single photos Tulip Field, West-Beemster

As a graphic designer whose daily business it is to enhance fotos for printing I am a bit overfed with these oversaturated photos. This picture is beautiful, but it would not have needed a reworking. Use oversaturation very carefully or your pictures will look like Italian postcards of the 1960s!

 

but as I said the picture itself is beautiful.

If there's a harsh critic of the use of over-saturated slide films I'd easily raise my hand to be nominated for president of that organization.

 

This image though is an example of when abstract, intense color works and is well deployed. It's a dreamy, classic landscape where any of a variety of hyper saturated materials like Agfa Ultra would have worked as well. Use a polarizer, color intensifying filter, whatever.... it all works for this type of shot.

 

'What dreams may come'

 

I agree verbatim with the photo.net elves with their critique. It's a fine contrast to much of the previous dreary and morose B/W POW material.

 

Still, I have some advice for Mr. Hart, and that's to start throwing 100F in his bag along with Velvia.

This image has always reminded me of a flag.

 

Uploaded are a desaturated version, which looks "real" and a black and white version with red and green filtration, for the sake of discussion.

 

This was helpful to me: Robert Frost, the American poet, said that poetry is not a report, it's an act, meaning, I figured out after much thought, that poems are not supposed to report the literal facts of life and living, but to portray the poets impression of it, or to act it out as the poet sees and feels it. In the same way, for a very long time I believed that photographs should reflect reality, that they should look real. After realzing what Frost was saying, I was freer to accept "unreal" photographs as interpretations of life, rather than reports of it, in my own work, and the work of others. I'm still free to reject their aesthetic, but I'm not bound anymore to expect them to be a mirror or reality.

From my novice point of view I see this as clash between people with artistic vision and these curmudgeony men who are obsessed with capturing reallity. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I think that in order to critique a photograph in manor that the artist/photographer can really walk away with more knowledge is to take the artist/photographers intent into consideration. If his intent was an artisitic approach via saturation than what good does it do to bash him for it? I thought critiqueing was to give insite, not to tell someone that they are flat out wrong and they should do it your way.

 

Hey Scott, Why don't you have Jaap put you "in the bag" so you can just take the picture for him? ;)

The composition is nice and the subject classic, but I find the colors way

oversaturated. I don't think I'd desaturate the colors as much as the

gentleman who uploaded the less saturated image, but I believe there is a

limit to how saturated colors can and still be aesthetically pleasing. The

bottom line for me is the image's color is too overtop for my eye.

Hi Jim, non of us "bashes" Jaap for his interpretation of this landscape! What we give (I dare to speak in the name of the others, too)is a feedback of the effect this photo has on the viewer. And as a photo is meant to be looked at (I guess) every reaction, every consideration, every suggestion is of interest for the photographer. He wants to tell a story so he needs to know what we understand (or not).

I agree with Jaap's decision to go with heavy saturation. Thanks, Doug, for the natural-color version and the solid B+W version. For me, they point up how much the lurid saturation is what makes this a worthwhile photo. Without the saturation, it's not something I can get excited about, a mathematically sterile--if "correct" set of lines and wedges with nothing that stands out as a "subject". Hypersaturated, it's a good calendar or travel-poster image.

 

It's not a very relaxing image to me, though. Its strong sense of place puts me in the photographer's shoes, but I can't help noticing that the perspective here implies that the photographer's shoes are planted precariously on the bank of that canal, one slip on the wet grass away from falling in.

At times you need to step back and say "Do I *like* it?" For this I have long relied on the 'wallpaper test'! Keep the picture on the PC as wallpaper and if you find yourself going back to the photo again and again, it works! This one sure does for me...very dramatic. I just wish the blue space on the right was a little less. Maybe if the angle could be changed to let the tree leaves stoop a little lower...

Jaap has made a wonderful folder. Very hard to choose which picture is the best one. Personally, I prefer the other tulip field with the trees line in the back ground. This picture of the week is certainly more pure, first in terms of colors - eventhough they are a bit oversaturated (which actually gives a feeling to be a dream landscape), second in terms of lines and perspective, last but not least in terms of the simplicity of the composition. Hats off Jaap!

I am not a photo expert, I only know that I like or dislike someones composition, I like this, with it's almost "Dreamlike quality,".......way cool !

 

Keep it up, Keep it coming !

 

~~~~~~~spud

I love the clean lines and wonderful angles in this shot. I love much of Jaap's work and am a lover of velvia and saturated color. However, I see too much green in the tree trunk and though it was the artists choice -- which I respect -- I would like to see the color tweaked a bit for my tastes. Some would argue that this is his vision and we can accept or reject that. I think it is interesting to see different "tastes" and versions. For instance - I love the black and white for instance! I actually like it better and for different reasons..

The best part of this image for me is the mood, composition and converging lines. If I had seen this place I think I would have been so excited I would have shot about 10 rolls of film! Except for the green cast -- Jaap did it justice! Jaap's images of Holland are so wonderful and effective that it makes me think it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. I want to go there. The tourism industry should snap him up and use his images for their advertising!

Superb image and an enlightening reflection on attitudes of a sizeable audience on this forum. Generally my own attitude regarding saturation and alterations with natural landscape photographs is close to Scott Eaton's.

Here it is important to consider the type of image the photographer is creating. Note quite correctly Jaap informs the viewer of both film and manipulations. This is not a natural landscape except for the sky. Everything else was generally planted or built by man. That in itself makes it less important to me personally whether the photographer uses saturated film or Photoshop enhancements. If someone wants to set up a commercial shot, take social pictures, portraits, sports, urban landscapes etc, judgement of appropriateness ought to be minimal. Some critisms tend to ignore context, often injecting their own photographic viewpoints narrowly. Another point is given the newness of digital imaging to many photographers, there is a considerable lack of understanding on how powerful the tools are in the hands of experts. Fine art photographers of natural landscapes need to present an honest reputation regarding realness of images to their clients and the public. Thus other photographers with different orientations ought to understand that perspective.

 

Lets say someone takes a picture of say Mount Ranier, imports a brand new sky, adds the Moon, selectively saturates flowers, adds some hikers, a bird etc, and adjusting things to make an aesthetic image. Then if they publicly display or market the image without notation as some do then I have issue. There is a very real can of worms down there whether people choose to ignore such or not. -David

David, artists/painters alter images all the time...add things, delete things, move things. Very few paintings are exact renditions of reality. Who's to say that a photo artist cannot do the same thing?

 

Do I like that? No, not really. I'm into capturing reality but it's another genre of photography.

I did the "wallpaper" test with Jaaps image for the last several days on my work computer. Without fail, everyone who passes by my desk, stops, does a double take and wants to know how they can get it, who took it, where is it etc! So.... for what it is worth Jaap... you passed with flying colors. A totally unscientific experiment, but this shot is not about science now is it?

 

It is a marvelous image and a wonderful folder.

 

Congratulations on POW!

If you look at the photo in large view instead of medium, I love how the roundness of the small yellow flowers and the multidirectional grass offsets the clean straight lines of the water, road, and field. It's beautiful.

Congratulations Jaap on a well deserved POW! Normally I deliberately stay away from POW discussions, because I prefer to spend my time in folders that attract little to no attention at PN (eventhough I wander into more popular territory regularly too)... This beautiful early morning scene of a dutch landscape is nicely captured and your use of saturated colours have resulted in a very eye-catching image. While I like your composition, it probably wouldn't pass *my* wallpaper test, because I lived in Holland for 20 years and this kind of scenery is not uncommon. I think early mornings are the key to many beautiful photographs. Once again, your image has reminded me to get to bed earlier, so that I too may be able to get up and capture some early morning gems! Probably a 6/6, but I see you have plenty of them already, so I won't add mine... ;-)

 

Big thumbs up to Holland and you, Jaap, for sharing your wonderful work with us at PN!

After a week of careful consideration I give it 2.8 green thumbs up. I would have given it three but I had to take something away for the green cast. How ironic is that? Oops, sorry wrong website. Wait, you're numero uno on two websites at the same time. I would like it a bit less saturated but that just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions. Congratulations on POW.

Some time back, the POW was a hyper saturated photo of a golf course. I didn't like it at all. Here we have a hyper-saturated tulip field, and I love it. I think the difference comes down to the use of saturated colour in an appropriate context: this photo works as a geometric pattern, we don't really need to know it has anything to do with tulips. Whereas the golf course was definitely a golf course and the over-saturation made it a plastic golf course.

 

Even better, the tree provides a contrast of an unexpected type: realist texture and detail against uniforn geometry. Brilliant and georgeous.

GB

I'd like to see a before and after of this beautiful picture.

I think Jaap's photography should shame us all into shooting more. Images like these are everywhere, we've just got to go out and find them. Excellent portfolio. Great image. Love the windmills.

Pure lines and colors. Photography seems so simple with Jaap!

Too saturated? Well, why? These things come down to taste, which if you ask me is matter for opinions, rather than harsh comments. No point in talking about 'trueness to life' since (as has been pointed out) we might just as well look at B&W photo and say 'not nearly enough saturation' or for that matter at a telephoto and say 'perspective is too compressed'.

 

There dosen't seem to me to be a green cast but that might be my (LCD) screen. A beautiful picture by most standards, as the aesthetic ratings confirm.

One of the few images I have seen here I would care to have. Clean in color, composition and execution. Peaceful & powerful at the same time. Whether serendipity or the result of long planning, the image works and works well.

The photo above would be amazing without the fog, but with it, it's surreal. A very beautiful and technically-skilled work of art.

Well, too much have been said about this picture, just wondering what if other type of film is used for this scene? Say the provia or whatever, will those achieve this kinda of saturation? just curious.