Post Processing Challenges

Our local camera club decided to have an editing challenge for this month's club comp. An image was submitted and the challenge was to process it. Initially I doubted I would find the motivation to do justice to the task as the submitted image didnt appear to offer many options. However now I'm finding it difficult to choose a final image as once I started a myriad of options presented themselves. 

Club judges are notorious for their conservatism so I doubt many of my choices will be appreciated but I certainly had fun trying to make something interesting from the original.

 

I'm not a fan of portrait orientation shots and the original was crooked which meant I lost even more width. 

    

Initially I began with a simple straighten and tweak. Then the fun began.

While I appreciate the composite images make for a very busy image I quite like the result.

The second provided image was already busy so I tried to consider methods of simplifying it. Once again it was not level, so that caused most of the problems. I was keen to have a symmetrical base.

The flag was too close to the top of the image so I wanted to create more space as a starting point.

 

 

Storm In A Teacup

Many people seem to have been offended by Ugo Cei's post " Will the Real Landscape Photographer Please Stand Up ?" It seems to me that the commercial photography world is unfortunately full of egos,  some so easily bruised.  I didn't find Ugo's post offensive or derogatory in any way. Then again, Photography is not my profession, but merely a creative outlet. I've been crucified on social media for having an opinion which differs from the norm, but isn't that what a creative field is all about ? Thinking outside the square, challenging perceived misconceptions and defending pursuit of a personal style. 

In response to stated wounded feelings by others, Shaun Johnson wrote: 

" I often think 'same shit different smell' ('scuse the language) when I see landscape photos, because you basically have a million people going to the same place to take the same scene and trying to outdo each other. I didn't really like that Peter Lik photo that much but you could plainly see he was doing something different with the scene (though it looked pretty clumsy) which at least warrants some merit. It's pretty difficult to imbibe a landscape photo with 'soul', and 'soul' is always subjective anyway. I get the odd person complaining about the lack of realism in the pictures I make, and I completely agree there is a lack of realism, but that's just what I do and I'm happy with that. I will explain to whomever is complaining that 'I never really intended to portray reality anyway' and that's normally satisfactory. IMO there is no 'correct', there's just whatever you're satisfied with. I don't really care about pleasing others, but if I do then that's a bonus."

I agree with Ugo that there is a sameness about landscape and seascape photography with most people intent on emulating the style they believe will be an award winner, to the extent that we see the same locations and same POVs relentlessly reappearing in competition after competition. Take the Wanaka tree for example. Surely that is not the only tree worthy of digital capture ! 

Ultimately I believe true satisfaction comes from pursuing a path towards enlightenment and not feeling obligated to follow trends. Maturity comes when you can accept that people have different opinions on a subject and allowing them the freedom to express those opinions without crucifying them.

No Need For Words

A bittersweet short film about memories which showcases the power of a captured image.

Photographs from B.Ki.Animation on Vimeo.

A New PS Trick - Removing Colour Cast

Have been spending a lot of time culling images over the break. For a variety of reasons some of them have a distinctly blue cast. I spent a fair bit of time playing with some sliders in an endeavour to rectify the problem and not being particularly pleased with the results, called on Google. A natural language search revealed a simple trick in PS 4 which does the job pretty well with a menu scroll and one click of the mouse. Happily it is still an option in the current CC version.

A Perspective On Judging

Watching the judging at the AIPP awards has confirmed my belief that judging creative output is educational rather than either accurate or particularly informative. That five judges have completely different responses to many images proves that there are no definitives and I'm not at all sure about the rejudging aspect where individual judges promote the qualities of an admired image in an endeavour to convince others to change their opinion and then rescore. Then again, I'm completely new to the process so have a lot to learn. Perhaps most frustrating of all was the judges who constructed the photographer's narrative based on their own life experience. Many of the comments seemed rather banal and a reflection of judge preferences rather than informative in any way. I think I'll scream if I hear the term "colour palette" once again. Some of the less illuminating comments delivered were:

.... I like to see images that I haven't seen anything like before.....

.... I'm not getting distracted by those colour things like I usually do ......

.... I just wanted to really like this, but go back there and reshoot it .....

.... The little orange thing  that the eye is drawn towards really makes the shot ....

.... I was distracted by the orange, not attracted ....

.... it simply appealed to me....

.... its difficult to explain why I really like something....

.... it's leaving me with a mystery....

.... it's an emotive landscape so I'm not evaluating it as a technical landscape ....

Really. Exactly what did any of us learn about photography by any of those comments other than the fact that different people respond to images in different ways and how do we evaluate the worth of one person's expression above another's ? There were some instances where compositional elements were commented upon but they were few and far between.

Most photographers process the images they capture with their cameras. Exactly how and to what degree then becomes a matter of individual taste and software familiarity rather than photographic expertise. To clone or not to clone, to blur or not to blur, to sharpen or not to sharpen, to crop or not to crop. I have moved through different stages in my own processing journey. Currently I'm not after authenticity, but exploring effects which can transform the reality.  There is however no denying the fact that post processing can completely transform what is captured by the camera. 

 

image SOOC which does nothing to capture the highly saturated colours of Central Australia

 processed image - an endeavour to bring the foreground into focus and relieve the boredom of the clear blue sky

New Perspective

Experiment with a new format for displaying images using the site Picture Trail.   The   photo cube  option is embedded below .

The Golden Hour

My favourite times of day, along with most of the photographic community, are the two extremes - the Blue Hour and The Golden Hour. Discovered a Golden Hour and Blue Hour online calculator  and app. I love to remain behind once others have darted off to breakfast, to luxuriate in the effect of the sun's golden rays bathing the rocks with an intense Midas like light .
Tips for photographing during the Blue Hour .

image: during the Golden Hour at Cape Bailey

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Angels Among Us

Serendipitously discovered an uplifting yet bittersweet video link this morning. For anyone who doubts the power of an image, this video would remove any shards of cynicism. Using a piece of string and a camera, Ainslie Henderson has created a most powerful antidote to grieving and doubt.

Moving On from ainslie henderson on Vimeo.

 Life experiences bring with them a degree of disenchantment at different stages in our lives but we don't have to look too far to sense that we are never truly alone. The Divine is ever present, reflected in the actions and words of empathetic people who sense an ache in a fellow traveller on this earth, whether it be human or animal, and endeavour to apply an emotional salve to ease the pain. Angels do not only dwell in Heaven, they exist on earth.

When Being Wide Is A Positive Quality

I love my Sigma 10-20 and  Samyang 8mm fisheye lenses. Many people find the distorted perspectives produced particularly by the fisheye lenses to be aberrations on the photographic landscape. Some great hints for varying your compositions  when using  the extreme wide angle lenses were identified in Jason Row's post on Lightstalking.  Above all else, you never quite know what you will capture.

Is Facebook 2 Faced ?

 

Read some great Fstoppers advice from Dani Diamond for critically evaluating the credibility of Groups on FB and some helpful guidelines.  Because groups are comprised of humans one must expect some nefarious behaviour to creep into the occasional interactions. Most people will have an agenda of sorts, a motivation for joining the group. I am thrilled to have discovered the Focus - Australian Seascape And Landscape Photography group on both FB and Flickr. Although the group's original focus was primarily seascapes the interests and skills of the members are widespread. There appear to be no cliques, and to date I've seen no evidence of nitpicking or inappropriate comments. Although there is some occasional evidence of blatant self promotion. I believe this is unfortunately considered to be a necessity in this social media powered world in which we live. 

The group is dynamic and a large proportion of the members are very active. Above all else, it is an educational group where people are happy to share their skills, advice and recommendations. I've made some great friends and you're always assured of a shooting buddy.