Dan Khann

[Dragons_cave]

To cut the photographer some slack its not easy to photograph male bodies that are heavily ripped and muscular using outdoor ambient lighting. The cut ripped look that is so masculine and appealing casts lots of deep shadows that make the illumination levels really critical. If the illumination is too uniform it does not showcase the achieved muscularity that well and if it is not uniform enough there is a temptation to underexpose the whole image to prevent the bright areas on the taut highly reflective skin from blowing out.

Looking through lots of Kosmos images of Dan a great many of them appear to be somewhat underexposed and consequently a little bit grainy, but this is probably deliberate because so many are shot in very strong outdoor lighting and this is necessary to capture detail across different parts of the image.

When you see a subject as spectacularly beautiful as Dan you always wish for a more perfect technical rendition of his images but most of his photographs are of very high quality in comparison with the generality of what is posted on here taken with poor quality cell phone cameras in completely inadequate indoor lighting.

I agree that the photographer (Sasha Cosmos or Kosmos, he used both translitterations) is lazy and employs a high ISO to compensate for insufficient illumination or underexposure. However, the two pictures don’t differ only for contrast and brightness; in at least one the body has been morphed; see the composition below where I blended the pictures together: there is a clear difference on the left side, particularly at hip level.

I guess the manipulated picture is the left one (there the hair color seems artificially fair). I don’t know who did the manipulation (photographer or model or somebody else) and why: people will obviously find it out.

Anyway, thank you a lot for the technical explanation about photography. I agree that most of the wannabe OF models don’t care a bit about the quality of their photos, usually made with the smarphone’s camera. Luckily Dan collaborated with a professional photographer, otherwise we would have only some low-quality selfies. This seems an exception nowadays, though.

 

[BuckyD]

I agree that the photographer (Sasha Cosmos or Kosmos, he used both translitterations) is lazy and employs a high ISO to compensate for insufficient illumination or underexposure. However, the two pictures don’t differ only for contrast and brightness; in at least one the body has been morphed; see the composition below where I blended the pictures together: there is a clear difference on the left side, particularly at hip level.
View attachment 128283891
I guess the manipulated picture is the left one (there the hair color seems artificially fair). I don’t know who did the manipulation (photographer or model or somebody else) and why: people will obviously find it out.

Anyway, thank you a lot for the technical explanation about photography. I agree that most of the wannabe OF models don’t care a bit about the quality of their photos, usually made with the smarphone’s camera. Luckily Dan collaborated with a professional photographer, otherwise we would have only some low-quality selfies. This seems an exception nowadays, though.

Interesting - this suggests an attempt to reduce the apparent size of his left deltoid but also to slightly reduce the waist size and accentuate the right latissmus dorsi . The size of his quads are also slightly reduced (or enhanced depending on which image was nearer to his actual proportions.)

Since the obvious differences only affect the horizontal dimensions I am wondering if one of the images might have been saved with a slightly altered aspect ratio.

 

[dusty0941]

 

[alexscott1818]