Should I ignore reality? Feedback appreciated...

This picture shows a Memorial Stone from the war between Denmark and Prussia/Austria in 1864. It is raised on a slightly sloping hill, and that shows when then picture is made into a B/W silhouette.

 

I can correct this in Photoshop, but my question is whether I should do that, or if I should let the real world remain as it is?

 

On one hand it would make the picture more balanced, but on the other hand the stone was raised to remind us of a battle on this exact hill. So would it be the right ting to do to remove the "sloping Hill-effect" in the picture?

 

I can't figure out what the right answer is. If there is any right answer...

 

It would be very interesting to hear your opinion on this question.

 

A B/W silhouette isn't the "real world" I can't judge without seeing the real world photo what it actually looked like. So you mean to crop out all the bottom black ground? Go ahead, you've already lost the "real world when you converted it to a silhouette anyway?.

In the end your photo is an interpretation of what your eyes saw. I am not big into heavy manipulation but tweaking toward a final result is not a bad thing.

Thank you for your reply both of you.

 

What I considered doing was photoshopping the slight slope of the ground away (or the slight tilt of the stone as it is on the original photo, where the ground is artificially level because of the way I held the camera).

 

By doing so I would remove the slight slope of the original hill to make it a picture without an obvious unbalance/mistake. And that made me wonder if doing that would be braking some unwritten rule of good photography behavior?

 

But I get the point about having already lost the real world by converting to a silhouette. So I think I'll level the ground.

Personally, I like the photo just the way it is. Your changes may make it a more artistic interpretation. You can have two good photos - a real life silhouette and an artistic interpretation.

The right answer is whatever you want it to be. Painting - was Picasso the right answer or was Caravaggio?

What I considered doing was photoshopping the slight slope of the ground away

You are of course free to replace the gras-fuzzy black bottom line with an artificial smooth one. But in my eyes the given minor reminder of reality from which you abstracted a photo is nice. and a reason to start with photography at all instead of arranging pixels or vector graphics by hand.

You are of course free to replace the gras-fuzzy black bottom line with an artificial smooth one. But in my eyes the given minor reminder of reality from which you abstracted a photo is nice. and a reason to start with photography at all instead of arranging pixels or vector graphics by hand.

 

I tend to agree with you about that. It would be easy to replace the grassline with a straight line, and in a way I like the simplicity of that look. But at the same time it would remove the subject from what it really is. I suppose it's up to individual taste, but I prefer the grass-line too.

I like your photo as it is.

If you intend the photo to be more documentary in nature, accuracy is important. If not, do what works best for you. If it’s not documentary, you can interpret as you wish, though that sense of real-world accuracy might still be important. But it might not. Up to you. As for the jpg you linked to, I don’t particularly like the heavy silhouette effect here, or at least the way it’s executed, but nothing about the composition or balance bothers me.

Surely 'reality' is merely a fantasy agreed upon by the majority ?

Surely 'reality' is merely a fantasy agreed upon by the majority ?

 

You think? Really?:p

 

For myself, I think Plato is still dead.

This is dialectics. It's very simple dialectics: one through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without like, you know, with fractions! What are you going to land on: one quarter, three eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics, okay?

:rolleyes:

The correct solution would be to redo the image while standing atop a sufficiently large ladder (or mount the camera on a sufficiently long pole). IMHO, the current image cannot be fixed in photoshop as the four pillars will remain too short and the chains will continue to touch the ground - neither would be an issue if the image was taken from "higher up".

As already suggested there is no correct answer, only opinions.

 

The picture is photographic art. Hence, some folks would rise from the grave if you even hinted at changing the piece. Others would simply look at the photos as one persons artistic impression of a subject and open to reinterpretation by anyone.

 

Do what you think is proper. You are not destroying the original if you try to "improve" on it. It is not like you are going to paint over a Rembrandt. :)

Make the picture you want to make, not the picture you think people want you to make. People will like it. Or they won't. But it will be your picture.

 

-K