You Don't Have To Be Good...

Bryce Wilson

To Photograph U.S. Olympians.

http://solsticevisuals.com/post/26229830602/outrage-over-the-photographs-of-the-united-states

dlscott56

Interesting. Thought maybe these were shots the photographer didn't intend on showing to anyone. But some of them are here as well.

Hackbone

One word....awful.....fauxtographer

RyanS

If you actually put in effort to create terrible portraits of a group of people, I think you'd be hard pressed to create imagery as offensive to the last 100 years of photography as this body of "work" is. I don't think this is a fauxtographer. I think this is someone purposefully sabotaging a shoot. Joe Klamar is a well recognized 'tog. He knows the business, and he knows what to do. If you look at his whole body of work, you'll see why. On this shoot, he either was out of his mind (drunk, drugs, etc) when he edited these, or he did this on purpose. To offend people. I am going to go with the latter.

Remember, Joe isn't some fly-by-night photographer. He is a well recognized AFP/Getty photographer with a long career behind him. He may also have just ended his career.

Quincy T

RyanS wrote: »

If you actually put in effort to create terrible portraits of a group of people, I think you'd be hard pressed to create imagery as offensive to the last 100 years of photography as this body of "work" is. I don't think this is a fauxtographer. I think this is someone purposefully sabotaging a shoot. Joe Klamar is a well recognized 'tog. He knows the business, and he knows what to do. If you look at his whole body of work, you'll see why. On this shoot, he either was out of his mind (drunk, drugs, etc) when he edited these, or he did this on purpose. To offend people. I am going to go with the latter.

Remember, Joe isn't some fly-by-night photographer. He is a well recognized AFP/Getty photographer with a long career behind him. He may also have just ended his career.

I found myself wondering about that Ryan, and you make good points here. Definitely something that deserves a deeper look.

VayCayMom

perhaps age has impaired his judgement...

Foques

wow.. I would love to know what the true story is..

Bryce Wilson

Here's my take on this...

They sent a paparazzi in to do the job of a portrait photographer.

While it takes a certain skill set (and mind set) to capture the latest starlet getting out of a car sans her underwear or an aging rock star snorting coke in the backroom of a disco, a person skilled in this type of candid photojournalism type photography isn't used to lighting, attention to detail and posing that a portrait photographer is.

It's like they needed a doctor to do open heart surgery and they sent in a podiatrist. He is after all a doctor.

RyanS

I am starting to see these images attributed to other photographers. Could it be that we've thrown Joe under the bus, and something much more hideous happened? Like some no-nothing at Olympic HQ set up the lights/camera and told the pros "press this button when I say so."

Other togs with equally - odd - images:
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Victoria Will/AP

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/picturegalleries/9270482/London-2012-Olympics-portraits-of-Team-USA-athletes.html?frame=2221308

You'll notice some half-way decent images in there by Joe Klamar. I'm suspecting we've been duped by the blogosphere.

BrettDeutsch

There's lots of discussion about these photos all over the blogosphere. Some people think he's trying to make a statement about Olympians being regular people, not superheros. If so, I think he took it too far, but I'm certainly not offended by the editorial concept. As far as I know, Klamar isn't talking, so we'll have to wait and see if he eventually explains himself.

rexbobcat

Hackbone wrote: »

One word....awful.....fauxtographer

The guy is actually pretty decent, but I think he's a sports photographer.

This was also a media event, so there were A LOT of photographers there. So you pretty much have to think on the fly and then get out of the way for the next person, which I assume is pretty hard to do for someone who doesn't normally shoot portraits.

These are Joe Klamar's shots for Getty Images. They've already been released, so any news source who pays can use them.

divamum

BrettDeutsch wrote: »

There's lots of discussion about these photos all over the blogosphere. Some people think he's trying to make a statement about Olympians being regular people, not superheros. If so, I think he took it too far, but I'm certainly not offended by the editorial concept. As far as I know, Klamar isn't talking, so we'll have to wait and see if he eventually explains himself.

jonh68

These are not the official portraits of the Olympians, but shots made by media and wire services. The photographer is question shoots for a wire service. Wire services do not allow much editing with their photos and the images are basically put out there with not much editing.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/photography/2012/07/bad_olympic_photos_how_terrible_shots_of_olympians_went_viral_.html

anonymouscuban

BrettDeutsch wrote: »

Some people think he's trying to make a statement about Olympians being regular people, not superheros.

:bigbs

jonh68

BrettDeutsch wrote: »

There's lots of discussion about these photos all over the blogosphere. Some people think he's trying to make a statement about Olympians being regular people, not superheros. If so, I think he took it too far, but I'm certainly not offended by the editorial concept. As far as I know, Klamar isn't talking, so we'll have to wait and see if he eventually explains himself.

I think the more plausible idea is he was given this assignment at the last minute and wasn't given time to prepare. Not to mention this probably wasn't his best genre to shoot.

Svennie

The response of the photographer:
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/07/06/photographer-joe-klamar-explains-his-controversial-olympic-portraits/

Maybe sometimes you just have to say 'no', because you're not able to deliver your normal quality of work?

dlscott56

Here's some additional info on the story as well

divamum

Very interesting. I am disappointed that there wasn't a "statement" being made - I didn't like the shots, but I could kinda understand doing the whole "real people" angle. But apparently not... Thanks for those links - super interesting to read!

zoomer

His is just a lame excuse, none of the reason he gave for the photos being bad explain the poor choices he made in the photos. It is just not professional quality work, a true professional can make lemonade from lemons, he was unable to do that. Agree with the other poster...he should have declined to put the work out if it did not meet his "standard" whatever that is.
These shots are embarrassing.

wildviper

Well here is someone else...perhaps there is a badphotographyvirus going on. This is horrible!