Some very original new work.
I first wrote of Vince Laforet when complimenting his superb photograph of the welder atop one of the Chrysler Building’s gargoyles.
From the April 2008 issue of Condé Nast’s Portfolio. Picture by Vince Laforet.
Click on this link to be directed to his photographs for a piece in Condé Nast Portfolio addressing changes in commuting. A tedious sounding topic made gripping by Laforet’s photography.
He’s using some sort of smart selective focus technique which appears to render only a narrow band of a picture sharp. A strange side effect is that his subjects end up looking like toys and you wonder whether this is not work by William Eggleston.
Worth the visit to enjoy once more the work of one of the most original photographers working today.
That’s the Scheimpflug principle. It’s a cool effect but I feel it’s overdone here by being used for every single shot.
Click here.
Fair comment, but the lens to subject distance in these pictures suggests that the manipulation is being done in the processing stage rather than in the camera, as it would be unlikely that depth of field would be so constrained in pictures taken from hundreds of feet away.
Take a look at photo #10 of 11, for example. The subject is almost plane to the camera yet the top and bottom are blurred. Unless Laforet is using a very long lens on a camera with a tilting lens and/or back (I seem to recall reading he uses 35mm DSLRs which provide tilting lenses only at this time) I doubt you would ordinarily get this effect outside of Photoshop.
Alternatively, maybe he is making a print then rephotographing it with the print at an angle to the sensor?
By way of example, I have made a rough and ready re-photograph of this picture – the original is sharp everywhere – photographing it at an angle with the 50mm Canon lens at f/1.4 then further added Gaussian blur in Photoshop: