Chattahoochee Kayaker

"...there is not a SINGLE chance in a numberless quantity of instances where reality could be in black and white..."

 

I was meaning reality as a whole...

I used to believe that manipulating an image was not proper because your not

getting the real story. Although what I'm learning in school right now is so

heavily influenced by compositing I have found it to be benifiting. There is a

double edged sword in our buisness. This is art and art has no boundries. In

the end though I believe that in order to be commercial and sell these days

one must manipulate in one way or another. Thanks and lets not get too

heated over our personal opinions :) AP

Adam, absolutely disagree. You don't need to manipulate to sell. You just need to put a lot more effort into it if you chose not to. I agree that this is art. I consider your image more digital art than photography because it is a creation of your mind, not reality. I don't care, I love digital art, but it isn't mandatory to do to sell. There are many who don't and sell by the boat load.

I'm glad to hear your opinion. I do agree that there are many images that are

unmanipulate especially editorial but the way I'm trying to go (Commercial)

manipulation is more prevelant. Thanks again, AP

David N, I'd be interested in your idea of an unmanipulated Ansel photo.

 

Was it a color Polaroid, processed precisely by Polaroid instructions?

 

Surely you don't claim his B&W photos were unmanipulated representations of external reality...Ansel didn't make that claim, that's for sure.

 

Confronting a scene, he *cooked up a representation in his head,* manipulating every step as close to totally as possible in order to impliment it (previsualization and the Zone System ).

 

Photography has to do with "instants" for most of us... "click" and it's over.

 

But for Ansel it was an interminable process that involved his manipulation even of drum scanning and ink on paper. He was King of Manipulators :-)

He never placed mountains, houses or waterfalls in his shots. Yes he manipulated in post but what was on the plate was what he worked with.

Adam, could you tell us if this image had any commercial purposes, or was it just for fun. I would also be curious to know what you're being taught with regard to what sort of images suggest manipulation, as in adding or deleting elements, rather than straight captures that require only light and color enhancements.

Subjective I know but I'm less than impressed ... the image is crooked and noisy for my taste and the wake just looks very digitized and unnatural.

Should have mentioned this earlier: It's obviously a poster for a Southern canoe trip. Deliverance...

 

Typical Chatahoochie: Blood, welling up in the foreground from...

To Carl Root: This image was shot just for fun. A friend of mine made it into a

REI ad just for fun too. I go to the Art Institute of Atlanta and we are taught on a

very commercial basis. Our guest speaker last month was Jim Fiscus who is a

master at Photoshop! Check him out! I just finished my Digital Photoillustration

class where we are encouraged to come up with interesting concepts and

execute them in PS. I wasn't meaning that you must have PS to make an

interesting image. A photographer should be able to capture pleasing images

without the benifit of PS. That is the foundation. PS is just iceing on the cake i

think :) Later, AP

Adam, are you saying that photo #1 came out of the camera with that much saturation? You do note that it is cropped, which is obvious, but your lack of other qualifiers suggests that this was what you saw prior to manipulation.

Here's the origional background. AP

Thanks, Adam. That definitely looks more like the Chattahoochee that I know. You clearly have better Photoshop skills than I do to get that color transition done as well as you did.

I like both originals far better than the composite. The reason you took each one is clear, whereas the reason for putting together the composite isn't.

I'm not quite following you carl....the reason I took both images was to make

the composite.

Man-the editors really knew how to pick a photo (or is it photos?) to spark a discussion. I think you may break the record for responses Adam. I have stopped at the same spot a number of times to snap a photo of a nice sunset or a bunch of racing shells streaking down the river. It's not so easy to get a nice shot and avoid the power lines overhead and then the 10,000 cars zooming by at that time of day. I think you did a nice job with the composite. Although I thought the wake looked a little funny and the water never quite looks like that, I thought oh well-after all does Velvia really show true colors...? Great job on the PS!

Hi Robert! A local I see! This was actually shot on the Roswell Bridge near

Taco Mac....you know? Those power lines were difficult to deal with! I do see

more work needed to this image to make it more "believable". Thanks for your

comment and mabey I'll see you around :) AP

I'm not against manipulation, photography is not strictly about reality (except documentary of course). Adam did quite well in the creation of a succesfull image. Although I don't like the result much, I appreciate the effort. The only thing I didn't understand was the purpose. But as Adam wrote, it's just for fun. And to learn.

Congratulation Adam on POW.

I like your image. It is an obvious example of digital alteration, and IMO it is a good example. Talking about color photography, I hate digital alteration when it is intended to enforce mother nature when it is not enough "photogenic": adding a different sky if the sky is not enough dramatic, adding a subject to raise the interest ... and pass it off as an ordinary shot to astonish the people. I love digital alteration when it is well done and it is not an attempt to create a 'better nature' than the original, but just a different thing. In your shot the creativity of the author is manifest.

 

Regards

Alberto

I hate it when people jump in to second somebody else's opinion, but I'm doing it myself right here, seconding Alberto's comments.

 

"Altering" is of course the essence of photography...we never replicate anything. Look at Ansel Adam's always-heavily-altered images, for example.

 

Soap opera sunsets, heavily polarized skys, and rose-colored-glasses "nature" shots that are passed off as straight photography are far less "straight" than Adam's images because their intention is to deceive, whereas Adam's image here was intended to capture attention, to entertain, to puzzle.

I'm still wondering why you used such extremes of color, Adam, and don't tell me that my monitor needs to be calibrated. I like both original shots, but I have to conclude that any artistic vision is flawed that is based upon the belief that such garish colors really do enhance anything--and that is quite apart from any issues about the composite, which finally failed.

 

To John Kelly: John, we get your point that all photos are manipulated in some sense. That said, comparisons between this photo and anything ever done by Ansel Adams really are completely off the wall.

 

I certainly don't mind attempts to create rather than merely reproduce reality. I just don't happen to think that this is a particularly good creation. I'm not trying to be unkind. That is simply my opinion. People either like this composite or they don't. I don't.

This is an interesting image that offers many elements for discussion. Ultimately, its success is at the immediate eye-candy stage. In other words, its rich colors with their blue/orange contrast and the simplicity of design make it immediately eye-catching and subjectively pleasing.

 

It doesn't reward long viewing or study (in my opinion), because it falls apart in a few ways. Most notably, the rather ethereal sense created by the smooth water is an unreality reinforced by the failure of the kayak wake to integrate naturally with the river. That doesn't necessarily mean that the image fails - I think at a certain commercial level the image is quite successful. Rather, it is a mismatch of the image to the context in which it is presented. I would, nonetheless, be even more impressed with a version that had a more natural integration of the wake.

 

Color is very subjective. To my eye, these colors are incredibly rich, unlikely perhaps, but I don't know that I'd call them garish. It's a reasonable description even if it doesn't quite strike me that way. Well, maybe the sky is a little garish. Either way, those colors have to be pretty challenging to print.

 

I don't want to continue the comparison's to Ansel Adams' style of manipulation, other than to say that it's a miss. Adams images aren't "true" representations of nature, but they don't come from montage, and there is a meaningful difference. We know this is a manipulated, created image, filled with modified color, and its unreality is both greater and different than an intensified, dodged & burned black & white picture.

 

I can accept and enjoy created realities as long as they are offered without deception. I have some concerns about the idealized outdoor imagery having a long-term impact on people's ability and interest in appreciating real outdoor experiences, but that's an unfair issue to lay on any particular image. Even if that means I'd prefer a probably less spectactular image that was captured as a "real" moment, I think this image has merit.

 

Onward.

Mr Kelly: In regards to my comment on calibration: this was meant to be a

helpfull note to people who don't know what a calibrator is. On another note: I

chose these colors because they were pleasing to me. If you don't like this

image it is not necissary to keep bashing it. I believe we all get your opinion.

You must remember there are people out there who do like it.This image has

not failed, it was just born and will continue to evolve. AP

Let's put aside whether it is proper or not to heavily manipulate a photo in PS. Composition wise, since you have the freedom the "place" the canoe, you could have placed it in a better possition. It is stuck right in the dead middle of the pic. IMO, you should have put it in a lower position.

I'm JOHN Kelly, Djon, not the *other* :-(

 

Adam's photo shows guts and creativity. I get a kick out of this image...

 

I LOVE this thread because of what it's smoked out.

 

"Straight photography" has become a concept used to dis people who are more creative. It has no other value.

 

Adam's image heralds even more interesting photography in the future.

 

Kick out the jams.

 

Djon