prefer wide-angle lenses although I usually also carry telephoto lenses in my backpack. Especially for b&w I still enjoy using my old eastern european medium format cameras and films such as Ilford FP4 or Fomapan 100, which I process with oldfashioned Rodinal developer. I like the sound of the shutter of these cameras and all the labor involved in creating an analog photo really forces you to make up your mind whether the scene you’re about to photograph really deserves releasing the shutter What do you consider to be a “good image”, and what, according to your opinion, distinguishes amateur photography from the more artistic photographic approach. – Or is there no difference? A really good image is one that I could imagine to see on the wall above my sofa. I’m convinced that a good photo needs to evoke some kind of emotion. Only then a photo keeps sticking in the viewer’s mind and only if you remember a photo even after years it is a good one. An exception maybe more or less abstract photos that work simply through their decorative aspect, e.g. because their color composition just fits so nicely to your furniture. I’m viewing a lot of photos of professionals and amateurs in exhibitions and the internet. Of course, amateur photography can be horrible, which is more rarely the case among professionals. However, there are many amateurs whose great portfolio does not need to fear competition by professionals. Some amateurs may even be more innovative and interesting than many professionals. The professional always has to serve a certain market, whereas the amateur is completely free in his artistic expression since he does not need to sell anything. In order to get a high recognition value, professionals usually feel forced to restrict themselves to a certain style and genre, whereas the amateur is free to follow his temper. I like being an amateur and do not feel unprofessional as such. Can you tell us anything about future plans or projects, perhaps about places that you would like to visit taking pictures? If I find suitable settings I’m still continuing the traveller series. However, I spend more time for my projects “Vacancy” (“Zimmer frei” in German) about the beauty of emptiness and decay and “With A Holga Through Brandenburg” where I portray the character and oddities of Brandenburg (the part of Germany, where we live) with a Holga camera on grainy black and white film. I’m currently looking for a further op-
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portunity to exhibit this series and also my “Bauhaus” project. Among the places I’d like to visit for photography are certainly eastern european countries such as Poland and Bulgaria since they offer many interesting remnants of the cold war and sovjet influence, especially with regard to monuments and architecture. Yet, Spain with its great landscape and history is also an all-time fav to visit. Finally, you are not a professional photographer but rather you work as professor for cell biology at a German university. How do you manage to be a successful scientist and photographer? I keep both activities strictly separate. I work about 50 hours a week at the university and enjoy my work as a scientist and teacher there. As the current president of the German Society for Cell Biology I’m also quite active in the cell biology community. Although many aspects of my work are very interesting and captivating, others, especially the university bureaucracy, are intellectually suffocating. Being a professor often is a rewarding job, however, one rarely has the chance to be creative in an artistic sense. To me photography is the medium to act out those of my creative talents that I have to neglect at my daily work. I live close to the university and thus I loose almost no time for commuting. In my freetime and on weekends I spend a huge part of my time for photography, meaning that I’m taking photos, spend time at the computer or go to exhibitions. An advantage of photography is that the process of creating a picture is much faster than in painting. Many thanks Ralph for answering all our questions so patiently.
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Nocturne
F O C U S O N
Hengki LEE
I’m a self-taught visual artist and photography enthusiast from Jakarta, Indonesia. I have been creating artwork with my camera since 2009 after browsing some beautiful candid wedding photographs that peaked my interest in photography. I bought my first DSLR in 2009 but wasn’t sure what I wanted to take photos of. I started taking some conceptual still life shots with a very simple lighting method, but was inspired by artistic moody shots from several good photographers online and got interested in the genre. That is now the genre I capture. I had Bachelor degree in Economics, and I do trading for living. Photography is one of my hobbies beside sports and Music. With my photographic works I had a good number of recognitions and awards and had the opportunity to expose them in exhibitions in many countries I love to read and write poetry, and I want to express that kind of obsession in the work I create with my camera. Choosing silhouettes and unfocused photography allows me to create kind of an undefined story, since the details in the frame are unclear except for the subject’s gesture and composition. It’s a symbolic way to tell a story, just like poetry. This type of photography lets the audience’s mind guess what the story is behind my work or the image allows them to create their own story. The concept of my work is simply about curiosity, dream, poetry and emotion. “The beauty of being different” is the message I am trying to get across by portraying works which do not belong to the mainstream.
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A Wish For Peace | Hengki Lee
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Wave | Hengki Lee
F O C U S O N
m a r i a
F R O D L I was born in Graz and I live in Vienna, Austria. As a musician, photography offers me a rewarding balance between two creative professions. Classical music has to do with interpretation whereas photography allows me to express my creativity. My passion for photography was triggered by the darkroom work of my father who is a hobby photographer. As a child I was fascinated by the magic moment when the picture started to appear in the developer. As a student I used my camera in a rather documentary way while being on tours in Asia and America. I also developed black and white photographs in my own darkroom. The creative aspect of photography opened up when I bought my first digital camera in 2008. Since then photography became an important part of my life. 2012 was my first solo exhibition ‘movimento’ followed by many others. There are diverse themes in my work such as motion blur or underwater photograpy. The recent focus is now on portrait and conceptual photography including theatrical moments. Photographs are objects of projection; furthermore each viewer interprets them in his own way. My aim is to stimulate the imagination of the viewer.
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Surfer | Vlad Sokolovsky Devotion
Nest warmth | Maria Frodl
The Wave | Maria Frodl
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F O C U S O N
wolfgang
MOTHES Wolfgang Mothes lives in a suburb of his native city of Frankfurt am Main. From his childhood on he was interested in photography, learning the nitty gritties of the trade later on by self-teaching. A darkroom which he set up in his parents’ house enabled him to express his creative ideas beyond the limits of documentary photography. It was not accidental that he took up and remained faithful to black-and- white photography. True photographic creativity in those years thrived on this technique alone, the „Photoshop“ of the old days was the dark room. Over the years Wolfgang Mothes became a specialist in analog black-and-white photography, publishing numerous professional articles in photo magazines and showing his work in galleries and exhibitions in Germany, England, Switzerland, Hungary and Russia. Nine portfolios, two picture-books and several calendars were published about his images and him. Many times his work was featured in television, especially his architectural photography and the German castles which he captured with his favorite 6x17 large format panoramic camera on black-and-white infra-red film. Only very late in his career he decided to „go digital“. Entering unknown territory he had to start from scratch and still has to go a long way. “I just know the basics, and my work is still far from perfect in digital photography; but I strive and learn almost daily, which is very satisfying to me” he says. Though it’s a new field, he remains faithful to his photographic style. Dark hues continue to dominate his pictures and the dramatic expression he so cherishes. “I want to reach viewers on an emotional level with my pictures - there is no special message in them. Aesthetics is my only concern and with that I hope to evoke pleasure. My goal is to create images that make, in spite of the daily surge of pictures, a lasting impression. If I can achieve this, I am more than satisfied.
EZB | Wolfgang Mothes
Up, up and away | Wolfgang Mothes
r e p o r t a g e
n e p a l PEOPLE AT THE FEET OF HIMALAYA BY JAN MØLLER HANSEN
Jan Møller Hansen is a senior diplomat presently based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He knows the country and its people well and speaks the main language Nepali, skills that he uses in his photography work in Nepal. He is a passionate and self-taught photographer from Denmark, who works mainly with social documentary. From 2007 to 2012 he lived and worked for five years in Dhaka in Bangladesh. It was during these years that Jan picked up on photography in a more serious manner. As a foreign diplomat living in Bangladesh, he met and worked with politicians, bureaucrats and the most privileged from society. I was often confronted with views and opinions that did not match reality and what I saw with my own eyes. I felt that there was such an unbelievable and unacceptable inequality between the few privileged and the millions of ordinary and poor people. I never came to terms with these differences, and of how people were being treated by politicians, authorities and society. This was the reason for why I started walking around with my cameras meeting people and learning about their reality and lives. Photography quickly became a strong and inspiring instrument of learning and insight. Through photography I felt more in touch with society, my surroundings and the reality that I somehow was part of even as a foreigner. Photography became a means of expression and showing understanding and respect for people. Photography also helps me to stay connected
and to continuously shape my values and norms. I often feel that people speak through my images. Through photography, I experience and see hope, beauty, dignity and the extraordinary human energy and power among people, who have no rights and few opportunities in society. I am amazed with how ordinary people are managing on their own without any rights or support from government or society. How they survive under very difficult and often hostile conditions. During the last two years in Nepal, I have picked up on a few social themes, i.e. slum dwellers in Kathmandu, brick kiln workers, Tibetan and Bhutanese refugees, urban refugees, war victims, women and children in the cities and rural areas and other oppressed and marginalised people. 11:56 AM on 25th April 2015, Nepal was hit by a powerful earthquake of 7.8 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was the village of Barpak in Gorkha district some 80 km from the capital Kathmandu. That morning I was photographing and together with a Tibetan Rinpoche and Buddhist master and a group of Danes at an elder home for Tibetan refugees when the devastating earthquake occurred. More than 7000 were killed and twice as many injured. Ten thousands of families have lost their homes in the most affected districts. Humanitarian aid is now pouring in, but it will take years for the affected people to fully recover from this tragedy. The political deadlock, bureaucracy, red tape, corruption and ineffective government institutions are some of the main challenges in securing an efficient and effective recovery and reconstruction in the aftermath of the earthquake. But people are dedicated, committed and hard working. They will survive and restlessly strive to obtain a better life. Many of the people that I have photographed in Nepal lived under plastic sheets and in slums before the earthquake. Their life will most likely continue unchanged also after the earthquake. The earthquake has certainly not made their life easier, and they will continue being the underbelly of society. This I call “the silent and long-lived human and social disaster. “
http://janmoellerhansen.smugmug.com/
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A sadhu from Assam in India who lives at the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu.
A girl sits in a tent made of plastic sheets next to the Manohara River. The family moves around, and she does not attend school.
ŠIngetje Tadros/Diimex
Prasanti Thapa Magar is 12 years old. She cannot remember how many years she has worked in the garbage dump. Her favourite deity is the Naga serpent.
Two girls who work at a brick kiln in Tathali. Migration caused by rural poverty and lack of opportunities and a ten-year long insurgency has made efforts to reduce child labour even more difficult.
A girl waiting for breakfast. She lives in the tent with her family along the Tribhuvan Rajpath road leading into Kathmandu. They have come from the Terai to the capital in search of work.
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A girl who had come to Kathmandu with her family in search for work. The family moves around and lives in tents made of waste materials. She does not attend school, and her future is very uncertain.
Paul from the Democratic Republic of Congo lives as an illegal refugee in Kathmandu. Paul was too afraid of having his photo taken. His name has been changed to protect him and his family in Congo.
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A girl with her family in the Bhutanese refugee camp in Damak. Twenty years after their expulsion from Bhutan the future of the family isPENTAPRISM still uncertain.63
A platoon of Gurkha soldiers at Basantapur during the Newar festival of Indra Jatra. The festival is held every year during Yanlaa, the eleventh month of the Nepali lunar calendar, in honor of the rain god Indra.
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Women and girls carrying manure in a remote village in Mugu district.
Search and rescue teams at work at the Basantapur square in central Kathmandu after the devastating earthquake that hit Nepal on 25th April 2015. Nepal’s PENTAPRISM 69 unique and rich cultural heritage has been badly hit by the earthquake.
The gods will be with the resilient and dedicated people of Nepal in getting back to normal and to rebuild their homes and lives after the recent earthquake.
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A young woman walking through what used to be her home and neighbourhood in Bhaktapur, Nepal..
A man carried bags of rice from his destroyed house in Bhaktapur.
Children building their new homes after the devastating earth quake that occurred on 25th April 2015. Bungamati, Kathmandu Valley.
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Husband and wife with their baby outside their temporary tent. Their home has been completely destroyed by the devastating earth quake.
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HIGHLIGHTS
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Narcyz | Jarek Modest
Untitled | Tatyana Nevmerzhytska
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Day after day | Florentinus Joseph
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Veronica | Batalov Konstantin
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The worker | John Moulds
Storm | Anton Shvain
Ranga | Kedar Saraf
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Anastasiya | Alexander Vinogradov
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Le Go没t des autres | Giorgio Toniolo
Untitled | Gabriel Ram贸n P茅rez
Yellow | Tina signesdottir Hult
Going home | Mikhail Batrak
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Osaka,Japan | Jin Mikami
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Untitled | Arkadiy Kurta
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Saxophonist Jesse Davis | Antonio Baiano
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Untitled | Yucel Basoglu
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Lieselotte G. | Corwin von Kuhwede
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Pink Secret- Revealed | Katherine Daykin
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It’s all about the legs | Frederic Vasquez
Lady in black | Rafal Wroblewski
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Tower | Marek Komisaruk
The Last Second | Petri Damstén
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The gift | Fabrizio Lutzoni
Veronica | Maksim Mashnenko
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Exodus | David Hixon
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Fog | Aleksandra
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Tuscany Dream | Luca Benini
Levitation | Jan Mlčoch
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Nadia | Lillo Bonadonna
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Welcome back Milky Way | Nicholas Roemmelt
Весеннее обострение | Сергей
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m a r c o OLIVOTTO PHOTOSHOP | COLOR CORRECTION | POST-PRODUCTION | DIGITAL IMAGING | PHOTOGRAPHY
Dan Margulis, who invented color correction in Photoshop, has called him a renaissance man because of his eclecticism. Classical studies, a degree in Physics, two years’ work in the field of system management (University of Trento). He then becomes an independent sound engineer and music producer for almost twenty years. Finally, he gets (back) to the field of imaging, a passion he’s had since he was a child. In 2007 he discovers Dan Margulis’ books on color correction and starts studying with him. He attends both the ACT (Applied Color Theory) and AACT (Advanced Applied Color Theory) classes. Through the years he has taught in several private and public schools (computer science, recording techniques, programming languages). In 2011 he starts teaching color correction techniques in Photoshop, still relatively unknown in Italy. His forty hours of video-courses published by the leading Italian company Teacher-in-a-Box currently represent the most organic and global resource on the subject available in Italian. In March 2011 he organises the first Color Correction Campus, a full-immersion, two-day practical course. The Campus is repeated all over Italy and soon a community of students and followers is born (1700 subscribers, September 2014). The community is very active in sharing techniques, suggestions and information through the Web. The two-day courses are joined by one-day workshops, both for independent organizations and large trade shows like Photoshow (2012, 2013) and Grafitalia (2013). In 2014 he becomes a FESPA speaker at the FESPA Digital trade show in München (D), where he delivers six different seminars over four days. Since 2013 he’s been writing for the Italian magazine Fotografia Reflex, which hosts a monthly section about color correction. This is currently the only resource on the subject with a fixed cadence in Italy. He has taught for the most important graphic and design schools in Italy: IDP (Verona), IUSVE (Venice), ILAS (Naples), NAD School (Naples), Scuola Romana di Fotografia (Rome). He is currently in charge of the college-level courses of Photography, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign at IDP in Verona; Photoshop at IUSVE in Venice (Verona section); Quality Control of the Printing Process at the Institute of Higher Education Artigianelli (Trento). In his spare time he loves traveling, taking photographs, staying with friends away from the crowd and he prefers a book to television. When they call him an expert in digital color he thinks that he’ll never be able to reproduce the dark and deep light in his son’s eyes. He lives in Nogaredo, in the hills near Rovereto (TN), where he was born on January 27th, 1965.
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Signals from the universe of color BY MARCO OLIVOTTO
C o l o r s TO BELIE VE Some things are apparently difficult, but their underlying principles are easy to grasp. An engine, for instance, looks incomprehensible to me, but I know it is made of elemental parts which behave according to rather simple rules. Therefore, an engine is not difficult: rather it is complex, which means that there are many subtle interactions between simple elements. Fig. 1
Fig. 2
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Yet there are things which look deceptively simple, while they are quite intricated instead. Color is one of them. Let’s see an example. Look at the apple in figure 1: you would probably call it red, right? Figure 2 indeed represents the average color of the apple. It was obtained in Photoshop in a few seconds: select the fruit (but not the white background) and use Filter → Blur → Average. This gives each pixel the same luminosity and color; in particular, the average luminosity and color of all the pixels selected. Unfortunately, the fruit looks like it was drawn in Illustrator without much fantasy: where is the shape? We had the impression that the original apple was solid and three-dimensional, and we’re left with a cartoon. Where’s the problem? The answer is obvious: the photograph is a two-dimensional reproduction of a real object. It shows variation in color and luminosity as created by the light hitting the object the moment it was photographed. In general, this makes sense: Figure 1 shows that there’s a light source on the left, for those who watch, and that part of the apple is lighter than the opposite, not hit by the light. Let’s get numerical, then. Luminosity (a vague term, indeed) can be measured by means of a quantity called Lightness, available in Photoshop when we switch the Info Panel readings to Lab. L, as it is called, goes from 0 to 100 and the two extremes correspond to total darkness and maximum light, respectively. L only influences how dark or light a color
Fig. 4
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appears, but has nothing to do with either hue or saturation: for that, we need to take into account the a and b components of Lab, which in turn have nothing to do with lightness. In simple words, Lab separates luminosity and color completely. This is different from what happens in either RGB or CMYK. In figure 1, the centre of the white reflection on the skin reaches L = 96, and red area left immediately to the left shows a reading of about L = 52. On the opposite side, same height, L is more or less 26, as we would expect: the right side of the apple looks darker. You may believe that the darkest part of the picture can be found at the bottom of the stalk, but this is wrong: L is well above 20, in that area. The darkest spot is in the dark red spot on the right, symmetric to the white reflection, where L drops to a value of 12. The version in figure 3 retains some shape, but it can’t compete with the original picture. This happens because it uses the luminosity of the original while averaging the color. In practice, we take the L values from figure 1 and the color from figure 2. We see an apple, but it is dull and lifeless. Figure 4 is stranger: the luminosity is constant (it’s the average of the original, as seen in figure 2) but we retain the original color. Figures 3 and 4 show different variations: in luminosity and color, respectively. The two variations together lead to the illusion that we are looking at something plastic and three-dimensional, that is, they give us the original apple of figure 1.
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If you’re fed up with red apples, as you should be, let’s turn to a green fruit for a change. Have a look at figure 5 for a few seconds, then come back to this text. Please do not read ahead now, look at the figure first. Did you realize that figure 5 pictures the same apple of figure 1 with the color changed? I used a specialized curve in Lab to turn the color on its head, and the only thing I partially protected was the stalk: otherwise, the curve would make it seriously green – which would be tough to believe. You may have noticed it’s the same fruit (ok, I admit that I flipped it), because you already had seen the original red apple. If that had never been shown, a botanist, possibly even a fruit seller, might object that this apple is a fake, because green apples neither have that shape nor display tiny light yellow dots on their skin – so it would be possible to discover my plot. But what about the average person? Given these two alternatives:
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1. I am looking at a green apple. 2. I am looking at an originally red apple which Marco Olivotto butchered up in Photoshop. I would be ready to bet that a striking majority of humans would pick the first, not having seen the original red apple. Why? Very simple: we believe what we see. Yet there are things that we can’t believe. Figure 6 is an example: had I proposed it instead of figure 5, nobody would have bought it, for the 146 PENTAPRISM
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MARCO OLIVOTTO | COLORS TO BELIEVE
simple reason that we’ve never seen an electric blue apple with cyan shades. If we had seen one, it would have been a marble or plastic apple, certainly not edible. And, if someone managed to paint a real apple that way, we would shy from it as if it were poisonous, even if it were perfectly good. If we resume all these considerations, we get to some a couple of interesting conclusions.
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Fig. 10
Fig. 11
First, variation in luminosity and color is the first sign that we’re looking at a three-dimensional object. We’ve seen how flat a picture looks when we kill either luminosity or color variation (or both). The opposite holds true, as well. Figure 7 represent a demonstration I always show in my classes: I call it “the Japanese flag illusion”. That’s exactly what you see, in fact: a red circle on white background which reminds of the aforementioned flag. When you look at figure 8, instead, you see a sphere. Figure 8 is indeed figure 7, with a highlight added on the left and a luminosity variation which makes the left side lighter and the right side darker. There’s not even a projected shadow, which is often considered the first symptom of three-dimensionality, yet we would call figure 8 “a sphere”. In fact, nothing is three-dimensional. This suggests that we may make a picture more realistic by adding some variation in it: enough to make it look plastic, but not enough to make it look ridiculous. Second, we are quite ready to accept an object whose color was changed, as long as this color is believable: this is the case of figure 5. As soon as the object we’re looking at takes up a color we can’t believe, as in figure 6, our visual system starts sending us alert messages about, well, how weird a blue apple can be. And the most basic message is unconscious: “don’t eat it, or you might as well die.” There are some color we’re so acquainted with that we know what they should look like. Or, better, we guess we know: we actually remember them, not necessarily with their objective appearance (“objective” as in “what an instrument would measure”). When I show figures 9-11 in my classes, I ask for a vote about which one is the best. Figure 10 gets the striking majority of votes: maybe one person out of twenty will vote for figure 9, and possibly two for figure 11. When asked why figure 9 is “better” than the others, the answer of those who choose it is invariably: “I don’t like too much saturation in the skintone”. This is interesting, because it is a judgment based on taste – what I would call an PENTAPRISM 147
MARCO OLIVOTTO | COLORS TO BELIEVE
artistic choice. Yet the same people, when asked which representation of the skintone is more faithful to reality, will choose figure 10. The difference between the three versions (9-11) is that they come from the same RAW file and were developed in Camera Raw choosing a color temperature of 4.000 K, 5.000 K and 6.000 K for the white point, respectively. The photograph was taken in the studio with a flash, so we expect 5.000 K to be close to the correct color temperature. But even if we didn’t know, there would be little doubt about the most “correct” version. In this case, the amount of yellow in the skintone is what makes us decide. If we express colors in Lab numbers, the formula has three components. L expresses the lightness, as we already know; a measures the tendency of a color towards either green or magenta, whereas b tells us if the color goes towards either blue or yellow (b). In Lab, cold colors (i.e. green and blue) are expressed by negative numbers, whereas warm colors (i.e. magenta and yellow) are expressed by positive numbers. Zero, of course, lies in the middle: a = 0 means that a color is neither green nor magenta, b = 0 means that it is neither blue nor yellow. If a and b are both 0, the color is neutral, that is achromatic: it is some shade of gray whose lightness will be dictated by the value of L.
Fig. 12
Skin is neither green nor blue, so we expect to find positive values in the a and b channels of Lab: that is, we want a > 0 and b > 0. Figures 12-14 represent the average skintone found in figures 9-11, in the same order. At the bottom of each, the Lab numbers of the color it represents are given . At 4,000 K we find 67L 10a 6b; at 5,000 K, 68L 15a 17b; at 6,000 K, 69L 18a 25b. While the lightness of the color remains almost unchanged, its hue and saturation change significantly. Larger numbers correspond to more saturated colors, whereas hue depends on the relationship between a and b.
Fig. 13
In the case of figure 12, a is larger than b: we’re looking at a desaturated red more biased towards than magenta than yellow, which gives the color a pinkish appearance. Skin is not pink, though: technically speaking, it falls in the area of red / orange. This means that a and b must be indeed positive, but also the yellow component should win over the magenta. This is exactly what happens in figure 13, where b exceeds a by two points. This happens also in figure 14, but b is larger than a by no less than eight points. This is usually a bit too much, and figure 11 may seem to depict a jaundiced individual. Even out of the original context, figure 13 represents a more acceptable skintone than figures 12 and 14. Therefore, the rule can be condensed as follows: when we evaluate color in Lab, a correct skintone is usually characterized by a > 0, b > 0 and b >= a (the “>=” symbol means “greater than or equal to”). “But not too much”, we should add, as figure 14 suggests. There are cases in which we find a > b, a rosier skin than usual, but these are normally confined to people of very light com-
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Fig. 14
MARCO OLIVOTTO | COLORS TO BELIEVE
plexion, like some young children or nordic people. Also, the skin can be locally more magenta than yellow: in figure 10, the left cheek of the model reads 54L 20a 17b, a violation of the rule. Yet this is functional to shape, exactly as we saw in the case of the red apple. If you don’t believe it, look at figure 15: it is figure 10, but the face was selected and the color was forced to 68L 15a 17b. In practice, it was averaged: only the lips and the eyes were excluded. Do you notice how flatter and less healty the model looks in the latest version? The reason is that variation gives the illusion of depth, whereas its lack does the following: we hardly feel comfortable with any object which looks really flat. Variation is the key to reality, we might say.
Fig. 15
Yet it would be dangerous to exaggerate: figure 16 is the last for this article, and is derived from figure 10 with a specialized technique which enhances color variation in the face – and only the face. The rest of the picture is identical to figure 10. I am ready to bet that most of you will find the variation excessive, and so do I. You might think it is more saturated, but this is not really the case, because the average color of the skintone is 64L 14a 18b: it is different from the color reproduced in figure 13, but not very different, especially in terms of saturation. The color in figure 11 is indeed a lot more saturated. Variation is the key, here: but why don’t we like it too much? I’ll leave the question open to your speculation and will reply in the next article. I’ll give you a hint, though: “a face is a face, and a face is not a flower.” ‘Til the next time, godspeed you!
Fig. 16
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PENTAPRISM 149
MEET THE
Pentaprism
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davide GIONGO
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art. Ansel Adams
Silver sunset | Davide Giongo
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Portu Banda | Davide Giongo
e l e n a B O V O Elena Bovo was born in 1983 Venezia, Italy. After achieving a five-years certificate in Arts, she graduated in Painting at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts in 2007. Elena has showcased her work in many personal and collective exhibitions. In 2011, in cooperation with other artists she founded the art collective called NOMOI. The goal of this initiative was to support the arts, by promoting painters, sculptors, photographers, musicians and video makers through sponsored events and art exhibitions. Through the study and practice of visual arts, Elena has developed an aptitude for drawing and painting. These skills have quickly become a useful source of technical knowledge and a flexible tool enabling the evolution of her graphic language. Elena’s adventure with analog photography started when she acquired her first camera, the Minolta 7000. At that time and with the use of her camera she began to take “sketches” that aided in the construction of basis for her paintings. Inspired by the great exhibitions of Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff, Man Ray as well as masters like Klimt and the greatest expositions of Symbolism, Elena initially shot almost only female models. Only in the recent years her photography has become an independent language. Elena approaches digital photography and post-photographic production via widening the horizons ranging from portraits to creative edit and conceptual works. Through the digital image techniques she combines the experience of a painter and a photographer in the creation that tends to break down the boundaries between these two different universes. She forms some sort of a hybrid, where evocative graphics merge with reality, suggesting the outlines of a metaphysical tangibility. Elena seems to be able to recreate this image in every state of semi-sleep, when dreams and reality merge in a stream of sensations that are highly recognizable. This approach has deep roots in the individual that reaches the surface with delicate and elegant naturalness. She lives and works in Venice. elenabovo.com
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How to Disappear Completely | Elena Bovo
Affinity | Elena Bovo
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