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Its about the picture


With all the software available today especially Photoshop things can get really technical and perhaps over the top trying to create the perfectly edited image, however is it really necessary to get perfect full range of tones with open shadows and highlights,images as smooth as silk etc etc.

History shows us this perfection is not always necessary, look at the iconic images below, they are not perfect but what they have is a quality that is representative to a certain look and feel, they have not gone for technical expertise they have edited for a feel a look.

Bill Brandt
Image

Bill Brandt
Image

Ansal Adams
Image

 Vivian Maier
Image






One could say that the modern editing ways we use today give us the freedom to do better, but do they, do certain pictures from the past give us a more aesthetic feel and look, I personalty think they do, gone is the perfect look, the clinical approach we often see today.

Its all about the picture, if it needs deep pure black or pure white, if it needs high contrast or low then so be it, the picture that conveys feeling is far superior to one that's technically perfect with no soul.

So edit in a way that brings out that soul of the picture, do not get bogged down with technical block and overkill, release yourself from the shackles and be free.

What do you think emoticon

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"After that shutter closes it’s all over. The physical light captured on film is all that is left, a history of light preserved in chemical form, and I have to move on to the next one."

http://martinhensonphotography.co.uk
16/Aug/14, 8:09 pm Link to this post Send Email to martinimages   Send PM to martinimages MSN Blog
 
Histon Profile
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Re: Its about the picture


That cobbled walk shot of Brandt's was one of the first pictures that gobsmacked me, I remember the first time it was published, in BJP or something. For me, it isn't really manipulated much, as your eye could well cause the wall and building to be black as you squinted in the sunlight.

Life is simple for me as a "street" type photographer, I allow a shot to be cropped, dodged and burned, contrast altered, in other words much as would have been done in the wet darkroom. I have a great shot of someone ruined by a lamp-post. I could take the post out but I won't.

I have to say I am sick and tired of seeing overdone landscapes on the web which would do not look like the original scene. It may sound naive but I wish there was a way of having two schools of photography. 1. Retouched only to make it all look as the eye saw it, no problem burning in skies a bit, cropping etc. Given the limitations of film and digital, this almost has to be done. Then 2. Photoshop the hell out of it if you like but it really isn't a photograph anymore.

I heard Chris Peckham say he disliked a photo of a bird in flight because both wings weren't perfectly symmetrical with each other, and he would have 'shopped it to make it so. I've no problem with that, it isn't my place to tell others what to do - but for me that would no longer really be a photograph, more some other piece of art.
But the problem is that things like that are being passed off as photos "as it was", maybe implicitly because no-one tells us otherwise.





Last edited by Histon, 16/Aug/14, 8:35 pm


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16/Aug/14, 8:33 pm Link to this post Send Email to Histon   Send PM to Histon Blog
 
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Re: Its about the picture


quote:

martinimages

So edit in a way that brings out that soul of the picture, do not get bogged down with technical block and overkill, release yourself from the shackles and be free.

What do you think emoticon



it is one of the hardest things in my eggpinion!
 emoticon

---
I am a part of what I am, not apart from what I dream,
That's a part of what I seem, but not apart from what I am

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17/Aug/14, 5:21 pm Link to this post Send Email to Digital Finger   Send PM to Digital Finger Blog
 
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Re: Its about the picture


quote:

Histon

I have to say I am sick and tired of seeing overdone landscapes on the web which would do not look like the original scene.




I find it an absolute trial trying to get the mood to print as I visualised because most of the time to get it to print out right I do actaulayy have to exaggereate the various elemenyts in the scenne and its a very very fine line sometimes between lifteing them so theyre not just lost ina general blandness and the complete overkill where everything leaps out at you like a rabid rat

---
I am a part of what I am, not apart from what I dream,
That's a part of what I seem, but not apart from what I am

~ Simon
17/Aug/14, 5:24 pm Link to this post Send Email to Digital Finger   Send PM to Digital Finger Blog
 
Elines Profile
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Re: Its about the picture


(Not a complete response, just a few observations)

I think you need to be expert at processing digital images BEFORE you can use only a light touch (or decide to use a heavy touchemoticon) to produce your vision from the image you have actually taken.

EDIT 18 August 2014 - just got to the bit in the Tjintjellar/Godpodarou where they say thisemoticon (page 58 /424 so still long way to goemoticon)

A bit like Picasso - I was talking to someone the other say who hadn't realised that he was a gifted drawer/'traditional' artist before he started doing the stuff he is best known for. The argument is that he couldn't have produced the later stuff with out developing the technical drawing skills first. (And maybe some modern 'artists' could learn from thatemoticon)

Alternatively you have to become an extremely proficient photographer to produce in camera the image you have in your mind when you take the picture.

Needless to say I am a long way from being in either campemoticon

EDIT

Just to illustrate:

I took this picture a year or so ago with the aim of making the clown look EVIL/Scary ( I generally don't like clown faces - must have been scared by one as a childemoticon)

Image

(OK it's clipped, not correctly exposed etc but it will do for illustrative purposes)

Problem is I have got very little idea of how to convert my 'vision' (Evil/scary Clown) into an image that reflects that.

If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to PM me (don't want to hijack the thread) - so that I can try them out - I'd rather do that than have someone send me an example of it turned into an Evil/scary Clown, if that's okemoticon)

Last edited by Elines, 18/Aug/14, 5:59 pm


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Chris

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17/Aug/14, 5:58 pm Link to this post Send Email to Elines   Send PM to Elines Blog
 
Histon Profile
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Re: Its about the picture


quote:

Digital Finger wrote:

I find it an absolute trial trying to get the mood to print as I visualised because most of the time to get it to print out right I do actaulayy have to exaggereate the various elemenyts in the scenne and its a very very fine line sometimes between lifteing them so theyre not just lost ina general blandness and the complete overkill where everything leaps out at you like a rabid rat



Yes I know what you mean, the term "snap" belies all the hard work!





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17/Aug/14, 11:24 pm Link to this post Send Email to Histon   Send PM to Histon Blog
 
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Re: Its about the picture


Hope you don't mind........?

does this give the sort of feel you were after?

Image

---
I am a part of what I am, not apart from what I dream,
That's a part of what I seem, but not apart from what I am

~ Simon
18/Aug/14, 9:50 am Link to this post Send Email to Digital Finger   Send PM to Digital Finger Blog
 
Elines Profile
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Re: Its about the picture


Thanks - sort of - I think I will only know when I see itemoticon

Which rather explains the difficulty I have - maybe I need some to find sort of guidelines as to how to create a particular atmosphere/what makes a picture (eg)creepy/dreamy etc as a starter to work on emoticon

But? in danger of hijacking the thread?

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Chris

One day I might grow up, but I hope not
Say YES unless good reason to contrary
18/Aug/14, 12:27 pm Link to this post Send Email to Elines   Send PM to Elines Blog
 
eternumviti Profile
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Re: Its about the picture


Interesting points made by Martin in the OP. I have always felt that you have earned the right to let blacks go once you have mastered the technique(s)of holding them.

I was looking (as I often do) through Michael Kenna's back-catalogue today, and he is a master of the 'black' art, often using solid blacks to simplify and pare down his images.

I was pleased to note that he has photographed Bill Brandt's famous snicket in Halifax, who knows, perhaps to instruct himself on the technique. I do think it is an incredibly effective one, but my goodness, it is difficult to get right.
22/Aug/14, 12:48 pm Link to this post Send Email to eternumviti   Send PM to eternumviti Blog
 
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Re: Its about the picture


much harder to get good blacks IMO with digital 0 it was easy with film , (especially kodachrome)
emoticon

Got a link to that book Toby?

---
I am a part of what I am, not apart from what I dream,
That's a part of what I seem, but not apart from what I am

~ Simon
23/Aug/14, 9:01 am Link to this post Send Email to Digital Finger   Send PM to Digital Finger Blog
 


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