Dance of light

Good god! Have people forgotten what photography really is??? AN ART MEDIUM!!! do we really spend so much time searching for every possible technical flaw and mistake that we forget the picture is supposed to be taken in as a whole in order to evoke emtion? Technical commentary is very useful in developing one's skills but i believe (and i know i can't speak for everyone) that the ARTIST would like to hear emotional commentary as well. Did anyone stop to think about how this piece of ART made them FEEL before griping about improper darkroom techique or use of photoshop??????

Very haunting and beautiful, congratulations.

 

 

Regarding how much manipulation was involved: as long as you did not add anything that wasn't there in the first place, there's nothing wrong with enhancing what you've captured on film.

Marc raises a discussion point that came before but I think it is worth taking again. Some responses to it have been given already. It is the question about using PS, and how to use it. If I understood well he conditioned his judgment on the image to the use of PS on it. In other words an image has more or less artistic value depending on how much PS was used in its production. I don?t know if I understand wrongly but IMO I think that this is not the right way to judge an image. The artistic value of an image is in the image self and not in the way was produced. This image, just as it is, has the same artistic value if it was totally constructed in PS, in any other similar device or simply developed in a traditional dark room. The way how was made is irrelevant to his value. Photography is a language, meaning that convey significances. Concern for the instrument used is of technical interest or, for some people, of ethical importance. To know how a photo or any other artistic expression was constructed make us admire the technical abilities of the artist but this is irrelevant for the meaning of the work itself (a photo in this case), and what is worst usually distracts us from the appreciation of the photo. The abilities and other biographical facts of the photographer are of no significance for the meaning conveyed by the photo. This discussion have appeared very often, some people not long ago thought that Auto Focus was against the practice of a ? real pro, artist, photographer?, digital cameras were anathema for many, some people think that cropping is dishonest...there have been all kind of moral judgments against any new and old technique in photography. Ethical principles in photography are constructions, rules made by people for reasons that I don?t understand. I guess that they are made in order to defend them from some kind of danger, or to keep photography in a closed circle (all those new methods make photography easier), but I really don?t know, and to be honest I don?t care. In Photo Net you are asked to check if your photo was unmanipulated, this is IMO the same kind of approach, as if by not manipulating your photos their meaning will be more interesting, or more artistic, better or whatever. Probably many photos by Man Ray and many others don?t meet this standard, but alas their meaning is still there.

Beautiful photo, Eirik. The light is truly what makes it unique. I, also, can imagine the how impressive it might be displayed in a large format.

Hei Eirik! bildene dine er utrolig flotte, gratulerer!! Od dette er virkelig et av de beste: det m崴e v沥 "photo of the week"!! m�rketiden kommer dag etter dag, heroppe i nord --> tilbake til nordlys-photography! Ha det

I like most the way the perspective seems to curl up into the sky. But I cant quite work out what is causing it.

Maybe its the shape of the coastline on the right.

Maybe its the tilt of the horizontal.

Maybe its the radial beams.

Maybe its the burn in in the extreem left.

Maybe its the kink in the coast at the bottom.

Maybe its all these things.

Its definately an exceptional photograph.

And in so far as how it made me FEEL.

Almost nothing I'm afraid.

Maybe I'm just not old enough to be correctly tuned in.

Maybe I have no memories or experiences that fired up when this image linked in.

Maybe I've been looking at FAR TOO MANY pictures...

It did make me think of my brother, who has been there. :)

I agree with the elves here, but like others commenting on this photo I too hope that the original file contains some detail in the black area on the right because it feels too large and blank to make an attractive large print.

 

In response to Simone, I don't think this image has been cropped, though I may be wrong.

"I don't have a problem with the overexposure. It's just how things are, some things are too dazzling to take in."

 

what does this mean??!! having control of your materials would make this no problem at all.

 

 

"Did anyone stop to think about how this piece of ART made them FEEL"

 

yes, dull flat and boring--mostly because of the poor quality of the image. How can an artist convey emotions or feelings with an image if they are incapable of taking control of the raw materials?

I like this photo and this its discussion taht is with it only I wish it were my wet leaf picture at the Pow because it is a good one too but the people that say the picture should be looked at without being worired about the feelings but who only look at it to find the problems with it should remember this that we are all from the same family and if this were a painting and we are painters we would be looking at the techniqe to see if it is profesional or if it is rank amature because thats what we do as painters so for us to look at the exposure and say its is to birght or to dark is ok. I dont thin k I doulcd have made the is photography because I have never been there like the other guys brother.

Keeping control of the contrast in this image... is, I believe, impossible - if it means to keep details in both the darkest and the brightest areas of the photo...

 

There is such thing called, I think, in English, "film lattitude", or such, and in French "Lattitude d'exposition": it is the highest contrast you could embrasse with a film (if the film was processed in a normal way). I believe the present image has a contrast that is higher than the maximal range of most films... If the photographer had a spot meter available and metered both extremes, I would be interested to know what the contrast was like, by the way... I don't think the photographer is to blame for the lack of details in the brightest highlight.

I first looked at this before it was chosen for POW and thought it was Norway before reading the title. The shape and height of the mountains were in my memory. It's a lovely image, congrats.

You wrote: "In other words an image has more or less artistic value depending on how much PS was used in its production. I don?t know if I understand wrongly but IMO I think that this is not the right way to judge an image. The artistic value of an image is in the image self and not in the way was produced. This image, just as it is, has the same artistic value if it was totally constructed in PS".

 

As you well know, I have no problem with Photoshop per se - and have used it (and even over-used it) myself on many occasions. So, did I really say that an image has more or less value depending how much PShop was involved in its production ? Not exactly. What I do think is that **SOME** images gain value if they are pure photographs. A perfect example of such an image would be last week's POW - this amazing lightning picture. As I explained last week, last week's POW looked UNIQUE. If it had been tricked to become unique (if it had been a composite, which it wasn't), then we would be looking at "an illusion".

 

How about this week's POW...? Well, that's A BIT the same in my view - although to a lesser extent. The beauty we see here is a NATURAL beauty. My view is that what's natural in essence should remain natural. This being said, enhancing a bit the image is fine to me - no ethics involved anyway, as long as the beauty we see is not artificially overdone.

 

So, the only point I was trying to make is that this kind of photographs is not unusual - at all. Its uniqueness comes from the lighting. If the lighting feels natural, using Photoshop is no issue to me, because the essence of the subject remains. Unfortunately, we see nowadays many images of this sort where the lighting looks awkward, or even "impossible". In short: it has become common with PShop, to add rays of lights like these in many landscapes like this one, and Photoshop has therefore made such images a common place, whereas scenes like this are in fact pretty unusual. That's all: it's mostly a matter of originality. Such a picture was more original before Photoshop than it is now.

 

Finally, and since you said that art was about feelings, I can't deny, that my own interest for such images has gone down since Pshop exists, precisely because they became a common place. A landscape that really moves me is a landscape that's not just beautiful, but really original - and that's just me...: this one, in my view, isn't very original, but it is very nice. Regards.

Marc, you should shoot more bw film instead of relying on conversion from color. this tonal range would be child's play for bw film, properly exposed and developed of course. anyone who uses the zone system can get 11 stops from full black to full white with normal exposure. with dilute or two bath development you could pull up to 15 stops into an easily usable range.

I have nothing special to say about the discussion, I just wanted to say this: in seeing this photo I believed it was a photo of the lake of Serre-Pon篮 in the Alpes (France), but more probably it is a lake in Norway, I presume. Be that as it may, this is a beautifull panorama.

Very nice picture Eirik. You have pleased my B&W heart. Thanks for sharing. Frantisek

It's a powerful image that makes me think of the contrast between time and eternity, the ephemeral sky versus the solid presence of the earth. The play of light suggests an awesome presence just beyond our threshold of experience : we see its effect (rays) but not the cause (light source, Sun.)

Congratulations on the recognition.

Brytni Hightower, you ask :Did anyone stop to think about how this piece of ART made them FEEL before griping about improper darkroom techique or use of photoshop??????

But fail to tell us how you feel about this piece of Art; or did I miss your critique?

Greetings, all -

 

I am not experienced enough in photography to say anything about this photograph except that I like it very much. In it, I have traveled through space to a place that I shall probably never go, or if I did, to a moment that I cannot recapture.

 

As for what Guillermo says about PhotoShop, if this image were totally fabricated in that program, it would not be an example of the photographic arts, but an example of the graphic arts (where my experience lies). Graphic images can be just as beautiful, repellant, moving, crude, whatever, as a photograph, but does not belong in this forum. This is PHOTO.net, after all.

 

All the best!

I feel I arrive too late and that Alex Chubb said almost everything...

Here we can see in critics all the 'bad' influences and suspicions that PShop abuses had on 'candid' photography and for a while... just sad...

A great panoramic and well deserve PoW!

Yes lots of issues. The POW stands a dramatic view that is a fine display.

I must say that as I have now looked at it many times I am wondering why is the spaceship that is just above the clouds shining that big searchlight down not in view. It would make a great shot.

There are almost no lakes in Norway - they have something more interesting than that. :-)

 

I love this shot, and as the rays were not created in Photoshop, it's value is not reduced by the existence of the possibility of creating such an image in Photoshop. It's even more valuable than it would have been in pre-Photoshop era because it shows integrity.

Ken, what I mean by my comment about exposure is that, when viewed with the naked eye, some things are too dazzling to see (in the biological, optical sense(. A perfectly balanced image, which includes all shadow and highlight detail (if possible here) would not necessarily reflect what is seen; it may lack drama. This is why I don't wish to criticise the overexposure -technical correctness is not necessarily artistic correctness.

I have loded a new picture called sking and I hope the elfs pick it to be the next POW

Splendid! You got that moment perfectly - and the print is incredible. The movement of the eye throught the image via all it's elements is wonderful. I do miss film - just too expensive for me to continue...

Beautiful. I could happily look at this picture for ever. This is enough to convince me to try and XPan. 7/7

I have put anoter picture on photnoet that is better than sking is a fun sprot called sking is a family sprot but dont forget the baby! When it is POW you can coment on it all that you want and it will be ok.