Same old stuff, the advertising section is really good but the editorial is ok at best, some winning work is outdated, i don’t see anything new, Raymond Mayer fashion for NYT and Platon portrait are amazing, the rest is ok, it feels like some pictures were in the annual just because of the name of the photographer/publication.
Still life is a big loser in the PDN Annual, they should have a section just for that but i guess they don’t care, as a still life photographer you can’t compete against a pic of Giselle or Brad Pitt, no judge would vote for you.
Still life photographers just don’t waste your money on PDN annual.
There is a picture of Nadav Kander(one of my fav photographer) in the Ad section and it’s a still life shot for John Lewis(dept store) and it’s a carbon copy of a series that Horacio Salinas shot for City magazine, it’s so similar that i thought they made a mistake with the names.
Also the portrait of David Linch(Kander again) is another old shot.
Who’s judging this awards??Do this ppl have a clue?Do they look at magazines and see what’s going on?
there’s a still life of James Day(great still life photographer) in the personal work section that is so insignificant that nobody in his right mind would have voted for…unless they knew who the photographer is and that’s the whole point i am trying to make, the pictures are voted based on the name of the photographer.
Rob you did a much better job in your promo than all this judges put togheter, kudos to you.
My take on this PDN annual is that half is amazing work and the other half is just insignificant at best.
Markus, I only wish the deadline was set up so that it was after the CA annual came out. Go back and look at the 07 winners and you’ll know what I’m talking about. It seems like group think validation to me. I ‘d be curious if any of these contests are judged by using anonymous submissions, where the judges can’t see the names of the contestants. I don’t know if that happens already or not. Seems like a bunch of retired doctors at a flower show oohing and ahhing over a species they’re familiar with just to validate their own tribal standings.
@3
I totally agree, some work is just AMAZING and the other is so bad that makes you think about the judging criteria of these ppl. Also if i was Horacio Salinas i would get really mad about the Kander department store shoot, i remember all the drama about Jennifer Rocholl(and her pics were similar but not even that much), but this one is exactly the same.
I still think that they must have made a mistake with the names, just check the one from Kander on PDN(Ads) and go to http://www.chrisboalsartists.com/
and click on Horacio Salinas and on the 3rd row of thumbs at the end there’s the series i was talking about….it’s the same concept,same lighting, same angle, same background…
markus – having seen the John Lewis ads in all formats [TV, print, outdoor] in the UK at Christmas, I can witness that they were very, very good indeed. The idea is very similar, but I think that the shadows made in the Kander photographs are much better in that the pile of objects making the shadows bear no resemblance to the shapes of the shadows. In the examples you link to the objects as seen by the camera have almost exactly the same form as the shadows they cast.
I did a quick search to see if there were any other examples of the campaign, and as is the way of the web, stumbled across this link, which pits forward the much more likely scenario that the idea for the ad campaign was probably not lifted from Horacio, but from the british artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster, who did some very similar installations using piles of garbage about ten years ago, which many London creatives would no doubt have seen and noted down in their little ideas books……..
Ok Then so Horacio Salinas did it first(you can’t dispute that), and maybe he was inspired too by these artists and maybe he didn’t use the shadow on purpose, but i guess it was the first one doing it in commercial photography.
Do you think that “many London creatives” waited for 10yrs to do this?
Tim Noble and Sue Webster installations are absolutely beautiful(better than Salinas or Kander) but my point is that John Lewis ppl used this idea when they saw the work of Salinas.
This is my opinion but i could be wrong.
As you say, it is all opinion, but from a London point of view it seems much more likely that the idea was taken from the artists. Their work seems closer to the John Lewis adverts.
Weiden + Kennedy did a similar thing with a Honda ad called “Cog” from 2003 that was clearly “inspired” by a 1987 film by Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss. I think the artists threatened legal action over it though don’t know how far that went.
You are very convincing Robert, but the timing seems strange to me when 2 photographers have the same idea just few months apart. Also i am not so sure that Salinas did that first so i guess i’ll just shut up now and hope someone can give me the correct information.
@Markus, I think you’re onto something Markus. Salinas and Kander are both incredibly respectable and venerable photographers. However Salinas prides himself upon his own vision and interpretation. Kanders photos were not his own conception but that of the creatives who for my money saw Salinas’ work and chose to run with it. Salinas’ work from what I can tell were not widely published and allowed for the creatives opportunity to seize the aesthetic, cite it as fair use and feel pretty damn safe. I think anonymity and subsequent accountability play a huge role here. Just my thoughts though.
11 Comments
Same old stuff, the advertising section is really good but the editorial is ok at best, some winning work is outdated, i don’t see anything new, Raymond Mayer fashion for NYT and Platon portrait are amazing, the rest is ok, it feels like some pictures were in the annual just because of the name of the photographer/publication.
Still life is a big loser in the PDN Annual, they should have a section just for that but i guess they don’t care, as a still life photographer you can’t compete against a pic of Giselle or Brad Pitt, no judge would vote for you.
Still life photographers just don’t waste your money on PDN annual.
There is a picture of Nadav Kander(one of my fav photographer) in the Ad section and it’s a still life shot for John Lewis(dept store) and it’s a carbon copy of a series that Horacio Salinas shot for City magazine, it’s so similar that i thought they made a mistake with the names.
Also the portrait of David Linch(Kander again) is another old shot.
Who’s judging this awards??Do this ppl have a clue?Do they look at magazines and see what’s going on?
there’s a still life of James Day(great still life photographer) in the personal work section that is so insignificant that nobody in his right mind would have voted for…unless they knew who the photographer is and that’s the whole point i am trying to make, the pictures are voted based on the name of the photographer.
Rob you did a much better job in your promo than all this judges put togheter, kudos to you.
My take on this PDN annual is that half is amazing work and the other half is just insignificant at best.
Yeah well … they didn’t choose any of my work either. The fun is in trying … till next year, just like the Chicago Cubs.
[…] to Mr. Haggart at APE for sharing a link to the online version of the 2008 Annual. I could not find it for the life of me. Seems that […]
Markus, I only wish the deadline was set up so that it was after the CA annual came out. Go back and look at the 07 winners and you’ll know what I’m talking about. It seems like group think validation to me. I ‘d be curious if any of these contests are judged by using anonymous submissions, where the judges can’t see the names of the contestants. I don’t know if that happens already or not. Seems like a bunch of retired doctors at a flower show oohing and ahhing over a species they’re familiar with just to validate their own tribal standings.
@3
I totally agree, some work is just AMAZING and the other is so bad that makes you think about the judging criteria of these ppl. Also if i was Horacio Salinas i would get really mad about the Kander department store shoot, i remember all the drama about Jennifer Rocholl(and her pics were similar but not even that much), but this one is exactly the same.
I still think that they must have made a mistake with the names, just check the one from Kander on PDN(Ads) and go to
http://www.chrisboalsartists.com/
and click on Horacio Salinas and on the 3rd row of thumbs at the end there’s the series i was talking about….it’s the same concept,same lighting, same angle, same background…
I notice one “Rob Haggart” down as creative director for Graig Cutler’s “Deadliest Animals…” winner in Editorial. So well done, Mr APE….
markus – having seen the John Lewis ads in all formats [TV, print, outdoor] in the UK at Christmas, I can witness that they were very, very good indeed. The idea is very similar, but I think that the shadows made in the Kander photographs are much better in that the pile of objects making the shadows bear no resemblance to the shapes of the shadows. In the examples you link to the objects as seen by the camera have almost exactly the same form as the shadows they cast.
I did a quick search to see if there were any other examples of the campaign, and as is the way of the web, stumbled across this link, which pits forward the much more likely scenario that the idea for the ad campaign was probably not lifted from Horacio, but from the british artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster, who did some very similar installations using piles of garbage about ten years ago, which many London creatives would no doubt have seen and noted down in their little ideas books……..
http://tinyurl.com/66wtq5
http://allbeautiful.blogspot.com/2007/08/tim-noble-sue-webster.html
Either way, when I saw the John Lewis ads had won a prize I was pleased, because I remembered liking them a lot at the time.
rdp
Ok Then so Horacio Salinas did it first(you can’t dispute that), and maybe he was inspired too by these artists and maybe he didn’t use the shadow on purpose, but i guess it was the first one doing it in commercial photography.
Do you think that “many London creatives” waited for 10yrs to do this?
Tim Noble and Sue Webster installations are absolutely beautiful(better than Salinas or Kander) but my point is that John Lewis ppl used this idea when they saw the work of Salinas.
This is my opinion but i could be wrong.
As you say, it is all opinion, but from a London point of view it seems much more likely that the idea was taken from the artists. Their work seems closer to the John Lewis adverts.
Weiden + Kennedy did a similar thing with a Honda ad called “Cog” from 2003 that was clearly “inspired” by a 1987 film by Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss. I think the artists threatened legal action over it though don’t know how far that went.
HONDA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGngcQb_0qg
Fischli & Weiss:
You are very convincing Robert, but the timing seems strange to me when 2 photographers have the same idea just few months apart. Also i am not so sure that Salinas did that first so i guess i’ll just shut up now and hope someone can give me the correct information.
@Markus, I think you’re onto something Markus. Salinas and Kander are both incredibly respectable and venerable photographers. However Salinas prides himself upon his own vision and interpretation. Kanders photos were not his own conception but that of the creatives who for my money saw Salinas’ work and chose to run with it. Salinas’ work from what I can tell were not widely published and allowed for the creatives opportunity to seize the aesthetic, cite it as fair use and feel pretty damn safe. I think anonymity and subsequent accountability play a huge role here. Just my thoughts though.
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