Oliver Weber Photography | Blog

© Oliver Weber

Galllery: La Matanza and Campo Santo:


Like last year I was invited this weekend to take part in the Ritual of Slaughtering a Pig here on La Gomera.
Thank you my friends!

© Max Dupain: Sunbaker, 1937 (1), Bondi, 1939 (2), At Newport, 1952 (3), Mother & Child, 1937 (4)

Max Dupain, 1911 - 1992 is Australia's most renowned photographer. He was born in Sydney and lived there all his life. He photographed the city from the late 1930s through just before his death in 1992. He rarely traveled to other countries and was mostly interested in documenting the architecture, the landscape, the beaches and the cities of Australia. His photographs define beach culture and show the typical lifestyle of this great country. His most famous photograph is The Sunbaker from 1937. More of Max's work is to find on his website.

Via The Truth Of Beauty by Michael Werner.

© Oliver Weber

Unfortunately I had to work today. 24º and blue sky. But one hour break at sunset time was a must... .

Robert Benson has posted on his blog a Q&A with some professional photographers about their use of film which is worth a read. (via A Photo Student).

Brian Finke: I almost exclusively shoot film, with the exception of recently starting to shoot video with the new Canon, and soon checking out the new Nikon HD camera. More and more these days when I am on assignment I get the, WOW, reaction when I pull the first Polaroid and everyone on set sees I’m shooting film. I am instantly seen as an art photographer, which makes by happy. I learned shooting film and love it. I shoot exclusively with the Hasselblad, it is a great process, taking the Polaroids, loading all the backs, then while shooting taking a pause and reloading, the physicality of the camera and process are beautiful. I also prefer the grain and depth of film and the chromogenic print, especially when viewed in a large scale, gallery environment.

Paolo Marchesi: I like the “organic” feel of film and the process. When I shoot film is mostly large format and shooting large format makes you think about the shot more. It makes you a better photographer. With digital is easy to just fire away without really taking the time to take “the shot”.

Amanda Friedman: Film has better exposure latitude. Film does significantly better in low light, I get better blacks. I shot a ton of night photography and I’m still finding film to be a much better choice. I can shoot ISO 800 speed film and get beautiful results—can’t really do that with digital yet.

Simon Watson: Because it is beautiful, easy to use and it is always so much more sophisticated looking than digital. Always.

Finn O’Hara: I love the pace of shooting film, and the reality of the exposure is much more tangible when shooting film.

José Mandojana: A few reasons. I like my medium format and large format film bodies and lenses better. I just see the frame better with these cameras vs. a digital SLR. I also shoot film because the color neg is perfect in my eyes. When shooting raw, a lot of tweaking needs to be done to get it to look like my film. It can be done, but film still has a richness unmatched by digital. Why mess with perfection?

Michael Sugrue: In addition to the look/feel of the image, I most like the workflow of shooting 4×5. It’s a very quiet, studied approach. A lot of the mental aspects of shooting large-format film are lost with the instantaneity of digital capture.

Jeff Lipsky: Many reasons…… For one, I love shooting my film cameras. There is something special when shooting a portrait with my 4×5. I feel digital takes the pace and feel away. I still enjoy looking at a proof sheet with a good loupe. The editing process is easier and more tangible. Digital format has yet to reach the 6×7 format. Film is more forgiving and has more range. I can flare and backlight images and still have information in the negative. Digitally it would be lost. I actually like being the first person to see and edit my film. To many times there is a crowd of people surrounding the monitor, no matter how hard I try to hide it. I love working with 120 films. Changing a film back or reloading enables me to change things up and get more variations. Believe it or not, it’s still more economical for most editorial jobs.

David Lauridsen: Film is beautiful. It has a depth to it and a painterly quality in the way it captures light and texture that digital just isn’t capable of capturing… yet. I shoot a lot of travel photography and like strong side light and backlight, which I think is the biggest weakness of digital. With film, I can expose for good shadow detail and just burn in the sky. With digital, the sky is just gone completely or if I expose for it then I end up with an image that is just much darker than I like. It’s recoverable to some degree in post, but it still doesn’t have that “lushness” that film has.

Bryce Duffy: I still really love the aesthetic of film. I’m not saying it’s not possible to get very similar results with digital, it’s just that in 20 years of working with film stock and polaroid, and a long standing relationship with a lab, there’s so much that is going in to achieving the aesthetic that I’m after, and other peoples expertise as well. Switching to digital means that so much more of that falls back on the photographer. In a way you’re your own film manufacturer, your own lab, your own printer. And I still really feel that there are certain lighting situations where film just “feels” more organic and digital can not replicate that as far as I’ve seen.

© Russ Martin - Frilled White Dahlia, 2009

Anotner interview has been added to the TWO WAY LENS - project. Please come and read a very intersting contribution by Russ Martin, which is a worthy continuation to the themes and wisdom already provided by:

Magnum photographers Martin Parr and Alec Soth, Amy Stein, Andrew Phelps, Deborah Hamon, James Friedman, Jessica Todd Harper, Richard Renaldi, Ron Jude, David Hilliard, Susan Wides, Terry Weifenbach, Tim Hailand, Lori Nix, William Greiner, Zoe Strauss, Tony Mendoza, Tierney Gearon, Scott Passfield and Oliver Weber.

About Two Way Lens:

© Reuters - Eduardo Munoz

News agencies around the world are posting images of the destruction from the earthquake in Haiti. The earthquake in Haiti is being called the disaster of the century and many on the ground believe the death toll could be in the tens of thousands. What is needed most is money. And you have it!
Please help.

Below are links to options for sending aid.

CRUZ ROJA ESPAÑOLA
American Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund
Deutsches Rotes Kreuz
Clinton Foundation

© Oliver Weber

Once a year will be held a procession in honor of Nuestra Sra. de Guadalupe in Guará high up in the mountains of La Gomera.
A wonderful event in which friends and families come together to celebrate the ceremony.
Well -  a small series was born - Campo Santo: