UKH

A recent conversation with a friend got me thinking about how people view their photography - whether they see it as a form of art, or a form of documentary. The friend in question commented on an obviously heavily processed image of mine, asking why I'd applied such obvious and extreme post-processing techniques.

I personally see photography in the same way as I see my work as a lighting designer; that of creating art, where I'm looking to elicit a specific emotional response in the viewer by whatever means available. What the camera sees is only part of the story, and manipulation of the initial image to get across the message or emotional response I intend is perfectly valid in my opinion.

The image which prompted the discussion is https://www.flickr.com/photos/113095654@N07/14943576958/

The entire atmosphere of the place screamed 'Stephen King' to me - a dilapidated and abandoned farmhouse at the end of a long deserted road, at dusk with foreboding weather closing in - and that's what I wanted to try to convey in the end result. I'm well aware the photo in question is pretty average at best - it was as much an experiment as anything else. The original just didn't inspire me in the slightest, which is why I went with the chosen approach.

Where does everyone else sit with their photography? Do you believe that you're looking to represent a subject 'factually' as seen by the camera and yourself, or do you view it more as an artistic endeavour with more freedom? I don't mean this as a 'how much post-processing is acceptable' technical discussion, rather a discussion on how you actually view and approach your photography.

In reply to tehmarks:

I've found, for someone who drinks too much, digital photography is a great aid to memory.

In reply to tehmarks:

For me you have to create pictures that you like, some will love what you do, others will hate what you do but as long as you like it that is the only thing that counts. Constructive critique is a great thing to improve your work, but beware those that just want to ram their way of doing things down your neck.

In reply to tehmarks:

i use my camera for two things

taking snap shots to remind my self of an event (so 30 shots of a hill walk for example)

the other more elusive shot is as you say about "art"... i say "art" because i'm not quite there with that aspect of my snapping

both are equaly valid, in the same as some paintings are almost photgraphic in representing a scene and others are about how the artist feels about what they see.

In reply to tehmarks:

Surely a picture can be both, unless it has been edited to present a scene that has never existed, then I guess it could only be 'art'. Some fashion photography is often primarily artistic, but still documents the styles of the day.

In reply to tehmarks:


Both depending on the circumstance. Although I am not sure I would go so far as to call my attempts artistic endeavour.
So long as something which has been edited/set up isnt portrayed as being a documentary style one I dont see where the fuss is.

In reply to tehmarks:


An interesting side point, though, is that for all people get hung up on it, post-processing is a very small part of the set of ways that a photograph can be deceptive. A slightly cheesy example would be promotional photos for a seaside hotel that take in the tiny scrap of sea that's actually visible from the hotel, and leave out the sewage works. More murkily, I'd imagine that quite a few beautiful shots of the empty hills will have been carefully angled or timed to miss out the horde of dog walkers or the shirtless boulderers shouting at each other or the cement works or whatever. Quite a lot of photojournalistic shots that "beautifully capture the [emotional state] of [authentic local person]" actually capture a local person putting on a face because a strange foreigner is pointing a camera at them. And so on.

To answer your original question - either or both!

In reply to stroppygob:


But sometimes an unwelcome one.

In reply to tehmarks:
There are two types of photography:

(1) An honest attempt within the confines of a restricted 2 dimensional representation and the technology available to give an impression of what was actually observed and what it was like to actually be there.

(2) Pretentious, often dishonest, bollocks - sometimes referred to as "art" in an attempt to give it a veneer of respectability

Type(2) is all very well as long as it is owned up to, obvious or done badly (as often in the UKC galleries - spot the obvious example in this week's top 10), and therefore not strictly dishonest, but is far too often successfully passed off as type (1) by the skilled (no doubt also prevalent on UKC). This results in an element of doubt over the honesty of any photograph which slightly spoils the pleasure of looking at all photos.

In reply to Robert Durran:


which one do you mean? I see a load of horrible HDR but can't see a fake one. The 'reaching for the light' photo?

In reply to GuyVG:

The grotesquely coloured Ramshaw one. Just out of interest I actually downloaded it and managed to make it look fairly natural and not too bad a photo at all.
I don't like the one at number 2 either; it looks like 2 photos superimposed on each other with the one at the back not very good anyway. Is that the HDR thing?

In reply to tehmarks:

Intent and context are important factors.

If the intention was to take a 'snap' as an aide memoir - then that is fine.

If the intention was to take an image that reflected what was seen - then that is fine.

If the intention is to adjust an image to reflect what was 'felt' - then that is fine. (Although it needs to be done well to not look naff - re horrible over cooked HDR)

If the intention is to photograph what was 'seen' in front of the camera without any adjustment but to connect that image to an idea or different context - then that is also fine. (But again has to be done well so as not to be thought to be 'arty bollix'.)


Some may see this as 'arty bollix' others may see at as ideas / context based photography >

Images > http://www.henryiddon.com/A-Place-to-Go

Statement > http://www.henryiddon.com/A-Place-to-Go-Statement

In reply to Robert Durran:

With number 2, I'd say yes - looks like the photographer created a mask to edit the detail for the foreground, which overemphasises the boundary between the foreground and background. In this instance I like it, it adds to the sense of depth.

I see plenty of hideous photos on Flickr where the photographer has ramped up the saturation or contrast or HDR to acid trip levels. It's skill-less, soulless and looks horrible. But sometimes those fake effects are used to create something beautifully surreal like this one:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/48988488@N04/15090203652/

In reply to Henry Iddon:


Yeah, I think I'm often almost as unimpressed by heavy post-processing as Robert is but for a completely different reason - namely that it often turns a scene that I could relate to very directly and hence be quite powerfully affected by into one that's so Hollywood-ised that I can barely connect it to my own experience.

In reply to Trevers:
But sometimes those fake effects are used to create something beautifully surreal like this one:

This image actually works because the photographer has some knowledge about colour relationships and that blue is opposed to orange in colour theory, so creating maximum contrast. Although to be absolutely accurate as tad less red and pump up the yellow a little to get closer to a true orange. This is where a knowledge of design is helpful when composing a photographic image.
I resent other posters decrying 'art' photography as 'B*ll*cks'. We are talking about the 'Creative' aspect of photography, which in the hands of the less creative can be pretentious. This is where the technique becomes more important than the idea. Consider the Photograms of Man Ray who undoubtably had an idea he was developing when he produced this work.
http://theliteratelens.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/manray_two1.jpg

"Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask "how," while others of a more curious nature will ask "why." Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information."
Man Ray

In reply to tehmarks:

In the 15 years I worked as a professional photographer, concentrating on mountain landscape work (including four books of same), I never regarded my pictures as 'art' in anything more than a very minimal sense: they had in some sense to 'communicate' with people, i.e 'touch' them, and also convey in a true sense the 'essence' of the subject matter. More than anything else I was interested in light, and magical moments of light - i.e the beautiful and extraordinary 'theatrics' of nature. i.e there had to be something 'going on' naturally in the scene. Fleeting moments of aesthetic magic always interested me the most.

As far as the 'art' was concerned. It all boiled down to getting into very interesting camera positions - often involving long approach walks and even quite tricky climbing etc, and then just waiting, often for hours, a bit like a fisherman.

Everything was shot on medium format transparency film, with no trickery whatever. No double exposures etc. No Photoshop later (had scarcely been invented anyway). I allowed myself to use neutral density grads to overcome exposure range problems, that's all. Everything done 'in the frame' as far as possible.

I'm not saying there's any 'right' or 'wrong'. Simply reporting what I was interested in, and did.

In reply to Sean Kelly:

Yes, surely every photographer worth his or her salt has a very clear colour wheel in their mind, going from 12 o'clock position: R Y G C B M - which also means that they know how the additive RGB and subtractive CMYK systems relate. And also which filters etc, therefore, to use for colour balance. I suppose I was helped in this with experience of grading feature films (e.g American re-cut of 'Legend' where I spent hours at Ranks labs with the colour grader so that the new shots could be cut in seamlessly i.e match perfectly with those in the original movie. Ridley seemed to trust me with this I'm honoured to say That was a dead subtle system ... using 8 'points' to each stop! on each of the r g b 'lights'.

In reply to Sean Kelly:

I remember the grader at Ranks was so au fait with it that you could use either system e.g say i think that shot needs 3 more points less Magenta, or two points more Blue etc. We'd look at some shots for hours trying to make up our minds, say, if the problem was that the shot was too blue or too cyan i.e. the exact nature of the bias.

In reply to Trevers:

I think that's a very great photograph because it conveys brilliantly the misery/ the reality of being in that situation. I think a lot of non-climbers would 'get it' at that level (and would be happy never to 'go there') On the question of 'art', I don't know. As I said earlier, I don't really think photography is art because it really doesn't involve enough craft. When it becomes art, using eg the craft of Photoshop, yes, it's much more like art, or even real art, but it's kind of drifted away from the essence of photography, I think. That digital cameras have, thank g, got us right back to.

In reply to Sean Kelly:

Please don't get me wrong. There is some superb artistic work being done with Photoshop, but it has little or nothing to do with photography per se.

In reply to tehmarks:


This inquiry is poorly defined. Most responses focus on climbing photography but the OP has not tied down subject, target audinece or media. The answer is bound to be different for specific cases.

In reply to the_mark:

Interesting topic. To document something would be to produce an accurate reproduction of the real world. However technology gets in the way of that by giving us set boundaries to work in (focal length, aperture, shutter speed). Just like 'technologies' such as the paint brush or microphone cast their own influence on the documentation process.

With boundaries comes a necessity for creativity in order to make the best use of the technology e.g. choosing the correct lens to best represent a scene. Whilst this could be considered as an artistic choice, I think it can still be a craft to take a good picture, by setting a correct white balance and exposure, taking note of the rule of thirds etc. Just like it can be a craft to draw still life or record a string quartet, both by abiding by certain rules of practice.

Craft can produce something very nice/pleasing/beautiful; a picture of a mountain, a painting of a persons body, a recording of some chamber music. However, I think that it's a cumulation of decisions made when 'documenting' that can bring the final product into the realms of art. It's an unnatural process to make a still image of our ever changing world. To wait for the exact moment to capture it's beauty, along with many other decisions e.g. lenses, filters post-processing, is a decision made by the user to elicit a certain reaction from the audience. Just like artists choosing to re-interpret the human form or bands like the Beatles choosing to use technologies for purposes that they were not intended for.

Then again, art is in the eye of the beholder. Ramble over.

David

In reply to LeeWood:

Absolutely - I didn't want to tie the subject down to a particular genre as I feel that's quite limiting, but rather get a general sense of how people view photography or approach photography. I think there should already be a general consensus that, for example, climbing photography should definitely tend towards documentary in nature, and doesn't need any heavy use of anything other than good photographic sense.

Regarding art being synonymous with pretentious bollocks, it's a subjective thing isn't it? This is why some people collect art and others don't, and why some people can have a great day out in the Tate Modern and others just don't understand the appeal (I'm often in the latter category). I'm influenced by the reasons I took up photography to begin with - as an alternative creative outlet to my actual work of lighting design - but I see the camera as a tool to create something, rather than a tool to document something. I don't like the idea of limiting the tools available to me because of some prevailing etiquette. As long as there's no deception, I see no problem.

That's not excusing poor editing though - badly-done is bad, regardless. Whether that's due to overcooked HDR, acid-trip saturation or some other reason, it's not good. I sometimes think some people need to ask less of the 'how?' and more of the 'why?' before they do things? 'Why am I using HDR, what effect am I trying to achieve which requires HDR?' rather than 'how do I deal with the dynamic range in this scene?' for example. I see the equivalent in my actual work so often, where new and inexperienced designers are so focused on the equipment that they forget why they're actually using it, and what they're trying to create. Which inevitably leads to the same unimaginative crap every time.

With the photo which sparked this, I saw exactly what I wanted to achieve before the camera even came out of the bag - horror-esque abandoned building in a deserted area. I specifically had in mind a photo with very subdued colours. But the Welsh countryside just doesn't do that sort of feel naturally, even though that's how my brain tinted what my eyes were seeing. I also had no idea how to achieve that, so after much mucking around with an utterly uninspiring original photo in Lightroom, I gave up and sat on it (/forgot about it) for two months until a better idea came to me. But I knew exactly what I wanted to do before I took the photo.

It's also worth mentioning that my perception of the scene came from all five (six?) senses, and the camera is only reproducing one. It was late, about to rain and I still hadn't found anywhere to camp. I'd just walked down a long road without seeing the slightest hint of life, that ended here. A naturalistic photo of a boarded-up building was never going to do justice to what I felt in the moment.

Sorry, this post is a bit scatterbrained. I've sat on it all day trying to edit it into a cohesive argument, but I have so much I want to say and only so many people to bore.

In reply to Trevers:


The problem I have with that photo, is that it just might be "real", capturing an unusual, beautiful and fleeting moment and light. But the fact that it probably isn't takes away most of the pleasure of looking at it. I've no interest in "fake" photos - I've no problem with others liking them, but I just wish they were labelled as such so that I can ignore them and know when I'm looking at a "real" one.

In reply to tehmarks:


I'm afraid all I see is a picture of an abandoned building spoilt by an unnecessarily artificial green tint. It does absolutely nothing for me(except to make me wonder what the point of the green tint is). But maybe that is my loss......my problem, not yours!

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


This is almost precisely how I see my own photography (though obviously in a very much more impoverished way!).

I suspect, unfortunately, that rather too many people now to an extent rely as much on a computer as on being in the right place at the right time to "capture" your "magical moments of light".

Let's face it, it ought to be almost impossible to be a bad photographer these days and not at all difficult to be a reasonably good one. You can get a good camera for a quite reasonable price, then all you have to do is point is roughly in the right direction at the right moment. Digital film being free, you can take as many shots as you like with different exposures etc. and bin most of them later. There is then free software, so easy to use that even I can cope with it, with which to crop and tweek the photos afterwards. Almost all the effort needed is to be in the right place at the right time (and the more effort put in, the more luck you will have).

I really do think that a lot of this talk of "art" is pretty pretentious (even if my earlier "pretentious bollocks" was deliberately provocative.

Having said that, it always amazes me how many people can't point a camera in the right direction (if the horizon is half way up the photo and my feet off the bottom no amount of cropping is going to put things right), and you only have to look at the UKC galleries to see how many landscape photos are murdered by overenthusiastic post processing.

In reply to Robert Durran:

I'm biased - I get paid to create some form of art on a daily basis, albeit in a completely different setting - but do you not feel it's possible to enjoy an image that isn't entirely naturalistic? What about a beautiful oil painting?

I agree that there are a lot of shockingly bad efforts at photography these days when it should be easier than ever to be at least half-decent. I was mulling this over in the bath last night - the fact that we're no longer limited by the cost of film, and that all but the poorest of exposures can usually be rescued with little effort in Lightroom or similar really should mean that the standard of photography is better these days than in days gone by. Perhaps it's because everything is so accessible these days that the standard has dropped; people are able to pick up a camera inexpensively and just start shooting, without an appreciation of the basic principles which make a good photograph. No amount of Photoshop is going to help a fundamentally bad composition, and nothing makes up for being in the right place at the right time.

In reply to tehmarks:


Yes, but I just want to be told when a photo is not naturalistic so that I can see it as such! Some I might then enjoy. My only real objection is to photos passed off as naturalistic when they are not (and not obviously not so). I just want to know what I am looking at.

In reply to Robert Durran:


So would it be fair to say that, in essence, what gives you pleasure from looking at a photograph isn't that it's a beautiful or emotionally charged image, it's knowing that there was at some point a beautiful or emotionally charged moment that that image has captured?

In reply to Robert Durran:

We're agreed on that point then - deception is not good.

In reply to tehmarks:


Agreed but, I like subtle surreality which makes you question 'is it real'? Anything overdone can't win. It becomes a puzzle - if done well.

NB. not necessarily on UKC - but wherever photography is presented as art

In reply to Robert Durran:


But why not? It's quite clear that it's intended as art, not as an accurate depiction of what he saw.

Why does it matter whether the image was produced by hand, or by means of a photographic film of ccd or whatever?

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
But Gordon,
Photography is the medium they choose to output their artistic expression. Nothing wrong with that. Photography is a bit like writing. There are many uses for writing from the humble shopping list, to the greatest literature of our age. And so with photography. From family snap, paperattzi, journalism, art, etc. It all serves a purpose. Your background best explains why you adopt a certain purist style to your photographic output. My art background must influence my approach. A bit like life really.
In response to other posters, the IMAGE is the main focus. It is paramount. If the original image has no worth, then no amount of post editing will rescue it. 99% of my photographs have little worth, either artistic or as a record. but sometimes something special occurs in front of the lens. It might be luck, hard work or inspiration. But whatever it is, you sense something special. I really can go a whole year and not record a single image that really shakes me. But you know when it does, and it's a wonderful experience.

In reply to tehmarks:

Art vs 'documentary' photography

versus - is it a competition between the two?

In reply to Robert Durran:

Hi, I'm the (only slightly offended!) owner of the grotesque picture in question! Don't worry, I can take criticism. But I'm posting because I'm genuinely interested as to what you did with the photo to make it more pleasing to you. Is this perhaps the difference between 1) & 2) in your post above? If it's of any relevance, I wasn't looking to create art as such, but rather to make a picture that gave an overall impression which reminded me of being there. Given the photo from the camera (very underexposed to get details in the sky) this was the best I could do.

I think you have more experience than me with photography and editing. Hence the request to see your version of the pic. Even better, I can send you the original from the camera and see what you'd do with it given a blank slate?

James

In reply to JHC:

Bump - I'd definitely be interested in seeing the result of this if Robert is willing.

In reply to Robert Durran:



The photos will probably have changed by the time you read this, but let's ask a question: how many of this weeks top 10 photos do you reckon have been digitally manipulated in some way?

And another couple of questions: what do you think of photos which have been manipulated, but you haven't noticed, are they still 'photographs'? And how much is 'too much'? Just enough so that you notice or that someone notices, or a photographer or experienced 'manipulator' notices?

These are all genuine questions incidentally, I'm not trying to wind you up!

And finally, when are we going to see some of your own photos uploaded from your recent Greenland trip so we can express our opinions or at least see what you believe are (hopefully) good photos?

In reply to Fraser:
i also wonder where black and white photos fit into these types of discussions. they are of course even more 'unreal' than the most over-saturated colour photo.

In reply to mac fae stirling:

Good point. I think the best street photography is often b&w, and that's usually extremely 'non-arty', although such shots generally tell a story or activate the mind.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


No, it's both. They are inseparable. A photo which turns out to be "fake" loses its beauty for me, but a "true" photo shares the moment's beauty with me.

In reply to LeeWood:


Fine, as long as I know that that is the game you are playing.

In reply to Trevers:


Yes, on reflection, I agree it is clearly a "fake" photo and so I can just ignore it.

In reply to JHC:


Were you on drugs?



Actually I am not at all experienced. I am just getting more serious about my photography having got a good camera recently and progressed a bit from point and shoot with a mediocre compact. Hence my interest in this topic.

Hence the request to see your version of the pic. Even better, I can send you the original from the camera and see what you'd do with it given a blank slate?

Ok. I'll email you. I'll do what I can given my basic software and inexperience!

In reply to mac fae stirling:


I suppose black and white is a historical anomaly really. It's hardly ever deceptive because it is obvious what it is. I really hate it when people make a picture partly colour (usually a figure) and partly black and white (usually the background). This can be deceptive in a winter climbing scene.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Can you give us one of your photos that shows exactly what you saw on the day?

In reply to Fraser:


Possibly all of them, one or two crudely, some probably quite subtly. But some manipulation in itself is not a problem - just an extension of the internal manipulation inside the camera; all photos have to be digitally produced somehow from the raw data. The problem is when the aim of the manipulation is to produce a "dishonest" picture.


It is not an easy question and it's a fine line but I am sure the photographer probably always knows themselves when they have crossed the line to "dishonesty", whether of not it is apparent to anyone else. And, if done skilfully, why should it be apparent to someone who wasn't there - that is the problem!


I hope some of them are quite good. Unfortunately, just when I'd almost finished editing, sorting and "tweeking" them, my hard drive died and I am back to my 1400 originals (fortunately backed up). Arrrrrgh.....! But I shall put a selection on here eventually. We joked that my main aim for the trip was to get a photo of Simon bouldering to the UKC No.1 spot before you. Greenland v Dumby - no contest!

In reply to aln:


Of course not. It's only a photo. But I can show you plenty which reflect what I saw as accurately and honestly as I could manage.

In reply to Robert Durran:
Do you only consider something to be dishonest if it's been manipulated after it's been taken? Or are you also bothered by photos that are deceptive while still being an accurate representation of what the camera was pointing at at the time? For instance:
* posed photos
* photos where the context of what you're seeing isn't what you might assume it is (the exhausted boulderer slumped on the mat is actually knackered because they were up all night, not because of their efforts on the rock is one example, someone on a noteworthy ascent redoing sections of a route for the cameras is another)
* photos that use a carefully chosen angle to give a false impression (eg finding the one angle on one route from which Horseshoe Quarry looks like Siurana...)
* photos that use a carefully chosen moment to give a false impression (eg waiting for the one moment in the day when the crowds of ramblers happened to be behind you rather than in front of you before taking your shot of the "wild, empty landscape"...)

In reply to Robert Durran:

Exactly. Your obsession with this is weird and a bit stupid for someone with your intelligence.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Black and white was historically a result of the available technnology. A b/w image is a representation of the total light (irrespective of colour) hitting the sensor or film so is firmly rooted in physical reality and can be a physically objective representation of a scene, according to its own properties. Of course, as a viewer we may have a changed emotional or intellectiual response to it as a b/w image compared to a colour version.

In reply to aln:


Why? I really struggle to see why anyone of intelligence could fail to see that the discussion is absolutely central to photography, and in particular the sort of photography prevalent on UKC (landscape and photos of people climbing). I've no idea why my interest could make me in the slightest way weird or stupid.

In reply to Robert Durran:

I have to agree with you there, the discussion is central "art" vs. "documentary" has been integral to the nature of debate on photography since Fox-Talbot.

Photoshop, and its ilk, have heightened that to new levels of discourse.


In my landscape shots I try to tread a fine line between "art" and "documentary", while still wanting to maximise both

In reply to Ramblin dave:


No. Whether the processing/manipulation has taken place internally in the camera or afterward on a computer is irrelevant. Al that matters, of course, is the final picture.

As for the other points you make, they are all valid and interesting and worthy of discussion (if I had the time!). However my main interest here is in those "magical moments of light" we seek out. Was the sunset really that spectacularly vivid? Were those storm clouds really so threateningly black? Was the contrast between that shaft of sunlight and the surrounding shadows really so dramatic? I just want a reasonable attempt at honesty or an admission that it's not honest (or, if you like, is "art"). And I think that is perfectly reasonable.

In reply to Robert Durran:


i don't get your use of the term 'deceptive' here. or how the use of selective colour within a monochrome photo [which i think can look fantastic and dramatic, at times, if used judiciously] is deceptive - particularly given that within a monochrome context the colour bit is actually closer to 'reality' than the rest of the photo. but, one likes what one likes and that is basically it.
the move to digital seems to have been a catalyst for a lot of angst about post-processing. a lot of the discussion is interesting but i think it gets a bit pointless after a while, well, quite quickly actually... back in the days when i processed BW film, we used to get up to all sorts of processing tricks, dodging, burning, cropping, variable exposures, actually bending the paper under the enlarger to get effects, holding card masks over the paper... etc i don't recall it creating much of a stir at all in the general world of the amateur photographer. from memory, i think people judged the image, the beauty, essence, composition, drama, impact and/or spirit of the photo, not so much whether it represented 'reality'. i guess the critera for photo-journalism is/was different, but that is not the kind of photography being discussed here, i don't think.

In reply to mac fae stirling:


I actually said it wasn't deceptive! Black and white is almost always obviously what it is. A mixture of black and white is, in my opinion "arsy" (just mt opinion) and obviously unnatural but not deceptive




I imagine because it is now so easy for anyone to use post processing software that almost everyone is aware of the potential for "fake" photos. Everyone is potentially at it, whereas in the days of film almost everyone just got their photos developed for them and only real enthusiasts did their own processing. We now all know what you were up to all that time!

In reply to mac fae stirling:


All kinds of photography is being discussed. I am not a photo journalist, but I want an honest record of those "magical moments of light" in my landscape photos and I prefer to know when someone else's record is not honest.

In reply to tehmarks:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2013/jul/11/colin-prior-photo...

timely

You might like to have a look at Gerry Badgers "the Pleasure of Good Photographs" I stick it on my Students reading list, a series of essays but quite readable.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Was meant to be "....mixture of black and white and colour....."!

In reply to Robert Durran:


Nightmare, but at least you still have the originals. I look forward to seeing the updated gallery in due course.


Challenge accepted. The trip sounds amazing....with the obvious exception of the fractured heel episode!

In reply to Fraser:


Now that I have rubbed so many potential voters up the wrong way on this thread, I might struggle a bit though


It was a truly stunning spot to spend a month. Some good climbing too when we found some good rock!

In reply to Robert Durran:

aye, i know - it is the whole vocabulary of deceptive/honesty that i just don't relate too.

i don't think someone who posts a massively saturated photo of a sunset, for example, is being deceptive or dis-honest, i assume they probably think they have produced a nice photo.

actually, i posted on UKC, a few weeks back, a photo of a sunset in lewis and de-saturated the colours to make it look more believable!

In reply to tehmarks:

Ken Rockwell pretty much sums up my overall opinion on the subject better than I ever could:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/art.htm
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/7.htm

'Art is the expression of imagination'. I think it's fair to say that without an imagination, we'd all end up producing very dull photos.

In reply to tehmarks:

As this is a climbing website, lets stick for a moment with climbing photo's and decide what is acceptable or not.

If you were taking a photo of a coveted ascent, then the image must be pretty 'honest' and true to life as it is in effect recording history. For example, you couldn't really clone out tick marks or a hanging top rope.
Some small tweaks could be made to levels, etc. as long as it isn't done to change the drama of the occasion.

On the other hand, if you want something nice to put on the wall, or you're a gear manufacturer that wants to make a dramatic poster, then go for it...

If you're entering a photo into a competition, then I think you should declare any dramatic changes (very subjective) that you have made.

Additionally, there's always the grey area of posed first ascents...

In reply to FactorXXX:

I think a major ascent is probably an example of "documentary" photography - the photograph may or may not be beautiful in itself but it's important as a record of the fact that something actually happened.

A contrasting example might be a highland landscape with dark, dramatic, ominous clouds. Now personally, I'm more interested in verisimilitude that verity - what I want from this photograph is that when I look at it it strikes a chord with me such that even if I'm sat in a heated office, I find myself wanting to zip up my coat and pull down my hat and hope that the bothy roof won't leak too much. What I don't care about - and would contend that it's somewhat arbitrary to care about - is whether the clouds really were exactly that shade on the day or whether the photographer sexed them up a bit in Lightroom. Except insofar as pictures with sexed-up clouds are more prone to looking unrealistic and breaking the spell, it's not that important to me to be able to confirm whether some particular, transient configuration of clouds and light actually happened or not.

In reply to FactorXXX:

'decide what is acceptable or not'

i think this is the problem right there.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


And more to the point, how does one tell whether what we produce on screen? We don't exactly have 'photographic' evidence of exactly what colour the sky was that day. When I process my photos, I try to go with what looks natural to me, and is closest to how I remember it, then add a little bit of drama. But if my memory has made it slightly more dramatic than it actually was, if those clouds weren't quite so ominous or the sunset so vivid, am I to blame? And for me personally, the very act of photographing a scene then producing it is romanticising it to extent.

In reply to tehmarks:

There can't really be lines drawn I don't think, due to photography as a medium being personal to each photographer. So I think that the lines blur and 'art' and 'documentary' are completely interchangeable, and perhaps in many cases cannot function without each other.

So you might have someone using instagram, which as an app is a form or documentary - you can view what you did a few months ago, and see where you are at present, though instagram has become something of an art too.

just the same as at the other end of the spectrum a professional photographer can create a documentary project that may have potential to be made into a book that could be viewed as art...

my head is going to explode.

In reply to emmathefish:

When I say 'art vs documentary' (which is the only way I could think of phrasing it at the time), I'm more referring to how the photographer approaches their photography than anything to do with publishing or beyond the production of the image. For example, is the photographer looking to portray the subject as objectively and accurately as possible (à la photojournalism), or are they merely using the camera as a tool to exercise their imagination (like a paintbrush to a painter, à la fine art). I don't think what happens beyond the production of the image is an important consideration in the sense that I meant the discussion.

It's for that reason that I disagree with those saying that photography can't be art because it doesn't involve enough 'craft' too. Art is the representation of someone's imagination or creativity - the medium by which it's represented is irrelevant. Although I also concede that digging a chasm in the concrete floor of a gallery in the name of 'racial hatred and social division' could very easily be viewed as pretentious bollocks...

In reply to Robert Durran:

You will enjoy this Robert...

A workflow on an image : youtube.com/watch?v=L2JSc8uKmvg&

In reply to Michael Ryan:



Assuming the scene actually looked something a bit like the original photo, this cannot be described as anything but a complete fake from a photographic perspective. It has more in common with painting than photography.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Robert - you are being falsely constrained if you believe your camera gives you anything like a natural image. The human eye is attached to a human brain (in most cases) which does an incredible amount of interpretation of what passes through the retina. Whilst software designers do their best a camera is no match. It simply doesn't know what scene you are looking at and has to assume it is an average scene. That's why the average picture coming out of a camera is too dark, too light, too blue, too orange, not contrasty enough, too contrasty etc. Thankfully we have photoshop to do the job that the human brain does when interacting with the human eye.

In reply to Kafoozalem:

i agree with that, the ooc picture looked washed-out and bland the edited photo looked better. although a bit to much colour for me.
i think in almost every case [my experience] ooc photos can be improved with post-processing.

In reply to mac fae stirling:

To be fair, Robert (and I know I'm putting words into his mouth here) doesn't object to post processing to make the photograph match up with the scene as you saw it - essentially to correct, to the best of your ability, for the imperfection of the camera. He just objects to going beyond that and and using post processing to make the image more colourful or more dramatic than it actually appeared to you at the time, eg squeezing big psychedelic colours out of what was, in reality, a fairly average sunset, or cranking up the contrast on the sky to make ordinary mid-grey clouds look spectacularly moody and dramatic.

In reply to Ramblin dave:
sure, but how can you object to this? - 'eg squeezing big psychedelic colours out of what was, in reality, a fairly average sunset, or cranking up the contrast on the sky to make ordinary mid-grey clouds look spectacularly moody and dramatic'.

why is that not a good thing to do on occasion and if you are so inclined? what is there to 'object' to? lurking in the background of these kinds of objections is some notion of 'reality' - you used the term yourself - or veracity which i think is untenable and misplaced when dealing with a wee box of tricks like a camera and a creative process such as photography - the only 'real' thing that comes out of a camera is the image it has very selectively produced.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Precisely. Thankyou for saving me putting the words into my mouth myself.

In reply to mac fae stirling:
I was just trying to clarify Robert's position, there, not to state my own.

Personally I don't mind what you do, although I often dislike really heavily processed images on purely aesthetic grounds - there's a tendency to end up looking like disembodied Hollywood CGI, where a more subtle treatment might have been genuinely evocative of something.

In reply to mac fae stirling:

I have absolutely no objection to you doing it. What I object to is passing it off as an honest attempt to depict what you actually saw. And I think that, say, putting it the UKC gallery without owning up to it is dishonesty by omission. It might, of course, be ok on a more "arty" website.

In reply to Robert Durran:
that rules out all BW photos then since the world is not monochrome and it is never what you 'actually saw'.

or indeed using one of the film simulations settings on your XE1 - i think the velvia setting looks great btw.

i would say that no photograph is ever what you actually saw - see well made point by kafoozalem above. every single photo you have ever posted on UKC is not what you 'actually saw'. it is a version of what you think you saw.

what you may feel when you are standing at the top of a mountain, say, is a sense of elation, drama, wonderment, or perhaps just knackered.. etc. you might then want to catch this in a photo and the post-processing of such. this may lead you to boost the contrast of the clouds to try and capture that [it may/may not then look crap of course]. your use of the terms honesty/dishonesty is surely misplaced.

'I have absolutely no objection to you doing it'.. mmm, i think, from your comments, you do object to it. or at least find it objectionable.

anyway, going round in circles... good light and happy snapping to you.

I often dislike really heavily processed images on purely aesthetic grounds - there's a tendency to end up looking like disembodied Hollywood CGI, where a more subtle treatment might have been genuinely evocative of something.

i completely agree.

In reply to Kafoozalem:

Spot on with that analysis! What the eye 'sees' for any given scene depends on which part of it you look at at any specific time - the subconscious registering adjusts so immediately, you simply don't notice what's really happening. A camera just can't mimic and capture on the recorded image the full range of exposure and saturation your eye does as you glance from one part of a scene to another, so it compromises and gives you what it reckons is most representative.

Post-processing attempts to recreate each part of the mental image you've 'registered', for each portion of the scene.

In reply to mac fae stirling:


Even a more subtle treatment can be heavily processed - you just don't know how much 'tinkering' has gone on even with images that look life-like.

In reply to Robert Durran:


I'd suggest that that's not people being dishonest, that's you having abnormal expectations. And hence that constantly talking about "dishonesty" and "lying" in this context is a bit of a dick move on your part.

In reply to Michael Ryan:

yip, that is true. i have spent an age tweaking a pic only for it to look very similar to the out of camera pic.

In reply to Fraser:
i agree, post-processing can be the recreation of a memory and, perhaps, the way you felt at the time you pressed the shutter. which is why it can be endlessly fascinating.


ps - btw i didnt make it clear but this quote, which i was agreeing with, was from 'Ramblin dave' 'I often dislike really heavily processed images on purely aesthetic grounds - there's a tendency to end up looking like disembodied Hollywood CGI, where a more subtle treatment might have been genuinely evocative of something'.

In reply to Fraser:


To rehash what I said before - we post-process because of course the camera's software can't match millions of years of evolution. But if our memory of a scene has made it more dramatic than it actually was because we're applying our romanticism/mystique to it, does that then make it unnatural? Surely what's realistic and what's purely fantastical/an acid dream differs from person to person, and perhaps you can only judge if you were there in person?

In reply to Trevers:

Just drop acid before you go out taking pictures, that way everyone's a winner.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Obviously expectations depends on the context in which the picture is viewed. On an "arty" photographic website I would expect to see "arty" processed pictures. I strongly suspect that most people would not see the UKC galleries like that and an expectation of a more realistic approach (unless obviously or admitted to be otherwise) is both reasonable and normal.

If you think a perfectly reasonable expectation to know what I am looking at makes me a dick then I think it says more about you than about me.

I get the impression that some people are so far up their own arses with arty photography that they have forgotten what photography can do which art (or, if you like, other art) cannot do; that is to make an honest attempt at replicating what the eye sees.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Well, there might be an outraged silent majority, but you always seem to be pretty much a lone voice in being upset about this when the topic comes up. So I'd suggest that adjusting your expectations and just asking people if you particularly care about a given photo would be more productive than chucking around words like "liar" and "dishonest" to describe people who are putting stuff up in good faith.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


I don't believe I've used the word "liar" and, if it keeps you happy, I'd have no problem replacing the word "dishonest" with "misleading".

So what it comes down to is whether the onus should be on the photographer to say when they are being misleading or whether I should have to contact every photographer whenever there is a suspicion that a photograph might be misleading. I think a simple convention for labelling "art" photos as such would probably be the ideal solution to keep everyone happy.

In reply to tehmarks:

I have a problem with the notion of 'arty photos' being photos which have been processed to produce exaggerated results. They're not 'arty', they're more (or less) aesthetically pleasing. Art is the communication of an idea, feeling, emotion - whatever - and simply blindly turning the vibrance fader up to 11 in Lightroom does not make anything more artistic. It just makes it more colourful.

On another note, as mention the camera absolutely doesn't see the same way we do - you only have to take a long exposure at night to easily prove that. But, using Ken Rockwell again as an example, the crazy colours that usually feature in his work are more often than not straight out of the camera - film and digital. Making your very own mini acid trip doesn't need Photoshop or Lightroom. Does this mean that his photography is dishonest, because he produces images with greatly exaggerated colour straight out of the camera?

In reply to Robert Durran:
er... i'm back...

'most people would not see the UKC galleries like that and an expectation of a more realistic approach (unless obviously or admitted to be otherwise) is both reasonable and normal'

nah, e.g. pics of landscapes and mountains are often some of the most 'unreal' romanticised and dramatised images you can see. and very often [not always] all the more stunning for that. landscapes of the mind. if the UKC [landscape] galleries were filled up with pictures that came right out of the [digital] camera with zero or hardly any PP then i reckon they would look pretty dull and lack lustre. just think of the brilliant long exposure shots with amazing skies streaking over summits to emphasise the wind howling over the tops, and rivers and burns crashing off the hillside with that lovely long exposure milky look [which i am guessing you don't like?]. you dont see much of that with your eyes but doesnt it capture something of the essence, 'reality' if you want, of wild places?

In reply to mac fae stirling:

So you like artficially enhanced landscape pictures? That's fine. Good for you. I don't. That's fine too. That's not the problem. For the millionth time (because you just don't seem to get it): I would simply prefer to know when a picture is enhanced so that I am not misled and so that I can appreciate it when I do see the genuine capture of a "magical moment of light". I really don't think that is too hard for even you to understand



FFS. Again, for the millionth time, how many times do I need to tell you that I have absolutely no problem with PP as such.


Probably. Most landscapes are dull and lacklustre most of the time after all (nobody has to photograph them). But if everyone thinks that is a good reason to misleadingly and lazily tart them up rather than taking the time and effort to wait for a genuine "magical moment of light" to astonish us with, the genuine article risks becoming lost and devalued amongst the myriad fakes. And I really do think this happens at least to some extent on UKC.


Correct. Though they don't bother me because they are obvious and therfore not misleading.


No, not really. Not for me anyway.

In reply to tehmarks:



It makes absolutely no difference whether the exaggeration is done internally by the camera or externally on a computer. I can crank up the colour saturation on my camera or instead do it on my computer afterwards; the effect is the same.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Another one for you Robert.

Alex Nial is one of the most respected 'young' mountain photographers in the UK.

You can browse his work here: http://www.alexnail.com

What's your verdict?

In reply to Michael Ryan:


I would like to think people could be trusted with a little symbol under a photo in the UKC galleries to show whether or not it is an honest attempt to portray a landscape as they saw it or whether it is deliberately enhanced. I think every photographer pretty much knows themselves when their pictures fall into each category.


Obviously I didn't see the landscapes myself, so, as long as the photo is plausible and not crudely enhanced, I have no way of knowing whether or not they are misleading (that, after all is the problem!). If the enhancement is crude and implausible (as it is with many sadly apparently popular photos on UKC), then I can just have a laugh, vote 1, and move on after all.

All four are plausible. I like them. But of course I am left with the nagging doubt that I might have been taken in by your skills of enhacement and that, of course, tarnishes my enjoyment of them.

In reply to Michael Ryan:



After a quick browse I would say that they are generally superb (he obviously makes the effort to be in the right place at the right time) but that the colours look suspiciously a touch unnatural in some of them, though I would love to believe that they were true "magical moments of light". Again, it is the doubt that nags and detracts a bit from the enjoyment.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Glass half empty?

In reply to Michael Ryan:

To quote my earlier post: "If the enhancement is crude and implausible (as it is with many sadly apparently popular photos on UKC), then I can just have a laugh, vote 1, and move on after all"

Having just looked at this week's UKC top ten hill photos I would like to think I can rest my case. How anyone can take the hilarious photo of Cat Bells at number 1 seriously is quite beyond me. The fact that the consistently brilliant Nicholas Livesey's photo is relegated to number 2 just about sums up the sad state of affairs.

In reply to Fraser:


For the benefit of the mathematically challenged I would like to point out that 1-1/2=1/2 and that a glass that is half empty is therefore also half full. If what you mean is that I am choosing to dwell on the half of the glass that is empty rather than the half that is full, then that is what you should say.

In fact I would say that my glass is about 4/7 full and therefore also 3/7 empty.

Have you been talking to Simon? ;-(

In reply to Robert Durran:
'I would simply prefer to know when a picture is enhanced'

all pictures are enhanced. so now you know.

In reply to Robert Durran:
'Having just looked at this week's UKC top ten hill photos I would like to think I can rest my case. How anyone can take the hilarious photo of Cat Bells at number 1 seriously is quite beyond me. The fact that the consistently brilliant Nicholas Livesey's photo is relegated to number 2 just about sums up the sad state of affairs'


the pic by N Livesey is very nice but a bit over-saturated for me.
the cat bells pic is more subtle.

In reply to Robert Durran:

No point in telling you about the upcoming Turner and Constable exhibitions soon then?......

In reply to mac fae stirling:

Did you happen to see the 'Supermoon' last night? It looked very unnatural and 'shopped' if you ask me!

In reply to mac fae stirling:

How do you know? You weren't there.


I find the comically purple clouds wonderfully subtle.

In reply to dek:


Why not? I have no objection to art. How on earth have you got that idea?

In reply to Robert Durran:

neither were you.
we are agreed then. finally.

In reply to mac fae stirling:


Oh, very clever.

By the way, it's getting a bit boring putting all your capital letters in for you. Maybe I should have a go at putting the colour in your photos for you too.

In reply to dek:

def a cut n paste job. shouldn't be allowed!

In reply to Robert Durran:


Photographic Impressionism is 'Art' too!

In reply to Robert Durran:

are you always this angry?
a thread about photos.... really?

In reply to mac fae stirling:


No, but at least the colour is plausible and I know from Nicholas' comments in an earlier thread on here that he has some sympathy with my views, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.


No. I'm sure we never will.

In reply to dek:


Yes. And your point is? Have you read the thread? I can't be bothered to spell out my main point yet again.

In reply to Robert Durran:


i.e you don't know, you weren't there.


we both like Nicholas Livesey's, let's work from there.

In reply to mac fae stirling:


Yes. And I know where you live

In reply to Robert Durran:

In the seventies, Galen Rowell faced the same kind of criticism for using those special 'colorising filters' in his landscape photography. Worked out okay for his 'Art' in the end.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Not really, but the gist is familiar, and your so easy to wind up!

In reply to Robert Durran:

cool, bring your X-E1 over and i will show you how to use it....

In reply to mac fae stirling:


Ok. I can't be 100% sure. I am taking a little leap of faith. I don't want my illusions shattered. I really want to like the photograph. Happy now?

In reply to mac fae stirling:


Mmmmm.... that could be a good offer. I could do with some lessons but, on the other hand, I don't want to end up taking photos like yours

In reply to dek:


Yes, and the best "magical moments of light" often do look unnatural because they are so rare and wonderfully unexpected. And this is why they should not be diluted and devalued by enhanced crap.

In reply to Robert Durran:


so we should be looking out for the 'unnatural' and then not enhancing it too much in case we make it look..... er, unnatural...

ok, i admit it, i am totally lost now... you win.. game over

In reply to Robert Durran:


I never ever, call an artists work "Crap".

In reply to mac fae stirling:


I said "look unnatural" (but actually natural), not "unnatural".

In reply to Robert Durran:


nope, none the wiser.

doesn't matter.

they are only photos. who cares eh?

In reply to dek:


Even if it's really, really, really bad?

In reply to mac fae stirling:



Not really, considering all the time and effort invested!

In reply to Robert Durran:


I might have said something like 'that' about Tracy Emins, unmade Bed, but I seems to be worth a fortune to those in the know?!

In reply to tehmarks:

I’ve been watching this thread and sitting on my hands trying not to get involve but since my name has been brought up I’ll add my bit…

Firstly, the shot in question which was taken just over a week ago has been tweaked in that the RAW file has been cleaned up or, if you like, optimised. As for being over-saturated, you can blame the natural light of that particular evening as I have done entirely nothing to the colours. I do my best to get everything right in camera using grad filters, often stacked.

It is a four shot stitch, two rows of two. That how I work in the most part (sometimes it’s three rows of three) as I try to capture what the eye sees both in terms of fidelity to the original scene and the wide angle nature of human vision as opposed to what even a super wide angle lens sees. Try repeating almost any of my shots and you will find there is no way of getting everything in!

I’m not sure how Robert views this particular approach but that’s largely the way I work.

I never over-saturate and sometimes de-saturate as the colours that occur in the golden hours can be so vivid that when I view then on my camera screen I think no one’s going to believe this!

Going back to the original post…art verses documentary, my philosophy and approach is deep rooted and something that is integral to why I take photographs in the mountains.

My subject (the mountains) is more important to me than photography and I love them dearly. I afford them the greatest respect and view them as something much more than objects to point my camera at. Therefore I think that one can do them a disservice by trying to create a fantasy scene which never existed in reality.

Having said that, this kind of thing is rife but I wouldn’t waste any bile in trying to put it down. But, if you capture a turd in the camera then you will be polishing a turd in lightroom or photoshop!

I’ve had wine, do forgive me!

In reply to Nicholas Livesey:

My faith is renewed. Amen

In reply to Robert Durran:

Filters ok then?

In reply to mac fae stirling:


Anything at all is ok. All that matters is the final picture, not how it was produced.

In reply to Robert Durran:


blimey, i thought that was my position...

perhaps a good time to bow out.

i've had whisky...

In reply to mac fae stirling:


Except that we disagree irreconcilably about the relevance of the picture's relationship with reality......

In reply to tehmarks:

So it's fair to sum up that Robert values naturalism (regardless of how the result is achieved - out of camera or processed), and others such as mac and myself can also appreciate a 'freer' expression of the photographer's imagination? They're both valid opinions; we are after all talking about an entirely subjective discipline.

On the subject of which, I'd probably avoid calling other people's work 'crap' too, unless they're very clearly technically inept. Just because it doesn't do anything for me doesn't make it crap, it just means that it's not my cup of tea. I really dislike Mondrian's abstract square paintings for example, but I'm sure there are many people out there who see something in them that I don't. Equally, I'm inclined to label some of exhibits in the Tate Modern 'pretentious rubbish' - but others see otherwise, and if art is about communicating something, and it's doing so to those people, then there's obviously something there that I simply don't appreciate.

In reply to tehmarks:


Fair enough. Standing alone, the sort of enhanced photos I referred to as "crap" are clearly valid as art to some people. The contempt I was expressing was motivated by the way they detract from the enjoyment of other photos by standing alongside them. This, of course only applies to the terchnically competent ones. Many other are technically incompetent and might more fairly be described as "crap".

In reply to Robert Durran:

It's always useful to look at the masters to get an idea of what good photography looks like.

Here's one: http://markbauerphotography.com

OPEN NOTE TO ROBERT DURRAN:

Please do not look at any of my photos/images either on UKC or on Flickr etc.

Your viewing is not welcomed.

No reply required.


NB: Other photographers/image-makers are welcome to add their name to the list.

In reply to tehmarks:


Again, I don't think that's quite right. I'd say that I value naturalism - although that's a pragmatic thing based on the pictures that appeal to me, not a point of principle. Robert values documentary accuracy. FWIW I also tend to like documentary accuracy on the basis that documentary accuracy implies naturalism.

But, for instance, if your only post-processing was to clone a stray tree branch out of a photo to leave a well composed, naturalistic landscape full of muted colours and subtle lighting then, provided the editing was undetectable, I could appreciate the result as a beautiful, evocative image, whereas (as I understand it) Robert would still consider it deceptive and unacceptable unless you explicitly flagged what you'd done.

What he'd think if you manually "cloned" the branch out with a bow saw I'm not sure...

In reply to ChrisJD:



Sorry, I just have. I actually generally really like them (though, there is, of course that gnawing doubt.....)

Having said that, I'm a bit baffled how your photo of El Capitan has been voted the second best photo ever on UKC (though it's much preferable to the gimmicky nonsense in the top spot!). It seems rather ordinary to me. I'd be genuinely interested to know why so many people rate it so highly.


Sorry.


Sorry.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Actually, it wouldn't really bother me. I'd be far more concerned if you'd faked the "muted colours and subtle lighting". It's only a branch after all (though there would be limits). Not really any worse than bending a bit of grass out of the way to get a better photo of a flower.


Nor am I.

In reply to Michael Ryan:



Very pretty and no doubt technically brilliant, but the doubt is more than gnawing; more like being savaged by a pack of giant hamsters. I think I probably prefer ChrisJD. But give me Nicholas Livesey any day.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Much as I enjoy most of Nicholas's photos, surely the means by which some of them have been created or captured, is essentially the same as adjusting them with p/p in Lightroom? He states that he uses graduated filters, sometimes stacked, thereby darkening the skies and exposing for the fore and mid ground. The equivalent in LR would be to expose for the sky you wanted when taking the shot, and increasing the exposure of the (presumably darker) foreground later in LR.

Just because the trickery was done by adding filter(s) when the photo was taken, doesn't mean you're manipulating the 'real' image any less than you would be in LR.

This isn't a dig at Nicholas or what he does, as I think the images are generally excellent, but it's still 'manipulation'.

Comments welcome.

In reply to Fraser:


That's so old skool.

Exposure blending is where it's at for dealing with high dynamic range, apparently - and for several reasons.

In reply to Michael Ryan:

Graduated filters, used gently, are not trickery - they simply allow a truer (more life-like, eye-like) range of tones to be compressed on to film stock that is generally more constrasty than the human eye.

In reply to Michael Ryan:

PS. ... on to a digital sensor as well as film emulsion. Though a digital camera acts like a stupendously low contrast film stock compared with any film emulsion that was ever invented (I believe).

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


That's what I said Gordon, but exposure blending is gaining ground over graduated filters - less faffing in the field (less missed shots when light is good)........and you don't get the dark line/shadow especially when horizon not straight. More faffing at home though.

Another one to debate - graduated filters versus exposure blending --- it seems the debate is centred around image quality. You will often see....Why I sold my GND's?

In reply to Michael Ryan:

OK, so we're pretty much agreed on that. So, exact truth now is that, craftwise, there are now extremely few great technical problems with photography, and it can, and has, got back to its original essence. Photoshop art is a completely different subject, more or less divorced from the photography that is its raw material. And all that seems fine to me, as long as we don't get the two completely confused. Of course, there is a huge area of overlap, but most enthusiastic photographers I know, prefer the old-fashinioned, non-manipulative values. I'm not decrying Photoshop work, just pointing out that it's something else ... a new kind of modern art form (albeit a bit weak, except in best cases).

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:



Yes, but where the line is drawn is blurred and unfortunately, as you say, causes great confusion, and some photo editors of both online and print media make matters worse by deliberately over-saturating as people find that pleasing to the eye....it sells.



Or the use of software to deal with dynamic range and bring back to reality - or what was seen?

In reply to Robert Durran:


Spot on, but some means get a better end....and importantly it depends how skilful you are with the means and what end you are working toward.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Hi Robert, when I first started getting seriously into photography about three years ago my images were heavily manipulated. I didn’t own any filters and sometimes relied on exposure blending or even (shoot me now) HDR processing.

After a while I started to get a fair bit of attention but felt I was kidding myself and if I was to improve as a photographer I had to rely less on post processing and more on sound photographic technique and the process of planning to be in the right place at the right time. We can all grab the odd fluke but being more meticulous in the attention to every detail helped stack the odds in my favour of consistently capturing good images.

As time goes by I need to do less and less computer work on images preferring to get it as close to ‘right’ in the camera as I can. Mick advocates exposure blending and it is a very useful technique but I have been caught short in the past and now I like to know that when I pack up and go home I have definitely got the shot. I don’t like to leave anything to chance as there’s nothing worse than getting home and realising you’ve made a mistake, especially when it comes to rare conditions or spectacular ‘light events’.

Even in Stuart Holmes’ superb ‘Photographing the lake district’ there are examples of photographs with burnt out areas and as I understand it he doesn’t use filters at the point of capture.

Mick also says that with exposure blending there is less faffing in the field. That might be true from some but my approach is always the same in that I arrive at my location early, set up and work out compositions. I then sit and wait, sometimes for hours which harks back to how Gordon used to work. I do often miss opportunistic shots when I’m walking around as my camera stays in the bag but almost all of the time I am going out to get one shot which I have pre-visualised, at least in terms of location. And as for dark lines/shadows when using grads, I haven’t ever had any problems with them as I mostly shoot from summits and the horizon is fairly uniform most of the time.

The way I work gives me great satisfaction as the image making process starts at home. On my wanderings in the hills I am constantly making mental notes on shots for the future and sometimes have to wait many months until I know the light will be coming from the right place.

Anyway, I’m blathering now but I hope that sheds some light on the what and why of how I do things

In reply to Nicholas Livesey:

One thing that I do value is the purity of your approach, in terms of going out with a specific shot in mind and waiting until the conditions come to you to capture it. I think that results in a much more thoughtful composition and better end result than the typical person who turns up, goes 'oh, that's pretty', and immediately snaps some shots without giving the scene some thought beforehand.

I also don't disagree that no amount of processing can make up for the conditions which make a good photo in the first place. If the light isn't there, Lightroom isn't going to fix it.

In reply to tehmarks:

One thing that I do value is the purity of your approach, in terms of going out with a specific shot in mind and waiting until the conditions come to you to capture it. I think that results in a much more thoughtful composition and better end result than the typical person who turns up, goes 'oh, that's pretty', and immediately snaps some shots without giving the scene some thought beforehand.
I also don't disagree that no amount of processing can make up for the conditions which make a good photo in the first place. If the light isn't there, Lightroom isn't going to fix it.

Isn't that what Robert Durran is hinting at though.
People are going out taking aimless snaps and are then trying to make them 'spectacular' in Lightroom/Photoshop.

In reply to FactorXXX:

I get the feeling that Robert disagrees with any exaggeration in Lightroom or Photoshop, regardless of how good the image was to begin with. I have no problem with a good image being manipulated to make an image which better communicates the photographer's intentions, whereas Robert does.

But you can't polish a turd, as has already been mentioned. Crap in, crap out. Where I think we agree is that the quality of light is integral to a good photograph, and that can't be made up for at a later date.

In reply to tehmarks:

I get the feeling that Robert disagrees with any exaggeration in Lightroom or Photoshop, regardless of how good the image was to begin with. I have no problem with a good image being manipulated to make an image which better communicates the photographer's intentions, whereas Robert does.
But you can't polish a turd, as has already been mentioned. Crap in, crap out. Where I think we agree is that the quality of light is integral to a good photograph, and that can't be made up for at a later date.

Be interesting to see what he says to that comment. My understanding, is that he doesn't mind subtle changes to levels, colour balance etc.
It's the polishing of turds that he doesn't like...

In reply to FactorXXX:

I got out of it that he doesn't like alterations to the photo which deviate from what was factually observed when it was taken. So enhancing the colours of your already spectacular sunset is a no-no as much as trying to make a spectacular sunset out of nothing.

In reply to Nicholas Livesey:



Thanks! That's really interesting. Particularly that you plan a shot so meticulously and sometimes forego opportunistic ones.

In reply to tehmarks:


If the intention is to depict what is actually seen and manipulation helps to achieve that then I have no problem with it. Exaggeration is another matter.

In reply to teh_mar


Yes. Though I admit that the temptation is always there and I am almost certainly sometimes guily myself. Of course, all you have to go on is memory (unless you do the manipulation immediately on the spot) and memory is fallible and prone to exaggeration too. The photo soon to an extent displaces the memory anyway (I have heard this put as an argument not to take photographs at all!) so boundaries do become blurred (the photo of mine that Fraser was discussing above is a case in point).

In reply to Robert Durran:


Well, in the interests of research and experimentation I'd be willing to give it a shot. Not that I'm by any means an expert but if be curious to see what I could do. And maybe ChrisJD or Nicholas or mfs could do likewise!?

In reply to Fraser:


Ok! I'll email you the original.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Send me a copy to Robert if you like... (mick@fotovue.com)

In reply to Robert Durran:

A problem is that the camera and printed or screen image records and reproduces a scene rather differently to how the eye / brain combination interprets it. It simply cannot record and represent the dynamic range of reality. For your sunset scene, the eye is capable of scrutinising the highlight areas and discerning the details in them, and then separately an instant later scrutinising the shadow areas and discerning the detail in them, whilst at the same time retaining the perception that the highlight (sky) area is massively brighter than the shadow area. With a photo you simply can't repreent the scene exactly, so it is ESSENTIAL to "exaggerate" or otherwise manipulate the recorded image to produce an image which starts to reproduce some aspects of what the mind percieves.

FWIW, your wadi rum shot is extremely flat - there should be far more prominent dark tones, if reproduced according to general standards of "correct" exposure / contrast for a landscape scene.

In reply to eduardo:

I think we are in agreement; I havn't been suggesting otherwise. I am precisely in favour of reproducing what the eye/brain perceives. If that involves exaggerating what then camera records, that's fine. What I don't like is exaggeration of what the eye/brain perceives.


Could I basically achieve this by cranking up the contrast a bit and then maybe tweeking the exposure of the highlights and shadows a bit.

Would you like a go at it too then?!

In reply to Robert Durran:


What if what the brain perceives isn't entirely down to what your eyeball is seeing, but also the mood you're in, the weather that's fast approaching but out of shot or information from any of the other senses? What if the visual exaggeration in the photo is an attempt to communicate the overall perception of the scene through a media which is limited to reproducing only one of the five senses?

Here's a few edited versions of the Wadi Rum shot. Who knows which coincides best with your perception at the time?

http://www.edwardshaw.co.uk/wadi-rum-editing-examples/

In reply to eduardo:



Thanks! I still think that my original is closest to how I remember it looking (all I really did to what came out of the camera was to lighten up the foreground since I had deliberately underexposed to get the sky "right" and it was certainly possible to see a fair bit of detail in the foreground). A is certainly a bit more dramatic and I can see that someone who wasn't there might prefer it. I really don't like B and C which both look horribly unnatural. Perhaps something between the original and A would be best.

In reply to Robert Durran:

I've added a lighter version too.

In reply to eduardo:

Colours look artificial. I still prefer my original - I think it best captures the light quality of the hazy, dusty atmosphere. Maybe I need to go back on a different day!

Incidentally, A is very similar to the jpeg that came out of the camera.

In reply to Robert Durran:


I really don't like the example you've given in fairness, but I don't understand how it can be construed as lazy. There are some instances where you're never going to get proper exposure of the subject in any sort of good light (due to location), which spoils what would compositionally be a great shot. Should we walk away from those because we can't do it without artificial light?

To me, it's just another tool in the box to direct the viewer's attention or separate the subject from the background, in exactly the same way that you might use depth of field. Or to compensate for challenging conditions, in exactly the same way that you might use a grad filter. Sympathetically done, I don't see the problem. Badly done, well, it's badly done.

In reply to tehmarks:

Maybe it is just too often done badly. Or maybe I just don't notice when it's done well with subtlety.

In reply to eduardo:


A case of a polished turd being better than an unpolished one?

In reply to Robert Durran:

The point is that the original (arguably a less attractive picture in a chocolate box sense) was more subtle. All the others drift away from the subtlety of nature in order to make a more 'commercially attractive' image.

In reply to tehmarks:


Nothing wrong with that. But, as I have said several times before, I would just, ideally, like to know when that is the intention. I have no issue with it in painting, but what is different about photography is that it can do reality in a way that painting cannot and it is too often getting lost amongst the "art".

In reply to Robert Durran:

Re. the lit bouldering shot, it's just bizarre. Enough to give climbing a bad name. Looks like a geek who's lost interest in his surroundings and is entirely wrapped in his only little boulder problem world with its own source of artificial light. But there's a worse problem as a photograph: it creates a dualistic conflict: the eye just bounces back and forth from the boulder to the mountain on the left, back and forth, back and forth, without ever coming to rest on any subject. = in effect to a bad composition.

In reply to Robert Durran:


My feelings exactly. If one want to paint a picture, why not do so? The answer is that these self-styled neo-'artists' probably haven't the ability.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


That might explain why this and the other photos in my gallery from that bivouac on Jebel Rum got fewer votes on here than I expected! I personally was really pleased with them; it was a stunning place to be and I felt I'd captured the light and atmosphere pretty well.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
"All the others drift away from the subtlety of nature in order to make a more 'commercially attractive' image."

Isn't that a legitimate aim? Sometimes nature is rather badly lit.

In reply to Robert Durran:


I haven't had a look other than the one that eduardo edited, but what is a stunning place to be isn't necessarily a stunning place to photograph as 'factually' as possible. I don't doubt that the atmosphere in person would have been amazing, but for me the photo needs to capture that essence and force it upon me, and that style of photography doesn't do that with me. I look at it and go 'that's pretty', rather than feeling like I've been catapulted into the scene myself.

That's just me though, each to their own.

In reply to tehmarks:

That is undounbtedly true. Maybe the hazy atmosphere just didn't lend itself to stunning light. But I'd rather not photograph it at all than do so misleadingly. In the end, no one else has to like the photograph, butI can sit here at my desk doing some boring work and distract myself with those photos and feel an almost physical sensation of what was, for me, a truly magical experience.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Well, that's subjective. You say 'more subtle', but at least two here have said 'flatter'.



I actually find all eduardo's versions more 'attractive' full stop. Maybe that means they are more 'commercial' - I know I'd not pay for the original, but I'd be more likely to pay for one of the edited ones, in theory.

In reply to Fraser:


But how many of them do you fing plausibly realistic? Or is that not a cosideration.

In reply to eduardo:

Here's a few edited versions of the Wadi Rum shot. Who knows which coincides best with your perception at the time?

http://www.edwardshaw.co.uk/wadi-rum-editing-examples/


The original is better than any of your edited versions.
It might be a bit 'flat', but I think you've gone slightly too far with your tweaks.

In reply to Robert Durran:


I don't think 'plausibly realistic' comes into it when you're considering contrast and basic exposure, otherwise we'd all end up with flat, dreary photos. Cameras simply don't work the same way our eyes do, and we shouldn't expect them to.

In reply to Robert Durran:


On re-examination, I'd say probably just the last one, a couple of others are close. But living on the west coast, I've seen some pretty spectacular sunsets. This includes some you'd think, on seeing them in a photo, 'there's no possible way the colours can have been like that in reality'. (Having said that, I don't share your quite specific opinion of what a photo is or should be. To me, it's simply an image.)

I have too many photos taken out my kitchen window where the colours are just 'incredible', I never get tired of seeing these views and skies.

In reply to tehmarks:


Well, opinion on here seems to be split on whether Eduardo's are any better than the original; some prefer the original even though they weren't there. I was there; the original definitely is the closest to what it was actually like.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Call it a 'record shot' then..we all have boxes full of them.

In reply to Fraser:


So are you seriously saying that only the last, brighter one, is plausibly realistic?


I think you have more or less proven my whole case there. You only think "there's no possible way the colours can have been like that in reality" because in nine out of ten cases they were not,

In reply to dek:


I would like to think I aim for all my photographs to be record shots. When the light is good, some of them might even be a match for manufactured bollocks (obviously not that one though!).

Actually, that dawn on the summit of Jebel Rum was truly magical. If I were a better photographer, I might have captured it's hazy subtlety better. It would have been interesting to see what a Nicholas Livesey might have made of it

In reply to Robert Durran:
I'd have shot it with a split grad filter for the sky just before the sun broke out. A warm up grad filter for the foreground too might help.
I would've also shot it on film, i much prefer the pre dawn colours to dig at that time of day.

In reply to dek:


I obviously have a lot to learn......

In reply to Robert Durran:

As you have a stated aversion to 'computers'..let me know if you need to 'borrow' my copy of Pshop.... cough! It might help you clean up dust n stuff from your film scans,etc?!

In reply to dek:


I actually downloaded a trial of Lightroom a few months ago but felt so intimidated that I uninstalled it a few days later for my own sanity and reverted to the simple thing that comes with Windows and that even I can just about cope with. With my hard drive having died a couple of weeks ago resulting in sleep deprivation and numerous violent outbursts of computer rage (I lost all the editing I had done on the 1400 photos I took in Greenland in the summer and it turns out that the backups of all my other photos didn't include the originals from the camera - something I only found out when I went looking for the original of the Jebel Rum shot),I have had all the computer stress I can cope with for a while. Thanks for the offer, but I am currently, for the sake of my mental health, thinking of RAW and Lightroom as a long term retirement project.......

In reply to Robert Durran:

Well, the one edited one, yes. The untouched original too obviously.

Re the unreal sunsets: quite the opposite. You have said or assumed all the 'unreal' photos have been tweaked and also that you don't like them. I'm saying that ain't necessarily so, at least for the former.

In reply to Fraser:


The original one wasn't untouched. It was tweeked to make it look more realistic. The jpeg fom the camera looked more like A.


Not sure what you're saying here. My point is simply that when you look at a photo, you don't know whether it is "real" or not. And that bothers me.

In reply to Robert Durran:

If you aren't shooting in RAW, your jpeg - which you think of as being 'pure' in some way - is already tweaked. The camera has made several decisions, for want of a better word, about how it should look. Change the white balance and take another picture of the same sunset, and it will look very different.

I'm not sure what you think a "real" digital photo is. Camera settings allow a huge range of outcomes from the same shot in the same light - which is most real? If you take a long exposure with light trails, is that unreal because it doesn't show what a human eye would see? Or is it a valid photograph?

In reply to Robert Durran:

I meant *eduardo* hadn't edited the original one, those are the ones you were asking me about.

Your original complaint seems to have changed then as I thought it started out being you not liking what you felt were overly adjusted images, thereby making them look 'unrealistic'.

In reply to Alyson:

If you aren't shooting in RAW, your jpeg - which you think of as being 'pure' in some way - is already tweaked. The camera has made several decisions, for want of a better word, about how it should look. Change the white balance and take another picture of the same sunset, and it will look very different.

That isn't strictly true. A JPEG is merely a compressed version of what is seen on the sensor and no other automatic changes are made. In theory, it should be virtually visually identical to a RAW file.


I'm not sure what you think a "real" digital photo is. Camera settings allow a huge range of outcomes from the same shot in the same light - which is most real?

The one that most closely resembles what your eye sees. For White Balance, you could always plonk a grey card in the photo for a dummy shot and correct it accordingly.

In reply to FactorXXX:


I can't speak for other systems, but for Nikon that's absolutely untrue, and much of it depends on how you have your camera set up.

In reply to tehmarks:


I can't speak for other systems, but for Nikon that's absolutely untrue, and much of it depends on how you have your camera set up.

I've got a Nikon D40 and D7000.
Both are set up to shoot RAW and the highest quality JPEG available.
I can't see any difference in the photo's.
Maybe if the camera is set to the lowest quality JPEG, then it might make a difference, but even then, it shouldn't be applying any other changes apart from compression.
Perhaps you've done something weird with the settings?

In reply to Alyson:

Yes, I am completely aware of that. In fact I lay in bed for 3 hours a couple of weekends ago playing with the jpeg settings on my XE1 taking dozens of photos of my bedroom wall and window! A jpeg is no more "pure" than any other photo. It is just an in-camera interpretation of the RAW data.


I used inverted commas deliberately; I was meaning an honest attrempt to depict reality as the eye/brain actually sees it.


In the sense I was using the word, the one best representing what the eye/brain pereceives.


It is a perfectly valid photograph, though not "real" in the sense above. My only issue is with non-"real" photos which I do not know are non-"real" and star trails obviously do not come under this category.

In reply to tehmarks:


And my Fuji XE1; I can change the settings to produce very different jpegs.

In reply to Fraser:

No, my complaint has not changed. It's not the adjustment itself I object to. It is "unrealistic" images I object to. If adjustment makes an image more "realistic", I'm all for it, and I do it myself all the time.

In reply to FactorXXX:



Unless you're processing your RAW files with Capture NX, none of the camera's settings will do anything to your RAW file (other than, in some cases, result in some screwed up exposure if you try to process it outside of Capture NX). They will, however, be applied internally by the camera when it renders your JPEG.

So if you've tweaked pretty much any of your camera's image settings, the camera-rendered JPEG will differ significantly from the RAW data when processed in Lightroom.

http://photographylife.com/how-to-get-accurate-nikon-colors-in-lightroom

In reply to tehmarks:

I will reiterate, JPEG is a compression tool only and shouldn't do anything else to the file. Visually, there should be little or no difference.
If you've applied other settings, then they are independent to what the JPEG algorithm has done and therefore nothing to do with it.

In reply to FactorXXX:

And even if you haven't touched a thing, there will be a slight difference due to the difference between the Nikon 'standard' colour profile and the Adobe standard, unless you tell Lightroom to apply the relevant colour profile on import.

In reply to FactorXXX:

Yes, but no. In producing a JPEG, your camera will apply all sorts of processing to the RAW data. It doesn't just take the RAW sensor data as captured and directly produce a JPEG. Some is dependent on user settings, some just happens.

In reply to tehmarks:

Yes, but no. In producing a JPEG, your camera will apply all sorts of processing to the RAW data. It doesn't just take the RAW sensor data as captured and directly produce a JPEG. Some is dependent on user settings, some just happens.

No, JPEG is a very specific process and is only concerned with compression.
Think you might be getting the JPEG process confused with what happens within the umbrella filename extension name <.jpg>.

In reply to FactorXXX:

You're not understanding what I'm saying. I'm well aware of what a JPEG is, I have a degree in Computer Science and a fair amount of experience in image processing programmatically. I'm not saying that the JPEG algorithm alters the image, I'm saying that the camera manipulates the image before producing the JPEG - exactly as you would if you processed your RAW data in Lightroom and then exported. The JPEG that the camera produces is not an exact 'copy' of the sensor data compressed.

If you need me to go pick up my camera and shoot some photos I'm quite happy to do so. Alternatively, you could just listen to the many, many people that Google finds saying the exact same thing.

In reply to tehmarks:

teh_mark is correct. A great number of assumptions are used to produce a jpeg from the RAW file. The default jpeg will be the result of the default assumptions, these will be to a significant degree subjecive.

In reply to tehmarks and Eduardo:

Are the two of you honestly saying, that a JPEG and RAW file shot at the same time and using default camera settings are noticeably different with respect to such things as colour balance, brightness, saturation, etc.?

In reply to FactorXXX:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22465545/DSC_0123.JPG - camera JPEG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22465545/DSC_0123_LR.jpg - LR export

Produced from the exact same exposure on a D3200 using 'RAW+JPEG fine'. All settings as per default, absolutely nothing done in Lightroom other than export as JPEG (highest quality, not resized, etc), WB as shot.

In reply to FactorXXX:

A crude comparison - a RAW files is eggs, flour, sugar, milk etc.
A jpeg is a cake. As is a tiff, .psd or whatever.
Process your RAW ingredients in the same way and save as a jpeg, tiff or whatever and yes, they resultant image "cakes" should be identical (give or take file format specifics, such as any compression). But any amount of different jpegs, tiffs etc can be produced from the original RAW data.

In reply to eduardo:

A crude comparison - a RAW files is eggs, flour, sugar, milk etc.
A jpeg is a cake. As is a tiff, .psd or whatever.
Process your RAW ingredients in the same way and save as a jpeg, tiff or whatever and yes, they resultant image "cakes" should be identical (give or take file format specifics, such as any compression). But any amount of different jpegs, tiffs etc can be produced from the original RAW data.

No, A JPEG compression, would still contain the eggs, flour, sugar and milk, etc. and in exactly the same ratio. The only difference is that water has been added to dilute it and reduce its image size.

In reply to FactorXXX:

So can you explain the obvious differences in the two images that I posted above - one an in-camera JPEG and the other a Lightroom export (with absolutely nothing done to it) - both from the exact same exposure?

The camera processes the image, it's that simple.

In reply to FactorXXX:

From Canon talking about the different file types Canon cameras create: http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/infobank/image_compression/fi...

RAW
A RAW file is the image data exactly as captured on the sensor. Any settings you apply in white balance, Picture Styles and some other areas are only appended to the image as a small header file...

JPEG
A JPEG image file is a RAW file that has been converted by the in-camera DIGIC processor and saved as a compressed file. It can be saved at different image sizes and levels of compression to give different file sizes. The camera takes the RAW file and applies the camera parameter or Picture Style settings to the image to create a new file.

In reply to FactorXXX:


Simply not true. Different jpegs can be produced by "cooking" the same RAW data in different ways. The compression is a totally different issue to the processing that must be made to the RAW file in order to be able to save a jpeg (or TIFF, or whaetever) version from it.

You can produce different jpegs from the same RAW by "cooking" it differently by changing the various "subjective" parameters that are applied.

Although, sorry, I do admit it's not a fantastic comparison.

In reply to Robert Durran:

How are these Robert?

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/sep/17/-sp-autumn-expert-tips-travel...

In reply to Michael Ryan:

I think there's a lot of post processing gone into the shot of Elegug Stacks by Drew Buckley.

In reply to the thread:

Just to throw a spanner n the works, how do people feel about adjusting a digital image prior to having it printed? Back-lit on a monitor and printed on <enter medium of choice> can look quite different.

In reply to Fraser:

Do whatever the f*** you want mate. It's your image and how you want to print it and present it is your business.

Honestly, other than journos deliberately deceiving then game oan, your art mate.

In reply to Fraser:


Why might the arguments be any different?
All that matters is what people are going to see. Not adjusting them might be misleading.

In reply to Fraser:

Thats the whole point of photoshop. It was 'invented' for graphic repro/lithograpic printing, onto a multiude of paper sufaces, and media.

In reply to tehmarks:

I go to craft fairs (trying) selling photos I do a mixture of landscape coloursplash macro and hdr I've had comments from the truly uplifting to the one's that make you feel crap. I've had heavily edited photos described as arty and very artistic too that looks god awful. I'm always upfront about what's been left as taken by camera (remember you can do a lot in camera and with filters and settings) and what's been edited even by the smallest amount. For me photography is art regardless of what's been intended or edited

In reply to tehmarks:

Very interested to hear Robert's opinion on this week's photo of the week. I suspect I will strongly agree with him about this one.

In reply to Trevers:


It would be very disappointing if many disagreed! Though some voters obviously do; it would be interesting to hear from some of them.

In reply to tehmarks:

If you are looking for a definitive explanation of photography, you may want try Susan Sontag "On Photography".

The abandoned building is just that a bricked up building, the photograph looks a bit 'cooked' if you know what I mean. If you had used a graduation filter to filter out the bright sky, it would have improved the composition, if you were looking to get into shooting abandoned buildings you can start here: http://www.28dayslater.co.uk or go to urbex.

If you are looking on Flickr then take a look at this: https://flic.kr/p/is8EyT Andre Govia Look out on the forums if you are interested we do meets in Belgium and other places around London.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Did you steal that out the book of How to take a photograph? or did you find it in a abandoned christmas cracker...

In reply to Robert Durran:

Are you stating that you edited some one else's photograph edited it and did not seek their approval or permission to do so?

In reply to halo:

To what are you referring?

In reply to halo:

Yes. Given that it is possible to download photos from UKC, it never occurred to me that there could be a problem, especially as I had no intention of showing it to anybody else. If it is seen as a problem, perhaps there should be an option to lock one's photos so that they can't be downloaded. I also downloaded the massively saturated photo of the Midi Arete at no.1 this week (the thread I started about oversatuaration has ben pulled bny the mods) to see, out of genuine interest, what it might look like when desaturated - it was actually very good!

In reply to Robert Durran:


I'd be a bit miffed if someone downloaded my stuff and started editing it without permission, especially if they then appeared online and started spouting off about how their version is vastly improved. Then again I make a living from coming up with clever design ideas, so I'm undoubtedly biased.


A technical impossibility - if you're viewing the content, it's already been downloaded in some sense. Being unable to download the image means being unable to view the image.

In reply to halo:

It was undoubtedly badly exposed, but unfortunately I can't make grad filters just appear by clicking my fingers! I was there for unrelated reasons and in a rush, happened across the building, and figured it might make an interesting subject. It didn't work out so well and I forgot all about the images for two months until I came across them in my Lightroom catalogue one day, and so in boredom I had a play with them. It's not a great image for sure! I was more interested in everyone's opinion on the conversation which happened because of it than critique of the image itself.

Having said that, critique is always good. I'd be interested to hear what you think about the other one I got out of it (which I feel happier about compositionally):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tehmarks/15135899746/

In reply to tehmarks:


I'd very much doubt he's done anything either legally or morally wrong. He's neither attempted to make money from it, pass it off as his own or even show anyone

In reply to Trevers:

I'm fairly certain he hasn't done anything legally wrong. Morally maybe, maybe not. But if you were the owner of said photo and you came on UKC to find someone saying 'I downloaded it and edited it, and my version is much better than the one produced by the original photographer', you might not appreciate that so much?

In reply to tehmarks:


Maybe, though the intention was actually to be positive in saying that the photo wasn't a bad photo at all after all (in fact rather good). Rather than tarting up an average photo to make it look good, I reverted a photo spoilt (in my and many others' opinion) by absurd oversaturation to it's original beauty; I think there is a difference.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Yes, that's all very well, but the photo was already spoilt for me by the fact that the ridge in the middle distance was only five centimetres high, when you and I know that in reality it's well over 3,000 metres. What a fake!

In reply to Robert Durran:

It's just my opinion, but I think it's a bit insulting to the vision of the photographer - whether you agree with their vision or not.

In reply to tehmarks:

As it happens, I have been in the mountains and I know that snow isn't that colour unless you really really really need to pee, but I still quite like it. It might be a lurid exaggeration, but to me it highlights the essence of why people do stupid things like suffer in the cold and risk their lives to climb mountains for fun.

And no, I didn't vote on it.

In reply to tehmarks:

Yes he has - he infringed the Copyright of the image by downloading it without the owners permission/consent. Pretty basic stuff.

UKC is a public gallery, but that doesn't give you the right to download images - even if it lets you.

The EU Supreme court has ruled that temporary image use by browsers to "view" content does not infringe Copyright.

http://www.out-law.com/articles/2013/april/unauthorised-browsing-of-copyrig...

In reply to tehmarks:

Well obviously I don't; I was just confirming for myself that the problem was oversaturation rather than a broken camera or something, and that the lurid yellow is indeed the result of the photographer's vision rather than anything else.

In reply to ChrisJD:



But where does it say I can't download or indeed alter them privately? To me, it seems that what I did was the digital equivalent of cutting a picture out of a book and colouring it in. Is that illegal?

In reply to Robert Durran:


You can't possibly conclusively confirm that by downloading a JPEG and playing with some sliders.

In reply to ChrisJD:




That sounds a bit like the 'drunk in a public place' law. i.e stupid, and nobody gives a damn because everyone's done it a million times over

In reply to tehmarks:


Ok, I wouldn't pretend to know much at all about the technology, but the fact that I could simply slide the saturation thing a long way left and get something convincingly realistic strongly suggested to me that I was simply undoing the reverse operation.

By the way, you may be able to answer a processing question for me. I have a little histogram thing with sliders on it. When I slide the left hand one a bit to the right, the photo becomes a bit darker and more contrasty, in a, to me, more realistic and pleasing way than adjusting the exposure and contrast separately. What's actually going on?

In reply to Robert Durran:

What software are you using? In Lightroom, you can drag the various segments of the histogram (blacks, shadows, highlights and whites) left or right to tweak the relevant levels - all that it does it changes the value of the corresponding slider in the 'basic' section. In other software I can't comment, but I'd imagine it's doing a similar thing - changing the levels of a specific bit of the photo.

In reply to tehmarks:

Do you know what is the actual difference between blacks and shadows, and whites and highlights? I haven't been able to work this out.

In reply to tehmarks:


Windows Live Gallery - still psyching up to try Lightroom.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Do it! Lightroom is great! I've never attempted to use Windows Live Gallery, but Lightroom gives you a crazy amount of fine control (which for your aims I suspect is a good thing). There's a bit of a learning curve, but it's still fairly easy to open up as a new user and start doing basic things right away.

In reply to Trevers:

Do you know what is the actual difference between blacks and shadows, and whites and highlights? I haven't been able to work this out.

Shadows and highlights will still contain a variety of dark and light colours and can therefore be edited to bring them out.
Total Black/White areas have no such detail and are not recoverable.

In reply to Trevers:

The shadows and highlights adjustments will (self-explanatorily) tweak the levels of the shadows and highlights, and are often used to bring out (or attempt to recover) detail in the shadows or highlights as a result of poor exposure.

Blacks and whites effectively set the black point and white point in the image - if something should be white and isn't for example, you'd play with the whites slider.

If you hover your mouse over the histogram, you can see which tonal range corresponds to which adjustment.

http://improvephotography.com/29251/difference-highlights-whites-sliders-li... explains it fairly well in practical terms.

In reply to tehmarks:

So what is actually happening when I slide the contrast thingy. Obviously it looks different, but what is changing?

In reply to Robert Durran:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/brightness-contrast-saturat...

In reply to Robert Durran:

If you increase the contrast, you 'push apart' the highlights and shadows. Imagine a U-shaped dip in the middle of your histogram forming as you move the contrast slider. The shadows get darker, the highlights get lighter, and the bits in the middle get pushed one way or another.

If you decrease the contrast you do the opposite, and 'even out' the shadows and highlights so everything is closer together and pushed towards the middle of the histogram.

In reply to tehmarks:


So I should get the same effect by changing the shadows and highlights separately (and therefore with more control)? in fact I often find myself doing this but rarely touch the contrast slider.

In reply to ChrisJD:

Thanks. All this stuff is really interesting. I think I'll have to get Lightroom and find some time to get to grips with it.

In reply to Robert Durran:


That's like finding out that Santa Claus gets all those gifts from Tesco not Lapland.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Contrast is a global adjustment so it'll push the mid-tones one way or another too, whereas I believe if you adjust the shadows and highlights, the mid-tones will for the most part remain unchanged.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Check out Anthony Morganti's Lightroom tutorials on YouTube. He has some very helpful information and explains everything really clearly. After watching just a few of them I was sufficiently convinced to buy the full programme.

In reply to ChrisJD:


It's more complicated than that. For a start you would need to consider whether it was fair use and whether the photograph owner had signed over some of their rights when they uploaded the photo to UKC.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


From the upload page:

You retain the copyright of images that you upload, and we will not reproduce them in printed form.

Occasionally we use photos from the UKC database to illustrate News Items and Articles. We do make efforts to contact people for permission first however it isn't always possible before an item/article is made public. If you find a photo of yours being used and don't wish it to be then please contact us and we will remove it.