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Would you process a photograph to this degree?


dan_south

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This gentleman is obviously a very skilled photographer. He's a well-known and successful professional who has won many accolades for his work over a long career. Further, he was generous enough to share the details of his approach to post-processing freely with the photographic community.

 

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/1photo-pages/castille_belmonte___spanish_castle.shtml

 

 

Images processed in this manner have brought this gentleman considerable success and renown. The approach is perfectly acceptable and seems to agree with the photographer and with his clients, Further, there are plenty of other well-regarded photographers who use a

similar approach in theirs work and have done so since the advent of Photoshop.

 

However, I would NEVER do this.

 

Unless a client insisted that I create an image using similar techniques, I could never see myself processing a photograph to this extent.

Instead of enhancing colors with local adjustments, I would have waited for better light, even if that required modifying my travel

itinerary. Instead of inventing trees that don't exist, I would have searched for a better composition. Instead of enhancing bad light with layers, I would have optimized a well-lit and properly-exposed capture in Lightroom. And if I had elected to stitch together composite images, I would have made every attempt to avoid or remove lens distortion in the process.

 

When people look at my photos I don't want them to think that I've fabricated light or compositional details with computerized tools, no

matter how skillful their application. I want the viewer to feel a sense of trust that what they see is an accurate representation of what their eyes would have seen had they been standing beside me at the time of capture. It's important to me that my photographs convey a sense of credulity and veracity rather than the exploitation of an opportunity to create a technically impressive fabrication.

 

For my own benefit, I relish the feeling of walking away from a shoot knowng that I have captured something special: an interesting subject with lighting and composition that will work together to enhance the viewer's experience of that moment. I want to feel excited about having captured the light and the viewpoint that I have just witnessed. I don't think I would feel very satisfied capturing a gray, unexciting scene that I could use later as the basis for demonstrating advanced computer skills. That skips the whole magic of the exposure process, the magic that makes be want to crawl out of bed before sunrise so I can witness and capture something compelling and inspiring.

 

People are welcome work with photographs in any way that pleases them and their audience. I want my images to convey the sense of an actual experience rather than a fantastic re-envisioning of a dull scene, and I want my viewers to understand the difference.

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I don't like it very much. It's visibly stretched, and the adjustments on the castle look like some very tacky lighting

designer has had a go at it. Given the lighting condition he shot in and the squat castle that looks more militarily

practical than fantastical - and the author's desire for something fantastical - this appears to be a tutorial on turd-

polishing.

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<blockquote>

<p><em>"Would you process a photograph to this degree?"</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Dan, I have in the past as part of my on-going learning, but I probably wouldn't have processed the particular photograph you linked to in the same way or even have taken the shot with that composition. </p>

<p>I don't see anything inherently flawed with doing it, though. </p>

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<p>It's more interesting than the moronic "this camera is better than that camera" threads.</p>

<p>I would not do this myself. If I wanted a picture like that one, I would simply take it with my smartphone and Vignette or something. Much quicker and easier, same basic result.</p>

<p>What's the point of making an unreal travel photo?</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>What is a "travel photo," anyway? Is it an image you that you made according to your vision and taste, but which happened to involve some travel in its execution? Ansel Adams' very manipulated "Moonrise" was shot while he was out on the road. He sure didn't live in the parks he photographed. Are those travel photos?<br /><br />Or are we talking about photos meant to be used by the travel industry, encouraging people to visit? Or are we talking about something meant to document one's travels. Some of my more fanciful (and manipulated) images happened to involve subject matter that was in front of me while I traveled. But then, likewise with stuff that's 50 feet from where I'm typing this at my dining room table. The conversation doesn't need to be about the scene linked-to above - it's pretty much just the usual "do I like manipulated images or not, and of course they all are, so where's the line, etc" stuff.</p>
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<p>The good news is that the OP can make a photo any way he wants, and we'll look at that and judge it on its own merit. Come on guys - it's called creativity. Lots of artists hate other artists work. Just because the OP, or any of us, don't like this example of post-processing doesn't mean it has any less value.</p>
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<blockquote>

<p>the viewer's experience of that moment</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As I understand things, the viewer is not experiencing "the moment."* That's what I, the photographer, may have experienced. The viewer is experiencing the photograph! Photos are made many different ways.</p>

<p>______________________</p>

<p>*There's often a bigger picture and story than "the moment."</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Would you process a photograph to this degree?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sure. But I wouldn't process this photograph to any degree, because it doesn't interest me. The photo is the important thing, and the process is important, not in some abstract sense of "Would I ever do this?" but in a more concrete sense of "Does the process work with the photo?" "Does it help the content to express itself in the way the photographer wants it to?" There are some photos I will process the hell out of and other photos I will process minimally. I don't go into it with a rule or limitation based on a moral or esthetic judgment about process. I process according to the need of the image I'm working with and my own desire and vision.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>As to the picture of the castle linked to, why not process it as processed? It's a kitschy kind of shot to begin with: castle, road, and trees, kind of the ultimate cliché. So it's processed, in a sense, just the way it should be. It's made to be popular, to take iconic elements and put them together as if they are important, as if they are art, almost the definition of kitsch. The processing goes along with this kind of mindset. It could nicely hang in a motel room, a doctor's office, or a company lobby, or a model house down in one of those fancy Florida developments. No, it's not OVER-processed. It's processed like a soap opera and like millions of paintings that are sold at San Francisco's wharf every year. It will be very appealing to a lot of people, just as are Elvises on black velvet.</p>

<p>It's got nothing to do with the AMOUNT of processing or with the fact that it's processed to begin with. It's the aesthetics of the processing. Someone might beautifully and harmoniously process a photo and take twice as much time as this photographer, be more manipulative and, in some cases, even more over-the-top, but with a mindful, thoughtful, visionary intention. I wouldn't consider that over-processed. I'd consider it well processed. Sometimes things are heavily and well processed because you don't feel the finished product as processed at all, even though it is. Sometimes photos are well processed and you do feel them as processed but that feeling is part of the experience the photographer wants you to have.</p>

<p>Processing does not have to be about super-saturation, mindless iconization, prettifying reality. In the right hands, it is, has always been, and will continue to be, a photographic and artistic tool.</p>

<p>For me, it's not about the <em>degree</em> of processing. It's about what it looks like.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>"What's the point of making an unreal travel photo?"</p>

<p>Tourist baksheesh? Enhancing what didn't look so hot while you were there? Fantasy? Who cares? If someone want to do that, why not? The viewer is always free to look away.</p>

<p>"They always have these incredibly beautiful women with amazing bodies in the beach photos. No beach I've visited has ever had those women. Totally unreal!"</p>

<p>Um...Jeff no beach does...not at one time, anyway. You have to bring your own. It's like no forest has nubile pups frolicking in them like they do in Ryan McGinley pix, either. Humans have no trouble trespassing & suspending disbelief beyond the real. Besides, what is real to one, is unreal to the other. It's grand.</p>

<p>Dan, I would do that to one of my pictures, if I was interested in that kind of thing, but at the moment, I'm not.</p>

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<p>Dan, as I read your opening comments, I sort of agree that there really isn't much to talk about. You essentially sum up the difference between photographers, that each finds their own way and a body of work that they promote. Commercially, photographers do this all the time, often developing techniques or looks that are a far cry from what they might do personally. You have to have something unique to sell if you want the better jobs or you have to do it better than others.</p>

<p>I have always figured that if one does what they believe in and put their heart and soul into it, they will find success. Sitting around and comparing what I do with what others do will get me nowhere. Looking at others work and finding some inspiration, often nothing to do with what I am looking at but more a catalyst, is worthwhile.</p>

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<p>Another way to approach it . . .</p>

<p>Let's say this same pic were taken from the same angle and in a glorious golden warm sunset light. Minimal post processing. The time of day and the right filters got the gold. It would still be schlock. Natural schlock. A premium seems to be put on "natural" instead of the sensibility and aesthetics of it all. Natural beauty wouldn't help this shot. It would just make it naturally kitschy and a naturally uninterestingly pretty photo.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>Dan - </p>

<p>My full-time, day job has an art gallery that rotates through an "artist of the month" - December's artist was a local photographer who does very much the same thing. </p>

<p>One of my friends commented that his photos look very different than mine - not worse nor better, just different. Having actually talked to the artist a couple of years ago when he did a visit during the exhibit, I was able to explain to my friend how his images where different than mine, and how he gets the look. </p>

<p>He shoots multiple images at various exposures of each section of the final photo. He then processes them through an HDR plug-in or app. Finally once he has each section just the way he wants it, he combines / stitches them together into the final composition. </p>

<p>He went on to explain that for each finished image he shoots between 40 and 50 photos, and spends probably 40 - 80 hours on the finished product, each consisting of between 6-10 different images, depending on the scene and the different lighting patterns in each. </p>

<p>My initial response was wow and it still is. The colors are incredible, the exposure of each element is perfect, and the stitching is impossible to detect. </p>

<p>Of course there are two problems: <br>

1) The scenes he captures look nothing like they do in reality. Even in nature, the colors he produces don't exist. </p>

<p>2) The lighting he achieves is not possible in nature. </p>

<p>But he is showing his vision and interpretation of the scene. </p>

<p>Would I do something like that? Nope, not a chance. I prefer that my images capture and show things in a more nature light and color range. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

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