Damien Demolder
Tharg the Mighty
Reged: 22/08/2001
Posts: 1022
Loc: Essex born and badly-bred
|
|
This week's AP is dedicated to realistic landscapes - that is producing pictures that look like the scene that was being photographed. So often now we see heavily saturated colours, high contrast, and added warmth applied to landscape work, as well as blurred water that looks like smoke - sometimes to the extent that the final print looks nothing like the original view.
Do you try to enhance what you see, or do you strive to faithfully represent reality? And actually, does it matter?
The central theme here is landscape, but the question can apply to any subject matter.
Head to the Home Page to let us know - is your photography truth or fiction?
Thanks for playing.
damien
--------------------
.
See my photographs at www.wordsonpictures.com
.
|
Fen
BAD WOLF
Reged: 12/03/2002
Posts: 20926
Loc: Currently Unknown!
|
|
Can we have an option for mostly the truth, but with a little bit of fiction?
--------------------
Fen .......... My Galleries - My Blog - My Flickr
|
Ephemeral
addict
Reged: 21/07/2007
Posts: 656
Loc: North East England
|
|
Quote:
Can we have an option for mostly the truth, but with a little bit of fiction?
^WHS^
--------------------
The Ephemeral Moment - www.ephemeral.co.uk
Random Goldfish - www.randomgoldfish.com
|
JonD
journeyman
Reged: 18/01/2008
Posts: 75
|
|
I'd third that too. I think the definition of 'too far' is when you can't tell what you started with anymore...
|
beejaybee
Marvin
Reged: 18/07/2007
Posts: 4976
Loc: Really Here In Name Only
|
|
Quote:
Can we have an option for mostly the truth, but with a little bit of fiction?
I sort of agree - but I'd much prefer people to tidy up litter before taking their shots than leave the blasted litter there & photoshop it out of their masterworks.
As for the rest of the new mag - can't agree more, really nice to see a backlash against the oversaturated **** that landscape photography seems to have degenerated into - with the recent trend to HDR being the (ultimate?) nail in the coffin. Lots to digest, I've only just scratched the surface of the content, but IMHO the best issue in ages. Non subscribers, start saving for a copy 
|
AGW
Reged: 03/10/2003
Posts: 7735
Loc: Ayrshire
|
|
I fear that the awfully apt word that sums up my attempts is......SPIN.
Graeme
--------------------
AGW (BSRIPN)
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where others see nothing. (Camille Pissarro)
|
Rhys
Sasquatch
Reged: 15/01/2004
Posts: 3199
Loc: York (home of the speedbump)
|
|
Is my photography truth or fiction?
Hmm, I once tried to take photo's of objects so as to give a different meaning (the objects became less recognisable for what they were in order to make the viewer think of something else) so is that classed as fiction even though no changes have been made to the image in terms of saturation etc. from what lay in front of me?
--------------------
NRIPN (Officially Nuts..)
RGMP.co.uk (My Website.. well early stages anyway)
Benchinistas.org.uk The home of Benchism
|
cpfc12
newbie
Reged: 04/02/2008
Posts: 42
Loc: Lewes, East Sussex.
|
|
Definatly raw, as in not messed about with. Hate smokey water and all that suspended movement. That's not how my eyes see it. Do my best to remain faithful to what I see when shooting.
--------------------
Simple Southern boy.
|
Wheelu
member
Reged: 31/10/2007
Posts: 167
Loc: UK, up North
|
|
A bit of both in my case!
I recently visited the Ansel Adams exhibition in Edinburgh, where his work is displayed alongside that of the contemporary photographer Lindsay Robertson.
Both sets of images are attractive but they are very different. Adams lets the scenes speak for themselves while Robertson uses wide angle lenses, prominent foreground objects, contrast and very large prints to get more impact.
Robertson's work is more immediately eye catching, but that of Adams more beautiful, to my mind. While I was at the exhibition, I was wondering if either would still be regarded as great photographic art in 20 or 30 years time.
I was reminded of this when we had the debate about the new Fuji folder, with a majority clamouring for wider angle lenses. For the type of photography I would do with a folder, somewhere near the standard focal length would do fine. 
--------------------
My Flickr Photos
|
daft_biker
Action Man!
Reged: 11/10/2006
Posts: 7685
Loc: Doon the glen
|
|
Reality sucks Sometimes I'll try and record a scene as I saw it but most of the time I'd rather record what I'll remember a place for (if you catch my drift!).
I guess with macro it's a straight no even with a "straight shot"...unless the world really does exist on a narrow plane of focus with an out of focus background 
--------------------
Andrew (BSRIPN) ... Pics.
|
Clodhopper
Manyana
Reged: 04/04/2007
Posts: 449
Loc: Norfolk 'n good
|
|
That'd be telling...
--------------------
Everything's shiny Cap'n
my pics
|
Benchista
Wich Tyler
Reged: 11/08/2000
Posts: 37876
Loc: Everywhere and nowhere, baby
|
|
I don't believe photography actually can represent reality in anything other than a purely transient sense (and not really even then), and once captured, an image no longer reflects current reality anyway. So I make no pretence that I attempt to portray reality; rather I try to portray my impressions. Sometimes that's close to what might be perceived as reality, sometimes it's not. I think Joe Cornish's comments in this week's edition sum up my thoughts rather nicely, even if I'm not at all sure his photos necessarily do.
--------------------
Nick
www.nbrphoto.com
Light and Shade II - the new blog
|
beejaybee
Marvin
Reged: 18/07/2007
Posts: 4976
Loc: Really Here In Name Only
|
|
Quote:
and once captured, an image no longer reflects current reality anyway.
Oooh, deep stuff, special relativity, Mach cones etc. In fact it doesn't even do that, the light that formed the image was recording a reality that already no longer exists by the time it reaches the camera!
But isn't the essence of a photograph that it captures a two-dimensional map of the smoothed average of whatever portion of the real Universe was seen by the camera lens during the exposure?
|
john_g
Pooh-bah Hoo-ha
Reged: 09/05/2007
Posts: 2536
Loc: Surrey
|
|
I try to capture what I see, but then I enjoy photography because it makes me slow down and, with any luck, see more than I do when I'm just wandering through the day. In practise this means that I choose the focal length of the lens and the camera settings carefully, frame the shot knowing what I want in and out of the picture, maybe wait for the light to fall as I want it or even defer the shot for another day if conditions aren't right. Having done all this, I try to minimise the manipulation I do in RAW conversion and Photoshop work, but I do often tweak levels, maybe distort the image to correct verticals and even, if absolutely necessary, remove small intrusive elements of the picture that don't tally with what I 'saw'.
So I do aim to end up with what I saw but not necessarily with what another person would have seen. It's a personal reality, not an absolute one - the filter I use the most is my imagination. Isn't this what makes photography more than just using a scientific instrument to capture record shots? A strict demand for reality would preclude Henri Cartier-Bresson from waiting for the decisive moment and Ansel Adams from thinking it important to have caught "Moonrise, Hernandez" rather than "I just happened to be here now, Hernandez".
--------------------
John
Who could suppose that angels move the stars, or be so superstitious as to suppose that because one cannot see one's soul at the end of a microscope, it does not exist?
R.D.Laing The Politics Of Experience
http://www.flickr.com/photos/john_gass
|
Hotblack
Dead Horse Flogger
Reged: 07/03/2006
Posts: 7348
Loc: Upstairs in the spare room.
|
|
I definitely enhance what I see, so in that case what I present is a fiction, but I only enhance to certain degrees. I'm not a big fan of overdone HDR, highly saturated shots. I suppose that makes my pictures a bit like a docu-drama; a dramatised but still recognisable document of the scene in front of me. I'm trying to capture an impression or an essence of the scene and a bit of tittivating is used to convey that impression (hopefully) to the viewer.
And is a mono shot of a landscape not also a fiction? To accentuate form and shape? I believe that the current trend of HDR and oversaturation is a bit of a fad and one day will look very dated.
--------------------
Cheers
David
David J White Photography
|
beejaybee
Marvin
Reged: 18/07/2007
Posts: 4976
Loc: Really Here In Name Only
|
|
Quote:
And is a mono shot of a landscape not also a fiction? To accentuate form and shape?
Possibly, but it's a fact that (a) in dim light the eye sees "monochrome" rather than in colour, (b) the eye reacts far faster to shape changes irrespective of colour than it does to changes of colour, which indicates that the way the eye is seeing is sort of LRGB with the luminosity signal being the most important. The sensitivity of the rods used in low light is in the blue-green region which is probably why monochrome images taken with an orange or red filter can look unnatural.
I suppose it does depend a lot on whether you look at photography from the artistic point of view or taking the scientific image sensor approach. Sometimes deliberately exaggerated or even completely false colouring can show details in the image which are not apparent to the eye; so can image processing techniques like edge detection; this can be useful for scientific recording work, and the results can be beautiful even if totally unrealistic. So what I'm saying is that sometimes literal falsehood can expose the hidden truth. However, IMO, that's not what traditional pictorial photography is about.
|
LargeFormat
old hand
Reged: 24/10/2006
Posts: 1182
Loc: Buckinghamshire and Cumbria
|
|
In passing it's the cones that detect colour. They are outnumbered about 20:1 by the rods which have greater sensitivity particularly to blue light. Hence pilots wearing red glasses to preserve night adaptation.
Anyway back to the question. I find myself in difficulty with the condemnation of smokey water. With a large frame camera one is working at small apertures and longer shutter speeds so water is bound to be blurry.
|
beejaybee
Marvin
Reged: 18/07/2007
Posts: 4976
Loc: Really Here In Name Only
|
|
Quote:
I find myself in difficulty with the condemnation of smokey water. With a large frame camera one is working at small apertures and longer shutter speeds so water is bound to be blurry.
Well it does depend on how fast the water is moving. But with streams or beach waves you generally get enough motion blur at around 1/8 sec; it's the multi-second shots which blur everything to the consistency of candyfloss which seem to annoy people. Even if you're using Velvia at f/32 then you should be able to get 1/8 sec assuming the light is reasonable.
|
DaveS
enthusiast
Reged: 22/06/2007
Posts: 255
|
|
At the risk if being prescious, I would say i try to record the truth of what I saw and felt. I don't mind blury water for effect, but wouldn't overdo it. To a large extent I find myself in sympathy with the Group f/64 school of thought, even to buying a 10x8 and making contact prints. I agree that ansel Adams's prints are beutiful, but it should be remembered that even he talked about "creative departures from reality", though if the effect applied draws attention to itself rather than the photograph then it, and the photographer have both failed. What I do very strongly object to is a photo trying to pretend it's some other art-form eg watercolour. A photo is a photo and should be proud of that, not shamefacedly try to pretend to be somthing else.
wow what a long and rambling post 
Dave
Oh, and a BTW, this week's issue is the best for a long time, just brilliant!
--------------------
DaveS's Flickr Photos
|
parisian
Over the hill and far away...
Reged: 10/02/2002
Posts: 7722
Loc: Môn mam cymru
|
|
About 70/30in favour of impressions.
--------------------
Hells pensioner - born to be mild
|
Done&rundleCams
Senior Member
Reged: 20/12/2001
Posts: 16752
Loc: Vancouver, BC
|
|
... although, sometimes, it's the truth that people
wish was fiction 
Cheers,
Jack
--------------------
Life is a Photo-op
MY BLOG: www.nakedmanonawire.blogspot.com
|
Benchista
Wich Tyler
Reged: 11/08/2000
Posts: 37876
Loc: Everywhere and nowhere, baby
|
|
Quote:
Quote:
and once captured, an image no longer reflects current reality anyway.
Oooh, deep stuff, special relativity, Mach cones etc. In fact it doesn't even do that, the light that formed the image was recording a reality that already no longer exists by the time it reaches the camera!
But isn't the essence of a photograph that it captures a two-dimensional map of the smoothed average of whatever portion of the real Universe was seen by the camera lens during the exposure?
Indeed. however, it doesn't capture what the eye sees, and that's really why I contend it's not reality - to be more accurate, I should argue that it's not the same reality that a person would observe. As photographers, we toy with perspective, with depth of field, with colour or indeed monochrome, and with the stopping - or blurring - of a moving object in a way the eye doesn't. That for me is the power of photography - it captures something real enough, but in a way that's never entirely real.
--------------------
Nick
www.nbrphoto.com
Light and Shade II - the new blog
|
Strewel
newbie
Reged: 22/06/2007
Posts: 26
Loc: Yup, definitely got a geograph...
|
|
Hooray! At last the backlash against candyfloss water, brown ND grad clouds and intense saturation begins!
I've been waving the current issue of AP under peoples' noses and telling them "told you so: I've been banging on about this for ages" like a crazed loon.
Truth or fiction? How can you tell if the act of observing something doesn't change what it is you're observing? (Wanders off mumbling about the sound a tree makes if it falls in a forest without anyone to hear it. Fails to hear said tree falling and promptly gets squashed).
--------------------
David
|
beejaybee
Marvin
Reged: 18/07/2007
Posts: 4976
Loc: Really Here In Name Only
|
|
Quote:
How can you tell if the act of observing something doesn't change what it is you're observing?
It always does, however Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle sets an upper limit on the change that is possible.
|
Per
old hand
Reged: 28/11/2005
Posts: 716
Loc: UK Berkshire
|
|
It seems that good photography is inherently 'true' to the photographer's vision. There are lots of truths in the landscape, some generally overlooked, so singling out one or two (and a healthy passion for the subject) gives the truth more impact.
Personally, I see the fiction approach as a side show/distraction to improving my own work so try to avoid it. After all, free time spent in front of the PC is time not taking landscapes!
[BTW I'm pretty chuffed to have some images in the Gallery this week - happy happy happy ]
--------------------
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and after
that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946)
|
Hotblack
Dead Horse Flogger
Reged: 07/03/2006
Posts: 7348
Loc: Upstairs in the spare room.
|
|
I thought that must be you, Per. Congratulations. 
--------------------
Cheers
David
David J White Photography
|
Tacitus
History
Reged: 17/01/2006
Posts: 871
|
|
Quote:
Do you try to enhance what you see, or do you strive to faithfully represent reality? And actually, does it matter?
Dunno. I'll ask Monet, Turner and Renoir what they think at our next seance .....
|
TarquinBiscuit
Sometimes I feel like screaming
Reged: 03/02/2001
Posts: 9417
Loc: Staffs/Derbys border
|
|
I think photography has always had two distinct functions:
1) To represent reality - eg as in photojournalism, recording for the purposes of illustrating how something actually appears , and dental photography.
2) To interpret reality. By choice of lens, film, filter, developer, developing technique, print paper, filters for contrast, dodging, burning, etc etc and all the digital equivalents.
If I want or need to represent something as it is I do it, but to me the 'art' of photography allows an individual's choice of interpretive techniques to achieve something that didn't actually exist, even for an 8000th of a second. So I was in the minority ticling the second box.
--------------------
Clive BSRIPN
Cover of the Rolling Stone
|
NorthernNikon
Bulls Hitter
Reged: 16/12/2005
Posts: 6174
Loc: Harrogate, North Yorks
|
|
Quote:
I think photography has always had two distinct functions:
1) To represent reality - eg as in photojournalism, recording for the purposes of illustrating how something actually appears , and dental photography.
2) To interpret reality. By choice of lens, film, filter, developer, developing technique, print paper, filters for contrast, dodging, burning, etc etc and all the digital equivalents.
If I want or need to represent something as it is I do it, but to me the 'art' of photography allows an individual's choice of interpretive techniques to achieve something that didn't actually exist, even for an 8000th of a second. So I was in the minority ticling the second box.
^^^WHS^^^
--------------------
www.BarneyAllen.com the new home of ComicShots.
|
El Sid
Going potty
Reged: 14/04/2003
Posts: 9464
Loc: Sussex-by-the-Sea
|
|
Quote:
Do you try to enhance what you see, or do you strive to faithfully represent reality? And actually, does it matter?
damien
Often I try to reproduce what I thought I saw... Camera's on the other hand have an irritating tendency to reproduce what was actually there....... 
At other times I try to end up with a picture that gives visual satisfaction to me (and hopefully others) regardless of whether the result is a 'faithful' reproduction of of the scene.
Does it matter?
Not to my way of thinking. Reproduction of a scene has always been subject to variations in the observer and even if we leave him/her out of the equation then variations and limitations in the make-up and or specification of the capture medium - be it paint, silver halide or photo-voltaic cells - will mean no scene is going to be reproduced perfectly. As long as the end result is enjoyable the degree of veracity is of peripheral importance - unless the image is for forensic or record purposes of course.
Not sure I'd like to live in a world where all pictures had to be utterly true to life - which often isn't all that pretty any way...
--------------------
Nigel
Completely BSRIPN
ElSid Gallery
A camera in the hand is better than one in the cupboard........
|
Zou
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 05/02/2007
Posts: 2117
Loc: Edinburgh
|
|
Quote:
I don't believe photography actually can represent reality in anything other than a purely transient sense (and not really even then), and once captured, an image no longer reflects current reality anyway. So I make no pretence that I attempt to portray reality; rather I try to portray my impressions. Sometimes that's close to what might be perceived as reality, sometimes it's not. I think Joe Cornish's comments in this week's edition sum up my thoughts rather nicely, even if I'm not at all sure his photos necessarily do.
I take that quote and write it as my own. But that's the kind of thing 96.4% of landscapers would do. So I'll just say I agree with it totally.
--------------------
Zou's Flickr Page
|
Hopeless_Andy
member
Reged: 17/07/2005
Posts: 102
Loc: Shepperton, Surrey
|
|
When I was a nipper my art teacher asked me what colour a pillar in the classroom was. "Yellow".
"But you could say right now it's black because it's backlit by strong sunlight and it looks black".
So is the truth recording the real colour we know something is, or the colour it looks to our eyes under whatever the ambient light is? In any case we'll probably fail miserably due to the limitations of our kit (and skill).
--------------------
Andy P
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
