Bloody great were the first words that sprung to mind when I looked at Hans Hansen's work.
Like me he moved to the States from his homeland in Norway (not like me) so I was interested to see his work, heck we've even been to the same places to shoot like the Salton Sea (I am beginning to think who hasn't).
As much as I like the work I realised upon further inspection that theres quite a bit of 'jiggery pokery' going on (in terms of retouching), but before you think I am going into one of my traditional working rant-a-ho's, the reason I found it a little odd is because they just don't need it. In particular the sky in every shot is so dramatic It tends to distract from the subject matter (see above).
I think there is a real danger these days of over working an image which although can be done in traditional printing (Its the difference between a brilliant image and a brilliant print) It is just so much easier with one of them computers. One of the reasons I shoot traditionally is that it gives me boundaries with which to work in. When I print an image (again traditionally) I have three colors to work with Magenta, Cyan and Yellow, a computer has thousands, so when do you know when to stop.. (bit dramatic I know)
I will finish by plagiarising the plagiarised quote on Han's site and also with one I made up.
"Things aren't what they used to be, whats worse is they never where."
John Szarkowski
"Do you remember the good old days, because I don't"
Marcus Doyle
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