As of the 17th of this month, Sky Arts will be available on Freeview. The programming looks a bit Pop oriented, but there does seem to be the odd programme on photography - isn't that the channel they have the annual Master of Photography programme on?
Master of Photography was quite good for the first couple of series when they used Leica cameras. Last series they switched to Canon and the quality obviously slumped dramatically....
Did sponsorship have anything to do with the change of equipment? I have no reason to suggest that it did. I haven't even seen the program. I am just asking the question out of curiosity.
On its first Freeview night, I watched (mainly out of nothing better to do) Celebrity Portrait Artist of the Year. Good grief, there was some rubbish in that programme!
I learnt years ago that celebrity anything is likely to be rubbish. Very occasionally I hear that one of these 'entertainments' is worth watching. In such cases I might watch them on Freeview catchup. I don't use any Paid view facility except that provided by my TV licence fee. I paid for over 50 years for that and when it was my turn to get it for free I got it for 6 months.
A good example of why I would never pay for tv over and above BBC. Tales of the Unexpected I can do without along with the other dated rubbish. Masters of Photography is however being shown at 7pm Tues 22nd September.
Hmmm, according to the EPG on my TV, they are showing episode 1 of series 1. Do they normally show old ones before a new series or are they repeating an old one because of Corvid/lockdown/etc preventing doing a series this year?
I gave Sky Arts a try a few days ago when "Madame Butterfly" was showing, and with Pappano as conductor. It would have been OK on the radio, but to me, the minimalist sets had gone way too far, and I turned it off. (In fact I did try again, but I thought the sets were still over- stylised minimalist.)
Did you watch it? I must admit I was very disappointed by it. The general presentation/camerawork was definitely a bit too reality game show for me. I didn't see how a lot of the work produced fit the brief they were given. And Simon Frederick, one of the judges, said something along the lines of "They produced pictures for us, not for themselves". Um, I thought that was the point of giving them a brief in the first place? OK, it was an old one, first series, so I assume it got better later on, but overall, not impressed. But maybe that's just me...
They got rid of the annoying woman later on but the camera work and lack of real insight into the photographic process remained. I still watch it but through gritted teeth a lot of the time.
I'm watching Sky Arts on photography, with Bruce Gilden as its mentor, and Berlin as the arena. Bruce Gilden comes across as an opinionated bully, and Berlin, as shown, is a dump. So very different to how my neighbour found it. Yuk!
I enjoyed Rankin, much more civilised than the over egged Berlin slot. I do hope the standard improves. I wasn't impressed with the Madame Butterfly two weeks ago (minimalist staging, I thought), so that makes a hit rate for me of 1 in 3. And that's a bit low.
