John Hyde - Nature Photographer

edunon

A friend recommended to me, great nature photographer, I wonder what lenses he uses, I'd bet they are Leica.

If you need a bit of inspiration for nature photographs, have a look:

Wild Things Photography

PaulieC

Some stunning work, but some of it looks very fake. Or maybe he's just that lucky

andy1249

50 - 75% clear fakes and heavily photoshopped , the eagles are clearly stuffed and laid over a background, same glass eye expression on all the birds. There are no wind effects in the birds feathers , thats the giveaway,

The same mountain range appears in a couple of the shots , one with the lavender or whatever that purple flower is , and the other is a shot of the whale jumping , theres a break in the clouds showing the same view ,

I know , shure the place is obviously covered in a massive depth of water for the winter for the whales , then dries out and grows lavender for the summer , that must be it ,

The guy standing looking at the stream , shure he must have massive willpower to be able to stand so still while that long exposure was taken of the stream !!

Nice compostions , but shure tis collage , not photography !!

rymus

cambo_gueno wrote:

Some stunning work, but some of it looks very fake. Or maybe he's just that lucky

no.. it's fake

PaulieC

is all of it fake? Some of them looked real-ish, but I didn't look too hard.

Read his bio...would make you puke

dalk

Yeah.. weird mix of good captures and pretty unconvincing photoshopped pics...

Zillah

Hysterical!

At first I looked at the whale ones and I thought "What are they talking about, they're not so obviously fake..."

Then I looked at the eagle shots. Pure shite.

In fact, im so upset I decided to send him an email:

Dear Mr.Hyde,

You sir are an embarrassment to the field of photography. If you're going to doctor photographs, at least do it well, as opposed to the unmitigated shite your website is filled with. You disgust me, you utter charlatan.

Yours Sincerely

And you, mister edunon, you are either an idiot or in on this, and either way you should be ashamed.

edunon

Zillah wrote:

And you, mister edunon, you are either an idiot or in on this, and either way you should be ashamed.

There are many photographs that have been photoshopped, I agree, but doesn't change the ones that haven't been, which in my opinion are nice.
As every opinion mine should be respected, don't see the point of your insult...

Thirdfox

Do photographers have something against digital manipulation of images? Just interested in finding out why all this hostility to it? (I for one cannot use photoshop for my life )

Zillah

I retract the insult, my apoligies.

It doesn't matter how nice any of his photographs are. He has ruined his credibility by attempting to trick people into thinking he is a much better photographer than he is. He knowingly made wholesale fabrications and attempted to pass them off as photography. There is no way to know if the real ones are "real". They may simply be better fakes. See where im going with this?

andy1249

Agreed , if you show me a picture and say its an eagle that I shot in action catching a fish , then Im prepared to be impressed , however when is a photo of a stuffed bird overlayed on to a background that really annoys me. For all I know the dude never even left his house !! The bird shots are as fake as they come.
Thats why they are bad.

Thirdfox

But isn't "real" photography artificial too? Installing filters onto your camera distorts reality and the picture you get, granted that computer manipulation takes such distortion to a new level but the principle is the same.

If photography was purely about reporting the photons of light hitting the image sensor then it wouldn't be very interesting at all, I think photography, like all art, is used to convey a message. If he happens to use digital manipulation to further his message why not? If he does it badly we can all laugh at him, if he does it well we should applaud him.

My €0.02

rymus

Thirdfox wrote:

Do photographers have something against digital manipulation of images? Just interested in finding out why all this hostility to it? (I for one cannot use photoshop for my life )

Not as far as I've encountered anyway. However there is acceptable photoshopping and then there is taking the piss. This guy is clearly doing the latter. Photoshop is a great tool if used subtly. People can generally detect if you've used too much photoshoppage or just plainly taken the piss and, as you can see from the above, won't be too slow to point it out. There's absolutely nothing wrong with touching a photo up to make it look it's best. There is a difference between that and building a collage of photographs from the ground up.

andy1249

Right you are Thirdfox , I agree with everything you say , however if you digitally manipulate , and then try to pass it off as " Wild Things " and " Real Nature " like this clown does , then its bad , then it becomes borderline offensive.
I have nothing against artful manipulation ,but dont lie and say its something else like this fool !!

Zillah

There's a difference between minor alterations and whole sale fabrication.

I I take a photo its generally accepted that I might fiddle with some minor things like brightness and contrast, maybe even hue or saturation.

If I take a photograph and do anything more significant it enters the realm of "photomanipulation", which is an artform itself, as long as there is no deception.

Its when someone makes major alterations and claims it was a normal photograph that I get annoyed. Its worst when someone creates an image from several other stock images and claims its an original photgraph. Especially if they want money for them. And especially if its accompanied by the corney crap he's got on that website.

PaulieC

Zillah, let us know if you get a reply. Just had another look - some of the stuff is so obviously, and so badly, fake that it's embarassing. I would love to hear if he has the balls to defend it

Zillah

Oh I will

heffsarmy

I had a look at the websit and there some excellent shots there, granted that some have a small amount of photoshop and some are a collage of other photos...personally I have no problem with what he has done with the photo once they look good. Some of those eagle shots are excellent, especially over the water, very sharp and not too much photoshop.

andy1249

The guy standing looking at the stream , shure he must have massive willpower to be able to stand so still while that long exposure was taken of the stream !!

That exposure would be no longer than 1 or 2 seconds, so I'm sure most people could stand still for a 1 or 2 seconds.

Progen

talented photoshoper, useless with a camera I'd say

Beats

For a more authentic option check out

http://braingiants.com/noriomatsumoto/welcome.html

Love the photographs of him on location. There's some worthy dedication.

heffsarmy

Progen

talented photoshoper, useless with a camera I'd say

I just done a google on John hyde he is well known award winning alaskin photographer, his imgaes feature in the national geographis magazines now I'm sure they don't publish stuffed Eagles.

http://www.adventuregallery.net/
http://www.asmpalaska.org/members/HydeJ/
http://www.alaskabears.org/gallery.php
http://www.museums.state.ak.us/press/summer06.htm

andy1249

Now thats more like it , pretty cool stuff in there , Im talking about Beats post now , not Heffs

alb

Beats wrote:

For a more authentic option check out

http://braingiants.com/noriomatsumoto/welcome.html

Love the photographs of him on location. There's some worthy dedication.

Thanks for posting that, an excellent site with some very unique photos, that guy is obviously the real deal.

As for Hyde and the eagles, I seriously doubt any are stuffed, some of them look as though they may have had the background adjusted/changed but I still wouldn't be sure, a top quality photo of an eagle in flight can look quite extraordinary.

SOL

you guys are actually just ****ing hillarious, I mean when ever someone posts up a photo that would benefit from helpful criticism you just proclaim it as crap, and well what can we say about this thread... anyways, perhaps some of you could do with well, a bit of learning, perhaps spending less time talking about cameras and more using them?

Shrimp

Why dont you all have a little winge about Sacha Waldman too seeing as thats the general thing to do here.

You're all speaking such crap, it's a style which john hyde has chosen, and in my opinion it works very well in some of his photos. Now perhaps if he never took any of the photos in the first place, then thats fake. If he took all those pics, and edited them himself. Then Fair play. They look great!

Zillah

SOL wrote:

you guys are actually just ****ing hillarious, I mean when ever someone posts up a photo that would benefit from helpful criticism you just proclaim it as crap

The person whos photos are being discussed is not present, so "helpful criticism" would be quite pointless. And the only advice I could offer is "don't make obvious fakes". Did you actually go to the site? Look at the eagle shots, most of them are laughably awful fabrications.

If he took all those pics, and edited them himself. Then Fair play. They look great!

I think thats a lot of people's complaint, many of them are spliced together really badly. So not only does he not mention that many of them are fabricated/heavily manipulated, he also demonstrates poor photomanipulation skills.

edunon

Totally agreed with Sol and Shrimp, I'd like to see the photoshop skills of all those criticising here. 20% of his website is been heavily manipulated but didn't pay much attention to it. I really enjoyed the landscape pictures.
By the way, National Geographic does NOT accept photoshop pictures and started accepting digital photos since December 2003.

rymus

SOL wrote:

I mean when ever someone posts up a photo that would benefit from helpful criticism you just proclaim it as crap

Shrimp wrote:

Why dont you all have a little winge about Sacha Waldman too seeing as thats the general thing to do here.

Interesting.

edunon wrote:

By the way, National Geographic does NOT accept photoshop pictures

Photoshop collages or photoshopped photographs? If national geographic didn't accept any photoshopped photographs, there would be precisely 2 pictures per issue; every man and his dog knows that a file directly from a digital camera looks nothing compared to what it does when it's been through photoshop. And I seriously doubt national geographic would take it upon themselves to accept dire images directly from digital cameras.

Shrimp wrote:

it's a style which john hyde has chosen

I think the general jist of the thread is that very point. While it may be his 'style', it's very unfortunate that it's incredibly false looking and appears that the photo is stuck together with PVA glue and bits cut out of national geographic magazines. If he's going to go to all the bother of going out and taking photographs of these animals, he might as well at least portray them as best he can and not photoshop the bejesus out of them.

Shrimp

so you're complaining because it's not good?.. In that case why dont you explore Google Images for crap manips and give out about them.

Difference between giving out, and saying they are bad.

eas

Shrimp wrote:

Why dont you all have a little winge about Sacha Waldman too seeing as thats the general thing to do here.

apples and oranges, your argument is fruitless.

rymus

Shrimp wrote:

so you're complaining because it's not good?.. In that case why dont you explore Google Images for crap manips and give out about them.

For the same reason I don't collect stamps or go train spotting. I've got better things to do with my free time. The fact is that the website was presented here as a topic, I didn't exactly go looking for it. Searching for bad examples of photography would take up so much time it'd be a career move.

Shrimp

Em.. OK you took that far too literally.

SOL

So Zillah, did you get any reply back,

and do any of you know what photos out of super telephoto lens look like?

evilhomer

Shrimp wrote:

Why dont you all have a little winge about Sacha Waldman too seeing as thats the general thing to do here.

There is photomanipulation that you just know is manipulated to serve a purpose and doesn't hide the fact (Sacha Waldman) and there is trying to pass off obvious fakes as the real deal(John Hyde).

Shrimp wrote:

You're all speaking such crap, it's a style which john hyde has chosen, and in my opinion it works very well in some of his photos. Now perhaps if he never took any of the photos in the first place, then thats fake. If he took all those pics, and edited them himself. Then Fair play. They look great!

Some of the stuff on that site is so poorly manipulated I suppose you could call it a "style", but I wouldn't.

Shrimp

ok, agreed, some of the stuff does look tacky, but some of it, you have to admit looks pretty cool.

SOL

Just to clarify, no one actually thinks those eagles are stuffed right?

Zillah

SOL wrote:

So Zillah, did you get any reply back,

Nope.

and do any of you know what photos out of super telephoto lens look like?

Not in particular so why don't you deign to explain it to us?

SOL

its just that the short depth of field can make the background look like it's a different photo, as can fill lghting. Speaking of which we should go shooting...
I get mid term next week...

rymus

a logistical nightmare. With that in mind though, if anyone from Cork wants to meet up some weekend for a bit of camera related activities, do mention it. I'd only be too happy to have a semi-regular get together

evilhomer

Perhaps we should organise a day during the summer where a few of us meet up somewhere interesting to take a few snaps and maybe have a "light" beverage or two?

Flipflip

Thatd be some craic!