{"id":58888,"date":"2019-02-14T13:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T04:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fujifilmnxtc.wpenginepowered.com\/?post_type=xstories&p=58447"},"modified":"2019-02-14T13:00:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T04:00:36","slug":"personal-best-vol-14-patrick-la-roque","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/stories\/personal-best-vol-14-patrick-la-roque\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Best vol.14 | Patrick La Roque"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always envied photographers with a very clear sense of who they are and what they do. For some reason, my work has constantly mutated from one year to the next, slightly changing focus every time I\u2019ve tried to pin it down. I\u2019ve come to accept digression as a rule in life. The upside is variety and a chance to explore different areas of photography. But it makes portfolio-building very hard to figure out: which category is most representative? Is it portraiture? Commercial photography? Interiors? Street? Or is it personal, sometimes intimate work\u2014images I\u2019ve also been sharing for years now\u2014that defines who I am? The truth is I don\u2019t know. But perhaps that\u2019s the point: to accept all of it, every subject matter\u2014work or personal\u2014as equally important.<\/p>\n

As for singling out favourites: I could choose five or ten or a hundred pictures and it still wouldn\u2019t feel right. So here\u2019s a few I\u2019m proud of, most of them work-related to avoid opening a Pandora\u2019s Box of private moments. Images that simply felt like tentative steps forward.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Miriodor<\/h3>\n

These two images are from the very first job I shot with the GFX 50S, about a week after I purchased it. I set the camera to RAW+Super Fine and used one of my customized \u201cpushed\u201d version of the ACROS film simulation. I began by placing a single strobe in a small soft box and clearly remember the thrill I felt after a few tests shots, looking at those black and white frames on the LCD. This first image I chose certainly isn\u2019t perfect, but I love its mood, the guitarist\u2019s head tilting back as he exhales cigarette smoke. I admit to having the great Anton Corbijn on my mind at the time…not that I\u2019d dare comparing my results to his work. But sometimes a private reference can conjure up the right frame of thought in the field. We used mirrors on the second picture…still just one light.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

GFX 50S & GF63mmF2.8 R WR<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

GFX 50S & GF63mmF2.8 R WR<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

From sketch to frame<\/h3>\n

This is the last image I shot on a 3-day gig for DentsuBos and Lexus Canada. Essentially, I\u2019m happy it came together: this started out as a hand drawn sketch that I pitched as an idea to the project\u2019s art director. The camera was fixed to a tripod, each car positioned according to the proposed layout; we then had someone drive the third car across the frame. Yes, we did a few takes to figure out the proper speed (car AND camera shutter)\u2026but there was still more time spent on preparation then on actual shooting\u2014once everything was set, the capture pretty much became a formality.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

GFX 50S & GF63mmF2.8 R WR<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A conference room in Stockholm<\/h3>\n

I was on assignment in Stockholm covering the launch of a new Profoto product, and on our last day we were given a tour of the company\u2019s headquarters. This image was shot during a briefing in a very banal, neon-lit conference room. Dropping the exposure intensified the shadows cast by the modifiers hanging on the wall, transforming audience members into a sort of natural frame and creating a much more interesting\u2014and dramatic\u2014mood. It\u2019s always amazing to me: how we can bend reality and reveal an entirely new layer, just with a few simple decisions in the field. I used \u201cpushed\u201d ACROS again here: which means I was actively seeing this high contrast image in the EVF. No guesswork and much more inspiring.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

X-Pro2 & XF35mmF2 R WR<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Image\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Diffused<\/h3>\n

One last image: it was part of an essay for an ongoing collaborative project called KAGE Collective<\/a>. I had a very dark, specific ambience in mind for this series. Most of the pictures are fragmented and more or less abstract, but this one takes it further\u2014the movement emphasizing the painterly look I was aiming for. Shot with one strobe, in a bedroom.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

GFX 50S & GF63mmF2.8 R WR<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more on “Personal Best”<\/h2>\n

Vol.1- Flemming Bo Jensen<\/a>
\nVol.2- Pieter D’Hoop<\/a>
\nVol.3- Santiago Escobar-Jarmillo<\/a>
\nVol.4- Stefan Finger<\/a>
\nVol.5- Xyza Cruz Bacani<\/a>
\nVol.6- Christian Bobst<\/a>
\nVol.7- Tomasz Lazar<\/a>
\nVol.8- Eamonn McCarthy<\/a>
\nVol.9- Faruk Akbas\u0327<\/a>
\nVol.10- Kevin Mullins<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always envied photographers with a very clear sense of who they are and what they do. For some reason, my work has constantly mutated from one year to the next, slightly changing focus every time I\u2019ve tried to pin it down. I\u2019ve come to accept digression as a rule in life. The upside is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":58889,"template":"","category":[2084,1006,1202,3113,10463,10022,1937,1055,13039,3701,3211,13040,3505,3309,320,1986,565,5759,7768],"post_tag":[11972],"b2b-solutions":[],"class_list":["post-58888","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-be-inspired","category-cameras","category-category","category-g-mount","category-gf63mmf28-r-wr","category-gfx-50s","category-gfx-series","category-lenses","category-mirrorless-digital-cameras","category-gfx-series-mirrorless","category-x-series-mirrorless","category-prime-lenses","category-g-mount-prime","category-x-mount-prime","category-products","category-x-series","category-stories","category-x-pro2","category-xf35mmf2-r-wr","tag-personal-best"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-29 17:23:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story\/58888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=58888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_tag?post=58888"},{"taxonomy":"b2b-solutions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fujifilm-x.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/b2b-solutions?post=58888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}