I've admired Mangelsen's work for many years. He used to have a gallery in my area and I visited occasionally.
Kmgw9v wrote:
...I believe Anderson Cooper said that Manglesen does very little post-processing.
I wonder.
Actually, what they said in the 60 minutes story was that he "shuns digital manipulation". That's very different than "post-processing".
They were discussing the image of the grizzly about to catch the salmon in mid-air... one of Tom's most famous images. Anderson Cooper commented that someone might pretty easily just "Photoshop" that image... Which, of course, Tom's shot wasn't because it was taken in 1988, before Photoshop or digital photography existed.
If they've been printed, I can assure you all his images have been post-processed to some extent or another. Maybe Tom doesn't do the post-processing
himself, but pays someone to do it!
And I'm not sure where he draws the line what he considers "manipulated". I recall one image of a leopard in a tree that obviously had the background dropped out. I think I saw that image in the 60 minutes story.
I've got one of his very early prints.... shot on film I'm sure. It's a neat photo of a pair of cardinals in a snow scene, but he also missed focus slightly!
A lot of Tom's work is done with large telephotos. I bet he uses aperture preferred (A or Av) auto exposure mode a lot (to control the depth of field).... shutter preferred (S or Tv) AE other times (cheetahs chasing prey).... and Manual whenever he can. Someone with his level of experience knows that each of the exposure modes serves a purpose and knows when and how to use them.
IMO, while his photography is great from a technical perspective and it's of subjects that are interesting and beautifully composed... his real genius has been his diligence traveling to the far reaches to get a shot and his patience waiting for days when necessary to capture the most ideal shot. He also must be a ruthless editor.... when you consider how many millions of shots he must have taken in 40+ years and that at most only a few thousand have been printed and offered for sale in limited editions. (Many more of his images are offered as stock photography.)
Tom studied as a biologist before he got seriously into photography. I think that also has served him well, knowing details of his subjects and with contacts or a network within the scientific community.
Tom is also a master marketer.... Or maybe he has someone sharp handling that aspect of his business for him.