Rebirth of top photographers

Chapter 289 "Blue's Long Vacation" is on sale

The filming of "Looks of the New Earth" has finally concluded in Africa.

The last photo shows a scene in an African quarry. On the towering cliffs, humans have set up various ladders and platforms to cut the stones that have been eroded by the wind into brownish red one by one, and then use human power to Move away.

After polishing, these stones will be sent around the world to become walls in wealthy people's estates, but the workers pay not only physical strength, but also lives wrapped in danger.

And just after the filming, Chen Pingsheng met an old friend he hadn't seen for a long time.

"Chen! Oh! Mom! I see Chen again!" It was Hawke, the award-winning photographer sitting next to him who was also participating in the competition for the first time.

He was wearing a leather jacket, his hair was shaved short, and he had no idea whether he was tanned or not.

Well, Chen Pingsheng didn't notice it anyway.

"Hey! Hawke, long time no see." The two exchanged warm greetings for a while, and then Chen Pingsheng looked at him carrying a Nikon camera, as if he was completing his photography work.

"What are you shooting? Hawke." Chen Pingsheng and Hawke were sitting on the tables and stools outside the tent. This was specially prepared by them to wait for the right scene to appear next to the camera.
"I'm taking a group of photos of animals." Hawke replied excitedly: "Your photos inspired me. I'm going to take a group of photos about the contrasting fusion of human and animal limbs."

"Sounds good." Chen Pingsheng nodded. Body lines are always an important direction in photography, and showing the fusion of humans and animals is also a good subject.

Long-legged ostriches and long-armed peacocks may sound a bit abstract and unsettling, but as long as they are brightly lit and colorful, they will actually look aesthetic rather than scary.

"Chen, what about you? It's such a pity that Ge Saiyi didn't win the best photographer last time." Hawke also defended Chen Pingsheng.

"Nothing." Chen Pingsheng has long since moved on from regrets. For him, the future will always be better than before.

"This time Chen, you will definitely win the prize."

"Haha, maybe, I just published two photo albums this year."

"But I believe you must have more surprises, right?"

"Indeed, a new album will be published soon."

While Chen Pingsheng and Huang Liao were busy filming, both Abner and Gai Tuowen worked hard to print Chen Pingsheng's new works.

Three more works are currently awaiting publication.

They are "Blue's Long Vacation", "Unusual Places" and "The Look of the New Earth".

However, the publication order is "Unusual Place" at the end.

Because this photo album requires a preface, which was written by Mr. Ericson himself for Chen Pingsheng, "The Look of the New Earth" will be published first.

But there is no doubt that Blue's Long Vacation will be the first to be published.

So as soon as Chen Pingsheng and his wife landed from the airport, they received news of the release of the album.

"Should we go and take a look?" Huang Liao doesn't need to buy the album every time, because Chen Pingsheng will get more than ten copies of his album before it is published, and he will give it to his friends and elders.

Therefore, neither of them saw with their own eyes the real situation after the album was released.

"Okay, let's go." Chen Pingsheng and Huang Liao said they were leaving and rushed directly to the Xinhua Bookstore in the capital.

But as soon as I arrived at the door, I saw a long queue that went from inside to outside and circled several times.

"What are you doing?" Chen Pingsheng was a little confused. There were so many people lining up in the bookstore, as if it was some kind of autograph session.

"It should be your photo album, boss." Huang Liao smiled and mentioned a possibility.

"No." Chen Pingsheng shook his head. Although his album sales were very good, subconsciously he still didn't think there would be so many people queuing up just to buy a copy of the album.

"Let's get out of the car and find out!" Huang Liao opened the car door and trotted to the crowd.

Upon seeing this, Chen Pingsheng opened the car door and walked out.At this time, he was wearing sunglasses, was dusty, and had his hair down to his neck, so no one should recognize him.

Walking next to Huang Liao, he immediately heard her talking to an uncle.

"Uncle, what are you lining up for?"

The old man was wearing a fishing hat and a green vest. After hearing this, he immediately replied: "We are queuing up to buy a picture album!"

"What picture album, there are so many people?" Huang Liao continued to ask, pretending to be watching the fun.

"Hey, you didn't know this, little girl, it's Chen Pingsheng's new picture album." When the uncle said this, he raised his thumb, as if to say that this album is twice as good.

In fact, the names of picture albums and photo albums in the industry are not uniform, so no matter how you say them, they are correct.

"Chen Pingsheng, I know, his new album is on sale?"

"Yes! "Blue's...Long Vacation", yes, that's the name. It should be about foreigners." The uncle nodded.

"Why are so many people queuing up for his photo album?" Huang Liao looked confused.

"Because the photos are so good! Chairman Zheng highly recommends Chen Pingsheng's picture albums. I have bought several of them. They are really good-looking."

"So you also do photography?"

"Of course!" The uncle patted his chest and said proudly: "Let me put it this way in my family. From the cameras of the 90s to now, I have every generation of Canon and Sony, and the lenses are all the same. Whether it is shooting birds or portraits, I All matching!”

Chen Pingsheng and Huang Liao immediately looked at each other with admiration. This man was the legendary man who had a wall in his home and a house in the capital.

Although I don’t know what his level is, judging from his arrogant appearance, he must be an experienced photographer.

"Awesome." Huang Liao gave a thumbs up decisively and praised the uncle.

"How can he be so powerful? He's not good at all." Unexpectedly, the old man behind him suddenly became unhappy. Seeing his friend pretending to be cool in front of the little girl without him, he immediately said: "Those of his are just public stuff." Son, you are fooling people."

"How did I fool people?" "Do you have Ledo's m5? It's a limited edition. There are only [-] units in the world. It shoots film." The uncle picked up the camera hanging around his neck and showed his collection to several people. .

"There are also medium-format Bronica, Pentax, and early Feiming collections, as well as twin-reverse Rolleiflex and domestic Seagulls." He showed off his collection to everyone.

"I only store film in three refrigerators at home. It's not a small one, it's a big freezer, so wide! It's full of film. If I were shooting, I could take 3+ pictures."

Judging from his accent, he sounds like Master Jing, and he is indeed arrogant.

"Let's just say that every film store in the capital sometimes has to visit my house!"

"That's true." Chen Pingsheng nodded and agreed with the uncle. After all, there are so many films, and there are countless limited editions and out-of-print films that are no longer in production.

Even he was very excited and had the urge to reveal his identity and go to the uncle's house to rub some film.

"What do you have? Who is shooting film now!"

"How can you do photography if you don't use film! Can the colors captured on film be comparable to your digital ones?"

"It's funny, I just use Fuji filters, which are almost the same as film."

"Look at how stupid you are, there's a huge difference between that Fuji film and real film!"

"Well, the last time I went to your house, I didn't see any of your works! The photos you took were not as good as my digital ones."

"I love collecting!"

The two uncles started to quarrel as they talked. Seeing the situation, if there were not many people, they would have to fight to prove their theories.

The elders around him were not surprised either, and seemed to be used to the scene where the two people were at each other's throats.

Chen Pingsheng and Huang Liao tried to persuade him for a while, but after finding that they could not be persuaded at all, they left the bookstore and returned to the car.

"Good guys, old kids, I should refer to them." Chen Pingsheng sighed.

"Definitely, but is it really worth such a fierce quarrel?" Huang Liao's thinking still stopped at the two people's argument about film and digital.

Chen Pingsheng smiled and said: "Actually, it's really that exaggerated. This can be regarded as an invisible chain of contempt."

"After all, many film shots are very classic, and they are an artistic level that digital photography has not yet reached. But when it comes to professionalism and professionalism, digital is undoubtedly more useful."

After saying that, he looked back at Huang Liao: "So all I ask of you is that you must be able to use both film and digital and shoot. After all, no one knows whether film will shine again because of a certain technology one day in the future. ."

"Yeah, I understand." Huang Liao shook her chin and suddenly asked: "Boss, do you think AI will replace photography?"

Recently, news about AI mapping has been spread all over the world. The media used the word "replace" in a sensational way to secretly indicate the role of AI in human beings.

Chen Pingsheng also read relevant articles and learned about some things about AI.

So he shook his head and said: "This is like art. Can you say that with photography, art will be eliminated?"

"Of course not."

"So AI painting cannot defeat art." Chen Pingsheng explained: "Because artistic creation is human-oriented and is a reflection of human emotions, life, and thinking. As for AI painting, you will find that it is very mechanical. In essence, it is pieced together using various elements. This is not called creation, but appropriation.

"And AI painting is also controlled by humans. It cannot spontaneously complete any painting because they do not have the conditions to initiate creation. AI can only reduce human thinking, but cannot replace human thinking. This That’s its shortcoming.”

Huang Liao asked curiously: "What if it is completed?"

Chen Pingsheng looked out the window: "Complete? That is, AI is becoming similar to humans and has a certain thinking ability. Then we should not worry about whether it will take away our work, but we should worry about whether they will take it out. Human."

He couldn't help laughing: "This is back to the classic formula of science fiction novels and movies."

"But there are differences between AI photography and AI painting. AI photography is a machine that uses big data sampling to generate the background and characters that the user needs, and then based on a series of conditions such as lighting, environment, light and shade described by the user to generate enough Pictures that are comparable to real photos. In fact, it is easy for people to distinguish between real and fake.”

"Yes, I think it's really hard to distinguish the authenticity of the photos those people sent out."

"It may seem like the photographer should be out of a job, but don't forget, no matter how realistic it is, it is not real. Even if its technology is strong enough to achieve a one-to-one restoration of the real world, it is still the same as the real world. Photography is different. Because the medium is different, it is equivalent to reassembling existing materials, while photography is a direct capture of the real world."

"So I think AI photography can be regarded as a future direction, or a tool. Photographers can use it to simulate lighting, simulate scenes, and finally shoot. Or, simply use real photos to recreate them with AI, so It can also be called another line of photographic art.”

After hearing what Chen Pingsheng said, Huang Liao touched his camera thoughtfully, feeling that his thoughts were suddenly opened up.

"Tools must serve people at all times. This is what we must remember in any industry." Chen Pingsheng concluded: "Don't worry about tools. Art is not just about the results, but also about the process. Art without process is just It’s a piece of paper, and with the process, the paper will be filled up and become valuable.”

"understood."

Huang Liao nodded and agreed with his words.

"Let's go home. I still have to do the typesetting work."

While Chen Pingsheng and Huang Liao rushed back to South China, reviews of the album "Blue's Long Vacation" were finally released.

The well-known art magazine, Connaissance des Arts, published a review of this photo album.

They collected the opinions of many artists and compiled them into one page.

This is how these artists viewed the work.

Brittany Leighton (well-known color artist): "Awesome! This work by Chen Pingsheng vividly displays the colors of childhood. The sky is so blue that it is even dreamy, the white covered with snow and the colors on various dummies. , all firmly caught my eye. They were so harmonious and unified that I couldn't help but get involved in them and recall the happiness of my childhood.

"But happiness is not all. On the contrary, gloominess also occupies a part of childhood. Those wars, deaths and horrors that we did not understand in childhood, Chen Pingsheng uses corresponding colors to remind us that childhood may not be completely beautiful in memory. I have to say, I like this work very much and I like its dream-like tonal treatment.”

Rauf Dormer (well-known avant-garde artist): "I don't know Chen Pingsheng. This is the first time I have seen his works. If I hadn't known that he was Chinese, I would have thought he was French. He is in the photo Everything shown in it is part of the childhood we experienced. Those flames, snowmen and airplanes are so cool. I think it is very avant-garde. He is photographing human dreams. I think so. This is not real. Childhood is far more exaggerated and distorted than reality.

"But correspondingly, it's also more beautiful, especially the dummies. They seem to be given life. When I look at the photos, I really think they are alive. This is really a crazy idea. I actually fell in love with a group of fake people. people!"

(End of this chapter)