author : Bartolomé Desmaisons (BD)
So few weeks ago attention was brought to the following works :
https://www.facebook.com/563620956987849/videos/235490451822823
So, overall, to the following movies :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMxaRlYBo38
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJrS0nJSPeI
and to the following set :
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=108039321322110&set=pcb.108043371321705
So, the "photographic" work might be produced by a leading travel/nature/landscapes/(mountain ?) photographer, if not the best chinese one (no idea, I don't know the artists there, neither JND - but we don't think so for technical reasons detailed below) ?
So let's comment the works themselves.
First, the two movies, and then the few photographs available.
The two movies are about photos shooting sessions in Patagonia and often in Chaltél & Cerro Torre mountain ranges (and in Aysén region too).
Focus is often brought on the photographer itself, helicopter(s) flights, and the landscapes themselves.
Overall none of the photographs produced is shown, except once (more on this topic later).
We see usual theater/sceneries (granitic spires + icefield at sunrise/sunset) shot from the air. The same as in Red Bull (RB) documentary (a snowball chance in hell), or Reinhold Messner documentary (his investigation about 59's (fake) ascent of Cerro Torre (+ about the weird circumpstances of the death of the alpinist Toni Egger)), etc.. Overall landscapes images are not better than in Reinhold Messner documentary, and, obviously : not better than in RB SUPERproduction (as they spent months on site (with approval of APN, because, as everybody know : repeated helicopter flights over a National Park don't cause any harm or don't pose that much environmental problems...)).
Then, a lot of helicopter flights are exhibited. The good point is that it gives some ideas of the scales of the landscapes. The bad points are discussed below.
Then, the artist is portrayed either shooting from his helicopter, or from the ground (after having been dropped (IMO, don't think he walked up there) in several remote locations).
So, for the (mostly negative...) comments (critics), what to start with ?...
OK, so landscapes are very nice (thank you mother Nature (we're very ungrateful toward you (to several degrees))). But anybody with an aircraft flying there at sunrise/sunset, and with a camera, could do the same (provided said camera is correcty adjusted).
Yes, as usual, music is very sweet, and combined with the images : the result is very inspiring, impressive, etc.. But a lot of filmmaker or even Youtubers can do the same.
Then there is the staging of the artist : while flying or on the ground (theater of shootings). Well it's very impressive of course. It reminds me of a lot (narcissistic) wannabes (I don't want to put Luo Hong in this category (nrcssstc wnnB) !) who do the same with some drones. Well, here it's the same method but we're clearly not in the same league ! Not one, but two helicopers !
Which leads me to my main criticism : OK, nice short movies/clips (we'll talk about the photographs later), but for how much harm ? Noise, carbon, pollution ? !!! Two helicopters !
OK, it looks like Mr Luo Hong is a successful (if not very successful) businessman*, so while he is surely wealthy : he may lack time (or it's the exact contrary : he enjoys to travel a lot, I don't know), and when he has some (well deserved) spare time (rarely, maybe (or not)) he wants to enjoy/use it as much as possible, in order to make something else of his (already successful) life, in another field, to give another dimension to his life.
(Officialy) it looks like he has some good motivations/values (use "the great beauty of nature to awake the goodness of human heart" (as reported by Rolando Garibotti), or as a "Climate Hero" (United Nations), etc.), but his actions accentuate/fuel the problems he is alledgedly struggling against... And as he plays in another league than most common people his contribution to the increase of the problem is proportionally much more substantial.
So : there is a paradox.
But our time and our contemporaries are full of paradoxs...
(N.B. : I/we lack informations to tell if alleged motivations are virtuous/ethical/fake pretexts. Personally I/we don't have enough clues to call him a narcissistic or a megalomaniac, so I/we won't. As a successful businessman : he must be very wealthy, and he plays in another league in term of magnitude of projects he sets up).
Lastly, some question that won't have answers to too : in principle it's forbidden to overfly Chaltél & Cerro Torre mountain range (Los Glaciares National Park) without an authorization. Did Mr Luo Hong got one ? I don't know. That said, National Park Administration (APN) surely loves paperwork and recall nice principles, but I think they don't care about infringements, especially if they lead to advertising of the places and increases of (catastrophic) mass-tourism (+ $ influx)...
Another question is about the respect of borders by the two (chilean) helicopters (among : Bölkow Bo 105 (CC-CWI), and/or Bölkow Bo 105 (CC-ACN), and/or the AS350 Écureuil). Did they have the authorizations to cross said borders ? Where were they flying from (Villa O'Higgins ? - JND saw some red helos reaching the mountain range from the North-East in autumn... (from above cordón del Bosque, etc.)) ?
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Technical Analysis of the images
In the second clip/movie : images are often too blueish/purplish, and once : greenish. Not a great (technical) control over colours (neutralization).
Only once, at the end of the first clip/movie (at 02:49), a photographs produced is shown, and, well, it's not great a success...
Only one photograph, but it summarizes many huge and recurrent problems.
First, the two short movies are supposed to be about a (leading?/experienced) photographer. The only sources of awe in the said two clips are the (usual) aerial (filmed) views and not the (only) photograph which is presented. Maybe a profane/layman or someone distracted can appreciate said photograph, or don't notice it, but most people must feel surprised, and finally experts see immediately the problem. The problem is that an attempt to make a true/genuine photograph of sunrise over the Torres del Paine was made, and that it failed. It failed (mainly) because the wrong (GND) filter was chosen (density too high ! 3 is too much !). Moreover the use of this filter was absolutely not adapted to this kind of scenery. Actually no GND filter should have been used in this situation !
But the main question is which technical means the production of this photograph involved ? Was the photographer dropped from an helicopter with his equipments in order to shoot this view especially ? If it was the case : some people would say that the photograph is an abject failure. First because it's a failed photograph, second : because of the means used and the harms involved (noise, carbon, pollution) ?
And lastly if it was the case : very good idea CONAF !, to give an authorization for such a result : congratulations.
Frankly : we'll never know which means were used to reach the place. But from what can be seen from the movies or the artist galleries, it's doubtful the summit/point-of-view was reach by foot after a night up there or a nightwalk with 1.000 or 1.300 meters of elevation gain...
It may be relevant to mention that some genuine mountain photographers (such as JND, or Jack Brauer**, or other ones) do this alone (with heavy backpack...), often with approaches with much more elevation gain (up to 1.900-2.000 m for JND), or with long night walks (up to 3 hours for JND), etc., and that in the end : genuine photographs are produced. But "of course" : they don't arouse as much interest as aerial photographs... The more money you spend, the more carbon you burn, the less efforts you do, the less experience you've : the more successful you're in the contemporary world ?
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"Photographs" analysis
JND didn't want to be involved in the current analysis/criticism, so in what follows I paraphrase a lot of the technical comments he made about the "photographs" available in the Facebook gallery/set.
So, I'm sad to say that except the photograph of (the blurred reflexion of Poincenot + Chaltél in) laguna Sucia or of the second helicopter flying above the icefield, all the "photographs" look (super) weird, from a technical point of view.
That said, colours in the photograph of the reflexion of Poincenot + Chaltél in Laguna Sucia are not neutralized (cf. rocks/granite) and saturation increase doesn't improve the matter.
And the (previous) "photograph" of the second helicopter flying over the icefield is not free of oddities. Too purplish, fake sky, evidence of editing on the upper ridge (right side), strange discontinuity in the brightness of the seacloud over the archipelago, super strange pink line between the two clouds areas and between the clouds and the sky... I won't go any further and I'll focus on the other "photographs" of the set.
Of course aesthetically they are very nice. More or less. A matter of taste, or of lack of taste.
So, between the two previous "photographs" there is the first photograph of the set/gallery : this high altitude plunging view over snowy foothills of Chaltél's mountain range at sunrise, with lagunas Sucia & de los tres in the middle. So, well, there are plenty of problems. Plenty. It's incredible. Let's remind that it's not allowed to overfly the National Park area. So : few people have authorizations (if one was got), and to get such a result (produce such a "photograph") when there are so few opportunities : well, it's a waste (IMO), or what else ?
So, in said "photograph" they're are problems in so much fields : composition, exposure, colours (lato sensu / on a (very) broad spectrum).
Composition because the summit of Chaltél should be exactly in the middle of the image. The image should be symmetric : it should go from the southernmost illuminated part of Techado Negro to Cerros Eléctrico (Este). But it's not. In fact it should have been shot from slighly further to the North. But it wasn't.
Then, wether exposure for the brightest parts has been failed, or, more probably, there was so much editing of the "photograph" that the resulting image is abnormally dark (though unnoticed by the artist or his assistant) : the overall impression is weird. If the luminosity level in the brightest parts (in the sunlight) is surprisingly low, while, on the contrary, it's surpringly quite high in the darker parts (in the shadows)(except near glacier Grande or at Paso Marconi (for example)). No (physical) filter allow to produce such an image. The original photograph was heavily edited to produce the shimmering "photograph" of the gallery.
Then there are the colours... It's difficult to say if they were neutralized. It looks (more or less) close to the natural colours, except that they're too dark or too bright, that there is too much contrast, and that colours are too saturated. In the shadows the cold blue is nice, though unnatural. In the bright zone : they're so dark that the colors are awful.
Lastly there is a little bit of geometrical distorsion, but it's hardly noticeable.
Then there is the "photograph" from the North, from Paso Marconi (refugio Eduardo García Soto surroundings, let's say). So as the clips/movies show : the artist was brought there by helicopter (x2). This is a clean (how lucky) autumn/winter sunset over the mountain range (with the moon).
The panorama is very nice. Luminosity of the foreground isn't natural, and this result wasn't obtained by the use a (NDG) filter, but by editing. Well, so it's not a photographic technique which was used but (a poorly astutely realized) post-processing on a computer (note that the same effect could have been obtained with a (physical) photographic filter, as snow surface in the foreground is quite flat, but the photographer would need experience to think to it, the technique would have to be mastered, and the good filter would have to be chosen)(but the truth is that in this case no filter is needed). Saturation of colours is also unrealistic.
In this case, fortunately, the artist can easily come back to the original file and do a better (more realistic) post-processing/editing. Even if he didn't (in all likelihood) do a lot of efforts to get up there, he was so lucky with the weather conditions that it's a pity to don't try to produce a natural looking image/photograph from what was recorded.
Then there is the wide aerial panorama at sunrise from Cerro Solo to Gorra-Blanca/C°-30-aniversario (in the foreground), or from cordón Riso Patrón to cordón Ilse von Rentzell (in the background, if I'm correct).
So, there is a little bit of geometrical distorsion (but not that much, TBH). The "photograph" doesn't look that much horizontal (it's slighly tilted, counter clockwise). Saturation of colours is dubious, again.
But what is more surprising are the luminosities. Overall the "photograph" looks quite underexposed, or as if the dynamic of the camera was really poor (quite doubtful - it must be a high end camera). Or the contrast was pushed too much ? Difficult to say. All in all it leads to a not really successful image...
Not much more ideas about this image in particular.
Then we arrive to a set of 4 much more serious "photographs" : high altitude, "colourful", panoramas.
In the first one (panorama at sunrise, from the West, from mini Torre to (more or less) el Tridente) there might be some strange geometrical distorsion on the left and on the right of the image. But it's hard to say for sure.
Then there are the colours. They're obviously : not neutralized, too saturated, and dubious/unreal (but it maybe a perceptual consequense of the two first problems).
The sky was quite dirty.
Brighter parts : North faces of Cerro Torre, torre Egger, punta Herron, cerro Pollone, etc., are too bright, so the photograph would be overexpozed.
Then there is the unreal panorama (from cerros Eléctrico to mini Torre) at sunrise from the North-West (likely from above c° Marconi Norte). Well, it can't be called a photograph at all, the image is unreal and of really bad quality. Who can think anything (lights) is natural in it ? It's a disaster. Colours are a disaster : saturation, neutralization. Exposure doesn't seem ok : underexpozed, and as contrast was pushed too much the colours looks darker and even more saturated. Or the sensor of the camera used severely lacks dynamic ? Unconceivable.
The sky is just unreal. Was it edited separately ? Who cares : overall the image is a failure.
Does colours neutralization tell something to the artist or his assistants ?
Photography is about : drawing on the sensor of your camera with light. Who could think that it's the case here ??? Who can think that such natural light exist, or that anything natural was reproduced ?
Then there is the super broad panorama (from Gorra Blanca to the foothills of Mariano Moreno range (the terrible "volcano" of nunatak Viedma ! :) , etc.)) from the North-West.
There is so much crude, coarse and clumsy editing. Both the upper and the lower parts are unrealistic. How can the artist or his assistants can think that the result is acceptable ?
Luminosity/brightness in most of the icefield look fake. Deep blues of ice look fake. The sky and alpenglow on the peaks look fake.
Such a result is a waste of time and money (and fuel).
Then there are the last two photographs : panoramas around the summits of Chaltél and Cerro Torre. The first : from cerros Eléctrico to cerros Adela, the second : from cerros Eléctrico to the (western) foothills of agujas del río Túnel.
In both the main problem is geometrical distorsion (vertically...)(shapes of the peaks are too dilated/stretched vertically).
Then the contrast is strange and the sky is dirty.
Saturation is a bit too high (increase of contrast ?) but much more controlled than in the other photographs.
Luminosity in some parts is dubious (especially in the lower left corner and in the upper right of the second image).
That's "all".
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In conclusion, shortly :
was it worth the time, the money, the fuel / carbon emission/footprint to make this sets of photographs : I doubt it, so do JND.
Do these "photographs" show the "the great beauty of nature" ? We doubt it, because most of them look so unnatural. Weather condition were, mostly, not great, but maybe the lights were nice : in any case the "photographs" produced don't help to say. Images of the movies look much more natural, because unedited and recorded with automatic adjustments.
Is it a good way to raise awareness of the public about fragility/vulnerability and disappearance of wild areas : I/we doubt it, given the level of paradox involved... But surely it remains convincing for naive people.
My (our) intention is not to offend Mr Luo Hong. He already do some very nice photographs of wildlife. I (we) hope his landscape photographs were more successful in other areas of the world. I (we) wish him to improve in mountain and landscape photography (and his technique to do genuine photography (to avoid to rely on post-processing/editing)). I (we) suggest he uses helicopter with more parsimony, in order to avoid to fuel the problem he wants/claims to struggle against.
One last point : how can such images generate so much interest, and much more interest than genuine photographs (involving craftsmanship and efforts) taken from the ground ?
BD
N.B. : JND has no workshop to sell. (while many self declared "specialists" of chatting and image editing do (though ignorant and technically incompetent in (genuine) photography itself))
* https://chinafoodingredients.com/2015/11/02/discovering-the-holiland-in-china/
https://archello.com/project/luo-hong-art-museum
http://www.luohongartmuseum.com/luohongartmuseum02.html
** Jack Brauer - https://www.mountainphotography.com
"Genuine" Patagonia - © Luo Hong
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