Untitled

I'm happy I came late on this discussion. 'cause I got to see the original in first place. I stopped long time ago to worry about PS, but Lars, I sincerely think your original take is brilliant and good enough not to need any PS.

Anyway they are both great jobs: colors, mood and sensations run high here!

I love this image, PS'd and all. I keep coming back to it over and over and I love how it makes me think, what it makes me feel. It's an image I can't get out of my head and it's executed brilliantly.

Lars, congrats on the second POW bro. Toughen up the skin man. Take it with a grain of salt. People have looked I'm sure, but they just don't dig photography that's been PS'd. Take the good with the bad. You're great at what you do man, a true artist, photoshop or no photoshop. You know I'm one of your biggest fans man and love everything you produce. Just enjoy the week...

It's strange.

It is strange, I would like to see something out of focus.

Hey Dave! I'm enjoying it alright, make no mistake about it :-) I think the comments made in this forum is the best feedback I've ever gotten.

And as for pure vs photoshopped photography, followers of boths sides have made interesting arguments. I'm just annoyed if thats the most interesting thing that can be said about my stuff. That the postprocessing is interesting, or well executed.. or badly executed. To me, postprocessing is just a means to better communicate my ideas or vision, the processing is hopefully not a theme in itself, if you know what I mean.

I sure know what you mean!

The challenge is to have the message override the process - PS, darkroom, or in camera. The more effects, the stronger the message needs to be. As with all images, the balance will be favorable for some, but not for others. I think that's why some liked the original capture - perhaps not because there was less PS work, but because the number of effects wasn't quite so overwhelming.

A great photo is one that arrests your attention and grabs your mind and pleases your eye.

This great photo does all that and captivates the imagination. Terrific work Lars!

creative people can use digital or not and still get quality work out of it. creative people don't fret over what they can use or what they cannot use to produce their art. creative people don't defend a narrow point of view because they know that a particular way of doing things doesn't dictate the legitimacy of the outcome.

 

 

creative people create, people who wish they were creative spend their time trying to tear the creatives down with thing like, "look how I do it, this makes me more legit right?", rather than being concerned with the final image.

This piece is quite splendid, the foot prints really add to what appears to be the formulation of the characters thoughts, perhaps finding the solution in which they where pondering in the first place? Regradless I enjoy the compostion well balanced and definately makes one think about the situation.

I profess to have more than just a passing enjoyment of this image.

 

But as others have noted, there is a trend towards the use of PS to create digital paintings that pretty much obscure the vestiges of photography. In this image, the addition of a canvas texture is, in my opinion, unnecessary. I believe that the lighting and details of the original photograph are probably more than sufficient to create an appealing and interesting image.

 

This is not a criticism of the aesthetic appeal of its image, but more of its classification. Photography has already established itself as a valid art form, there is no need to dress it up as a painting to establish its credentials.

Looking at this and all the comments, I have a few "end of the week" thoughts:

 

(1) Carl Root's point on the relative needs of a strong message to complement a complex image are right on. He's hit the nail on the head as to why I have a stronger gut reaction to the pre-PS version.

 

(2) No one seems to react negatively to the in-camera manipulation, which is as strong as or stronger than the ps-manipulation. The vignetting, the odd color cast, even the placement of the focus in front of the person, on the footprints - all are things that happened inside the camera that manipulate and distort "reality". All of them also add to the image and make it successful. With respect to the texturing added in PS, it might well have been obtained during traditional printing. What about the fact that it was added in ps makes it different from the other manipulations? Why do you hate your boxes filled with silicon and solder but love your little empty box?

 

(3) I can't identify in the discussion a clear rationale for the additional layer of texture: can anyone tell me clearly what it adds to the image? To me, whether added by ps or by wet chemistry, the added texture only obscures. My problems with that texturing have nothing to do with ps. Why should they?

One other point: one of the things I think the texture obscures is the absolutely perfect focus of the original; the blurring of the person, it appears partly by a longer exposure(?), partly by placing the sharpest focus in front of her, and the crispness of the footprints is wonderful. With texture, those footprints becomes much less distinct.

 

I think there are other strong qualities that are obscured, like the flat, surreal colors, but that focus is the big problem for me.

One comes to a strange place(our world) leaving behind his foot prints as others has left, as visible in front of this pic. This photograph leaves an impression on viewer`s mind that "memories are left behind" as "footprints on the sands of time", which remain for ever.This pic is realy a nice painting done by light, very nicely composed with very pleasing colour tone....

 

rabinder from INDIA.

I love the image. Reminds me of paintings done by an artist here in Maine, Dozier Bell. Both dark and delightful. Keep up the good work.

Really beautiful image. The undoctored version. Your original version

conveys magic to me. The POW image conveys software.

 

I imagine that a major difficulty with PS is deciding, when is it finished? When

does addition turn into subtraction? Maybe it's because the sublime element

of the original is the blur of her coat flapping in the breeze . . .I would have to

look again, but it seems to be lost in the final image. It gets overshadowed by

other elements, IMO.

The cracked varnish canvas sky looks like a stage backdrop or curtain. The complete stasis of the composition with it's overly sharp, hard horizon and the figure precisely in the middle with a hands-in-pockets resigned stance as if there is nowhere further to go. This is the end of the line. She has even tried to walk away looking at the footprints but she can't. She looks at a scene that is painted and unchanging as if she expects it to change but we know it won't. She's turned her back on reality preferring the unreality of this canvas backdrop. She's turned her back on the viewer as well. She feels isolated, unreachable and closed off. The feces-color of the entire scene. This is a picture of deep depression and inescapable resignation. She's stuck and has turned away from the real world full of possibility and change and lively color.

This is art and more. It moves, haunts, stirs emotion.

 

Criticism of the art "form" comes I think from the same school that believes a jagged pencil line on a piece of paper is a masterpiece because it was done by Matisse.

 

Is oil more artistic than watercolor? Cubism more artistic than impressionism? The "who" and "how" carry too much weight in the minds of many. Some probably think less of this because it was captured on silicon instead of celluloid. The cavemen must have rolled over in their graves upon the advent of canvas!

 

Congrats, Lars. Wish I could do that. Keep them coming!

I love the brown color tones and sharp footprints. Photoshop or not, I wouldn't mind seeing a print of it hanging in a gallery somewhere, overall, very nice finished image.

Every artistic medium comes with some baggage that derives from the history and nature of the medium. In the case of photography, one important piece of baggage is the expectation that a photograph, at some level, shows us something that actually happened rather than something that was simply imagined, as could easily be the case in a painting. Often this works to the advantage of the photographer. Part of photography's power comes from its closeness to real life. The feeling that "this could have been me" or "I could have been there" gives an immediate weight to a photograph that other media have to fight hard to reach.

 

However, one consequence of this baggage is that if a photograph has clearly been manipulated (or if we are told that a photograph has been altered in ways that significantly change the "reality" it conveys), questions will be asked and the photographer's choices will be challenged. If you don't like that, call the image something else, such as "digital artwork" or a "digital painting," and deal with whatever baggage those titles bring with them.

 

This is not to say that photographs should not be manipulated, just that when a photographer chooses to make such manipulations they should expect their choice to be raised in discussions about the photograph, and they should be ready to defend their choice on the basis of why it furthered their artistic goals for the image.

 

In the case of this image I see a clear difference in meaning between the original image and the final version. In the original my eye is drawn to the bright sky and the sense of expansive possibility it suggests. In the final version the horizon has become a wall and the focus shifts to the figure and the bright pool of light that surrounds, and to my eye seems to trap the figure, leading to the readings of the person having reached the end of the line and run out of options. If this is the feeling Lars was going for then I'd say that the manipulations were a success.

 

We could go even further and say that the texture in the sky could lead to the reading that the figure in the photograph has discovered a sense of the falseness of the world and this sense is being passed on to us, the viewers. In this reading, the fact that it is evident that the photograph was manipulated actually adds to the message.

This is a beautiful image. What ways are there to get similar brown tones, please?

Nice pic. Reminds me somehow of the POW by Jean-Sebastien Monzani some months ago. The image communicates on an emotional level. I'm just curious to know, why she's standing there so lonely. Unaswered questions, again. Love? :)

Congratulation on POW Lars. Well deserved, great portfolio. Regards,

Fantastic afterwork you've done here!

....and beforework tooooooooo.....