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  1. <p>Hard to say Steve, although I completely agree that people really need that connection to heal. I also work in D&A and feel that cognition really takes a back seat to stronger, mid-brain processes and instincts, which is why you can't talk someone out of addiction. Perhaps your photo is doing that for some people - they aren't sure why they like it but they like it. When viewing work people are constantly projecting onto an image and making their own meaning from it so you'll probably never know what "struck the chord," and it is probably not a singular reason to begin with. I would just be pleased so many people took the time to view the image! Keep up the good fight - most people don't need psych meds, they need connection, and photography can be part of that. </p> <p>Matt<br> </p>
  2. <p>For me photography remains a space in which I think and feel deeply about things, as I believe we are all meant to. I pour myself into photography (and some other passions) in a way that is completely incompatible with my daytime employment, and in this way it serves a very important need for me. I enjoy the contrast between the grind of daily life and the creative, intuitive retreat into the visual and feeling areas of my mind. I like that photography keeps a foot in both the literal and the limitless. </p>
  3. <p>Matt, I used a neat little trick I read about in a book that was written to simplify the zone system a bit and adapt a version of it for 35mm film systems. I mean, it's very simplified (otherwise I couldn't understand it) but the idea is this: to get your trees the way you want them we have to understand how a light meter reads light. Your meter reads ALL light at 18% gray - for some dumb reason that is the same as middle gray - halfway between black and white (or zone 5.) So if you were to SPOT METER the trees, the meter would give you a reading (of the trees only) to bring the dark trees UP to 18% gray (probably 2 or 3 stops.) But in this case, you wanted darker but not underexposed trees, so you would have wanted to meter the trees (your shadow area) and underexposure from that reading by 2 stops, thus placing the trees in zone 3 (the darkest dark you can get and retain shadow detail) and you might want to add some extra development for the highlights if possible. However, since you were working with center-weighted metering, your meter took into large account the bright sky and skewed the reading towards that, significantly underexposing everything but the sky because it put the sky in zone 5 (18% gray) and let the other values fall. Don't know if that makes sense, but it worked for me for years - "Expose for the shadows and process for the highlights." </p>
  4. <p>Thanks Wayne and thanks Colin O for the link. I really needed to see that interview today. Sally Mann is so incredible... thanks.</p>
  5. <p>Another way to deal with the lighting situation in photo 1 would have been to spot meter the shadowed area in your foreground and manually set your camera to underexpose by a stop or two based on that spot meter reading. This would mean it will still look like a shadow area (as it should if you are trying to depict the scene as you encountered it) but you would have more detail in your shadows. Assuming your file can handle highlights from the brightly lit building in the background, this is a way to control the density of your shadow areas. Another approach would be to hit your subject with some fill flash. I hate flash but this isn't my photograph, so it's an option. <br> Photo 2 looks pretty sharp to me looking at the texture of the straw hat. Agreed stopping down would have helped increase depth of field but if you really want tack sharp you don't want to be hand-holding your camera - use a tripod. That said, tack sharp does not equal "good" in my opinion. Plenty of great work out there is not sharp. In a not-so-technical line of thinking, I notice looking at this image that you are giving your subjects a wide berth - I wonder what would have happened if you moved in a lot closer?Something to think about.<br> Not sure about #3. Light and color looks fine to me. Digital images sometimes have noise in them when the light gets lower - maybe this is the case here. Again a tripod would have been useful in this case - you could set the ISO at 25 or 50 and get rid of the noise, but the longer exposure would require a still camera. Because this is a landscape you would be able to easily do this. </p> <p> </p>
  6. <p>We are often unaware of just how much our understanding of what makes a good image look good is based on what has been done before. That's why I agree with the person who suggested studying Fine Art if you are sure that's what you want to do. The visual arts borrow from each other and are based on centuries-old rules of composition, lighting and theory that we take for granted. It's all been done before but no one is you, so the challenge is to get so good at doing things the way everyone else does it that eventually your individual take on the world emerges and you express something meaningful for you. That's exciting but usually takes years. We can all learn to work a camera and you will too. After that, talent, work ethic and finding your own path weigh in heavily. I do however feel a training program is a good place to start so that you can get a good foundation for how to use your camera. Expect your work to not look like you want it to for quite a while - it's normal. Most people will quit before they work through this period of not being as good as they want, but if you hang in there you might find you have a knack for it. Work is the variable around which this all hinges though. In this day and age most people are unwilling to be patient enough to allow work and reflection to change them. </p>
  7. <p>In being creative, manipulating the scene is fair game. After all, we manipulate the scene in ways such as what we choose to frame, from what angle, at what moment we shoot it - and in the darkroom/computer, we adjust tones, dodge and burn, crop etc. I would say to adjust the physical materials from which the image is made is just part of the process. </p> <p>Don McCullin, the famous war photojournalist once gave an interview where he talked about how when shooting in Vietnam he adjusted the contents of a killed NVA soldier's possessions - he actually flipped the solder's wallet open to reveal the soldier's family pictures and added some shell casings into the scene to make the image. That actually would be considered unethical by journalistic standards today/ But since you're talking about shooting landscape, I see nothing wrong with it at all. We "make" images in every sense of the word. </p>
  8. williams_gallery

    NF3

    Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows;

    © Copyright 2014 Matthew D Williams

  9. Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows;
  10. Software: Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows;
  11. Software: Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows;
  12. Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows;
  13. Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows;
  14. Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows;
  15. Make: Epson; Model: PerfectionV500; Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows;
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