mikemorrellNL

@tony_parsons1 I loved many of the Kinks' songs (and their sound!) but I'd never heard this one before. I had to look up the 'fast, breathless' lyrics but both the lyrics and their 'fast and breathless performance' are even more applicable today - and IMHO by a factor of thousands - than when they were first written and recorded! Thanks for your - to me - very relevant comment on the subject! Mike

Another PP challenge. There are no rules for how you PP this photo. Just use your imagination and your skills. Feel free to post your own PP challenge photo in the 'Digital Darkroom' forum. Next week or any other week. This one was taken some 10 years ago in Antwerp (Belgium). It shows one of two (wooden) escalators leading down to a pedestrian tunnel 1/3 of a mile long under the river Schelde.

I have very little knowledge of AA or how he worked. I'm sure that he was a true master at 'envisioning potential 'final images' of what he was aiming towards when 'pressing the shutter'. Whether - when 'pressing the shutter' he truly had every detail of 'dodging and burning' (sometimes 25-35 steps) worked out in advance is a moot point. But I'm sure he had - at the time pressing the shutter - a clear idea of how he wanted the final photo to look.

There are many people who completely agree with your assertion, Sandy. And if this is your choice for your own photos, then that's fine by me. As a comment on all photography, I do think that your view is rather limited. I found this (historical/philosophical) 20 min. video on 'photo-editing' by UK photographer Sean Tucker interesting. Especially the examples he gives (within the first 5 minutes) of 'photos' published by Fan Ho and Ansel Adams. Yes, these are based on 'captured moments' but also heavily edited to create their 'vision' for how they wanted their final images to appear.

@Tony Rowlett Interesting point and a fascinating way of expressing it! I really like your metaphor: "The photograph was conceived and has lived in multiple wombs and it is finally born into an object in and of itself." ! I fully agree with your description of 'the processes'. Applying them to myself, I prefer to use terms such as 'selection' and 'creation' (of the One) rather than 'rescue'. But 'restoration' or 'rescue' are equally applicable in the case of grubby hands, deterioration or loss.

Hi @Ricochetrider, below are your original photo followed by an example that illustrates the point I made about 'bring up the highlights'. Again, whether you think this is worth doing, and also the degree you want to do it, is entirely up to you. I should add that in the example, I also adjusted the levels (75%) for the photo as a whole to use the whole range of the histogram. Before: After:

I really like this photo - especially in the context of documenting the decline of small previously thriving coal mining towns in Pennsylvania. The 'self service bay' sign and the busted up town car 'parked' in the bay tells a story in itself. I'm sure that it fits in well with a wider documentary series. There's almost nothing I would change. The only very minor suggestion that I can make to play around with is to add a very slight (masked) 'curves' layer in PP just to bring up a couple of reflections out of the dark bay: - the boards (?) left and right of the car and table (left) - possibly the darker region of the hood too (with the Lincoln town car emblem) and perhaps the lower part of the windscreen - possibly the bay floor in the foreground (left) Do these affect the photo as a whole? Absolutely not. But bringing up a few (relative) highlights against the darker bay IMHO might enhance the idea of 'reflected light'. Both from the back (via the 'boards/table) and from the front (via the the Lincoln town car emblem). The effect is marginal so whether it's worth the time and effort depends on how much time and effort you want to spend. Let me know if you'd like an example of 'before and after'. Mike

I leave it to the mods ( @Sandy Vongries ) and admins ( @mjensento answer your post. Purely as a PN member, my understanding is that the process of migrating and organizing photos from the 'old PN site' is still in progress. As in any project, migration resources are not unlimited. Like all of us, you can follow the latest news on the migration in the Forum 'News'. The last update was on October 25. By the looks of things, your photos dating back to 2010 have already been migrated. Roughly 2500+ photos in total. See your migrated photos (portfolio). The "sort by" button top-right allows viewers to choose the order in which your photos are displayed. I don't yet have any insight into how imported photos from the old PN site might be organized into member Albums. I do note that a 'member album' feature is available but the 'create album' function has not yet been implemented. Perhaps while the migration and organization of photos is still in progress. Under the Explore/Gallery option in the top menu, you can get an idea of how the general categories are organized and how many old/new photos are now in each general category. Regards, Mike

No rules. Just use your creativity and skills. 'Challenges' from other members are always welcome!

Perhaps due to be deleted (words) but this year - and 2 years ago - 2 young photographers were invited to exhibit at the international photo festival BredaPhoto (no promotion intended!). Their subjects were respectively 'what happens when I forget about subjects' and 'chance'. Their (self-curated) non-subjectoriented and 'chance' photography were accepted by the (critical) festival curators, in addition to 50+ works by 'Top' international photographers, as being a valid contribution towards an contemporary and innovative photography festival.

As others have said, this is a very nice scene. I think you've used the long exposure is to good effect here to create the 'ethereal effect' in the sea. Long exposures of moving water can sometimes become a cliche but that's not the case here. IMHO, there's a good balance which ensures that there's still enough 'texture' and 'movement' visible in the sea to maintain visual interest. The sea looks like a 'swirling mist' rather than being 'flat'. This is one of those photos for which you IMHO have (at least) 2 options: - let the viewer enjoy the whole scene (pretty much as is, even with a modified horizon) - Visually draw the viewer's attention to a section of the photo that you feel is most interesting. For me, one of the most interesting parts of the photo are the two rocks in the sea surrounded by the 'swirling mists'. With the 'swirling waves' trailing away to the left. At the moment, these are just 'part of the scene' with the (masive) 'visual weight' of the boulders left drawing the most attention. So you might want to experiment with a tighter cropping (Top, left and perhaps bottom) to bring the rocks and mist more 'into the photo'. My guess is that would be plenty of round boulders left over to set the scene in the foreground.

I know nothing about drones or drone photography. I do note that DJI Mavic drone cameras consistenly top recent lists of 'best drone cameras'. I've seen some truly amazing footage from drone cameras that give a completely different (and enhanced) persective than 'on the ground' cameras. My only advice is to look at the 'best drone camera' lists and pick the best one that your budget allows. The difficulty, it seems to me, is to anticipate how much you may really get into drone photography. So buying a first 'cheapo' drone to try things out might be an option. TBH, if I was really intersted in (the potential of) drone photography, I would go with the best set-up that you can afford. IMHO (without any drone experience!), you can probably only discover the 'drone photography/video experience' with a camers drone with at least reasonable specs, including: - ease of maneuverability -range of control and battery life - image quality

Pfff... Photoshop refused to do what I wanted so I took the 'quick & easy' way out via neural and embossed filters.

Hey @JDMvW, great to see you contributing to a PP challenge! I( hope you'll continue. As the intro says, there are no rules. So no criteria (except your own) as to what works. FWIW, I really like your somewhat 'psychedelic' version! It brings back memories of bygone times😉

@rbark73First of all, my thanks for posting this photo for critique! I always learn a lot from 'critiques', especially from the comments by other members. FWIW, I find it much easier to 'critique' photos than take photos myself that follow the various points I offer to others😄! I like the composition of your photo and I don't want to speculate on any post-processing (saturation, sharpening) that you may have done or may change. In terms of composition, I especially like the way that the cactus (left) in the foreground is 'echoed' (to the right) in the middle distance. For me, this provides a nice diagonal' leading line from the foreground cactus (left) through the (diagonal) pond to the cactus (right) in the middle distance which provides a 'visual bridge' to the Slickrock. II know absolutely nothing about 'landscape photography' so bear this in mind! I can't remember all the stuff I've read about 'composition' off the top of my head but there are ways (tricks?) of drawing the viewers' attention towards what you think is most important to focus on. For example, viewer's attention will IHMO naturally be drawn towards areas of a (landscape) photo that: - 'leading lines' draw viewers' attention towards (tick that box!) - are relatively sharper than others - have relatively more vivid (color) than others - have relatively more contrast-rich than others - are relatively brighter than others - are visually 'more interesting' (textures, forms, ...) than others I'm not sure how motivated (and skilled) you are at post-processing but I note the following: - the 'Slickrock' range has wonderful striations of rock layers and an interesting 'vertical' texture too; visually (for me) the sharpness and contrast of the middleground detracts from this; although (in terms of color) it looks to be a fairly bland landscape, the sharpness and contrast do attract the viewer's attention to the detraction of the Slickrock - although your perspective is great w.r.t. cactuses, refelections (of anything) in a pond have become something of a photographic cliche I leave it to you to decide whether and - if so - where you want to draw viewers' attention towards. Given your title, my humble suggestions for any further post-processing that you may decide to do are: - 'unsharpen' the middle ground (and to make the photo realistic) the foreground too; decrease the contrast in the middle ground too - play down the reflections of the Slickrock in the pond; for example by reducing the saturation, darkening, etc.; it's natural that the reflections are there and they belong to the photo - just make sure that 'the real Slickrock' gets more visual attention than its reflection. Best wishes, Mike

The original thread on DPreview is from 2017 and was discussed very extensively then. I'm not sure why the question has popped up here 5 years later. Googling 'make photos look 1970's' turns up a ton of resources.

Thanks for this, Mickey. Very useful! I can see just one photo that I uploaded in Octber (and not my older ones) but I'm sure all the 'Galleries/Albums/photos" stuff will get sorted out soon. FWIW, I've never used the PN Galleries/Albums either as an on-line 'backup' or as a place to share photos with non PN-members. So I could easily create new Galleries/Albums. I'm still pleased that @mjensen is keeping everyone up to date on what's going on and responding to specific problems that members have experienced.

W.r.t. to the OP's question, I (as an exclusively digital photographer) seriously doubt whether whether film gets in the way of shooting. I firmly belive that different cameras and image capture media are just tools that enable (video)photographers to produce the results that they want to achieve under different circumstances. I agree that the quality of images shot on film is qualitatively different to those shot digitally. And I love the quality of film images! In my opinion, there are certain genres - and shooting situations - that just look better when shot with film than digitally. The converse is also true. Digital 'burst photos' enable the very best sport and action photo's to be selected from the 'burst'. IHMO this is not 'spraying'. I (voluntarily) take photos at events and interviews. For 80% of the time, my camera just hangs on my shoulder. Whenever I anticipate that 'something is about to happen', I take a 'burst' of photos. Mainly to ensure that I have at least 1 photo of my subjects with their eyes open, preferably smiling and with some kind of expressiveness (face/gestures). TBH, I would have no idea how to capture this kind of images on film. But I would be up for capturing (static) portraits on film.

Colorised version.