Would you process a photograph to this degree?

<p>Wow, John, I wish you a speedy recovery. I hope that the new knees will give you a good boost in mobility.</p>

<p>As the song says: <em>"I like beer / It makes me a jolly good fellow!"</em></p>

<p>Go Steelers!</p>

<p>:-)</p>

 

<p>Thanks, Dan. I'm looking forward to being bake to take pictures more than 50 feet from the car once again. I live near Shenandoah National Park and hope to be on the trails again this Spring.</p>

<p>You guys need a break. How many days will this go on?</p>

<p>Here, go contemplate these images from a member whose recent absence no doubt leads to 'touchiness' here: (<a href="http://www.westfordcomp.com/">link</a>)</p>

Who's touchy?

I was wondering the same thing, John.

Or was that touché?

<p>John, good luck on the recovery of your knee op. i know some blokes who had it done, they were like new men once they recovered from the surgery. Good luck</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The comment about him not being an artist in photographer, i completely dissagree with.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Perhaps you're right. I haven't seen his other work, and basing my judgement on this one photo, I'm not impressed. I should not have judged a photographer by one photograph.</p>

<p>I do not want to beat a dead horse here but it comes down to the use of the photo. I often use stitching, subtle hdr, other types of post processing but always to try to do it to the needs of the client. Sometimes hdr is required to get a perfect exposure or stitching is needed to gain the right field of view or more commonly for me a high resolution. When a client requests photos with this type of capture I am an image maker. There is nothing wrong with making an image that best represents the scene or product. I agree that if what he made was being used for commercial work that that would be misleading. But I often spend many hours post processing images to get them absolutely right. I guess it depends on your personal style but to get absolutely perfect images in the commercial world these techniques are used everyday. Though i would like to point out that his image would be far from acceptable due to the distortion, the lighting looks fake, and overall LOOKS processed. I might post process a lot but strive to make sure the viewer would never know.</p>

"Further, he was generous enough to share the details of his approach to post-processing freely with the photographic community."

 

It's pathetic. I was expecting some kind of HDR-ed monstrosity but it's just a pathetic photography. The kind of thing most people could knock up in five minutes. It's a facile, useless example of instructional technique and - more importantly - it's a rubbish image. It looks tacky and cheap, like the kind of thing you'd see on a Hong Kong eBay auction for UV filters. He's chopped the tops off the trees, used awful selective colour with a shoddy mask, and it just looks rubbish. It makes the castle look like a cheap plastic model.

 

Shot with a Phase One P45+, no less. I picture a self-unaware idiot waffling on about the rapturous wonder of nature, etc; either incredibly naive and pampered, living in a bubble, or a trained salesman with a fixed smile. I'm seriously unimpressed with Luminous Landscape, to put it mildly, and all the people who write for it. Vast, vast quantities of expensive equipment lugged across striking landscape; utterly bland photographs of distant trees, pelicans, the same picture postcard rubbish year after year. Small businessmen who shoot images to illustrate lectures and workshops, pompous self-aggrandising miniature people who want their shot at immortality without putting in the work. They will pass from this world leaving nothing behind.

 

"I was so impressed with Belmonte that I took my family back the next day and was treated to a beautiful misty morning" - yeah, I bet you did, you woke them up at 06:00 so you could take a rubbish photograph of a castle. The weird thing is that the rest of his work, on his website, is often very good. Perhaps he was asked to submit an article to Luminous Landscape, and he just tossed something worthless off for the publicity. It doesn't help me at all.

<p>There's no need to hold back, folks. Tell us how you <em>REALLY</em> feel.</p>

<p>;-)</p>

<p>Maybe the Phase people should ask the publisher to add a disclaimer to the article. ("This image isn't representative of the capabilities of our camera systems.") </p>

 

>>> Tell us how you REALLY feel.<P>

 

OK. Two words. <a href= "http://www.google.com/search?

q=thomas+kinkade&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=cnICT7etO7P

ciQKgiPS2CQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CGMQ_AUoAQ&biw=1053&bih=658">Thomas Kinkade</a>...

<p>Ashley, dont hold back mate, i mean dont let fear stand in your way. Your abhorence is evident, But to say it is pathetic as an absolute is just nonesence, What you really mean to say is you dont like it, you may even hate it. What you have is an opinion, we all have one of those.</p>

But, Richard: does Ashley, or do any/ all of us have to preface everything we say with..."it's just my opinion" , or risk being

accused of expressing some "absolute" , universal statement? I think it's abundantly obvious that he's expressing how

he thinks/feels about the photograph...

<p>JOhn you are right, but its a full on opinion,<br>

Brad, I just checked out Thomas Kinkade, and for me his work is not a pleasure to look at. To me it apears as if he is creating almost a cartoon like scene, something from snow white or something, And thats ok, what ever floats your boat.</p>

Richard, not sure I understand what you mean by "full on"...but whether or not I agreed with his opinion or not, it was

refreshing to hear someone say what's "REALLY on his mind"...minus all the tip-toeing around that's so prevalent in so

many responses. I'm right...but?

Richard, one thing for sure; we agree about Kinkaid. Should you be interested...you might want to Google a bit. Lots of

controversy regarding the ethics of his business practices.

<p>When enough people agree and when a lot of experts agree (and I do think there are photography experts as there are in other fields, including painting, sculpture, and plumbing), it can go beyond opinion. I may not know much about opera (I happen to know a fair amount about it). And if I say I don't like a certain opera and many people who have much greater exposure to and fluency with opera tell me the one I don't like is a good one, I tend to put stock in what they've said. I may not be capable at the moment of liking it any more, but I can accept it as good and set my own opinion aside in making that judgment.</p>

<p>One's opinion is often ONLY one's opinion (though it may be a strong one and the only thing we may have at the moment) and there is a lot of very real stuff beyond opinion, in my opinion(!). That's why my not liking a certain opera doesn't make it a bad opera. This is tricky stuff, but I very much believe there's a lot more than opinion on a lot of these matters. It's somewhat in vogue to say art is all subjective and just a matter of taste. I don't think so, and that's not the way art has always been viewed or thought of. I think there are many objective judgments that can be made and I consider some people more qualified to make those judgments than others. [i'm not specifically talking about the photographer or the opinions about his work in this thread.]</p>

>>> And thats ok, what ever floats your boat.<P>

 

We <i>are</i> talking about the Painter of Light, you know...

Fred, I know nothing of opera, with what relatively little I've heard coming from movies or TV (it's a bit embarrassing

making the admission). With more exposure, perhaps I would have acquired more of a taste for it than I presently

have...but nonetheless, from time to time I do hear opera that I truly enjoy.

 

Case in point: "Vide Cor Meum"' written by Patrick Cassidy. I understand Cassidy was commissioned to write the

piece for the movie, "Hannibal" (of all things). I'm simply in love with with this aria. So a question to you, Fred : as

someone who does know opera...how would you rate this particular piece of opera?

<p>I wouldn't rate it in this context, John. I'd appreciate the fact that it's caught your attention and introduced you to the world of opera. From there, I'd just encourage you to listen to more and form your own judgments over time, but most of all and long before judging, I'd say just listen and enjoy.</p>

<p>To add to your opera repertoire, here's one of the most beloved of arias, <a href="

Diva from Bellini's Norma.</a></p>

<p>"Tell us how you <em>REALLY</em> feel."</p>

<p> Teapot tempest. The indignation was amusing. The original question was personal and, as some of us responded, a yes or no, but thread entropy took this well beyond that, to Kinkade's business practices.</p>

<p>"...pompous self-aggrandising <em>miniature people</em> who want their shot at immortality..."</p>

<p>Imagine <em>that </em>in a giggle of photographers<em>. </em>Thank God that only happens elsewhere.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Personally processing an image to this degree is certainly something I wouldn't do however my objection comes when a photographer tries to pawn work like this off as a photograph rather than a digital manipulation. Unfortunately there are many photographers out there that fall in this bracket.</p>

<p>Guy: How did you get to define "photograph?" Photographs have always been manipulations -- chemical before they were digital. </p>

<p>How about this image from 1932?</p><div></div>