Originally posted by RagnorakI think you shouldn't listen to your gf. 😉 Well, I see her point - the tree (which unfortunately isn't sharp) adds to the picture, and the people make the scene more alive. But you have to pay for it by having the roof in the foreground, and I'd say that's paying too much. The fog is more dominant in your other crop, and I like how it goes all the way down.
I took Man and Nature Collide. I had a lot of difficulty in cropping this shot. I had decided that this crop was best... http://community.webshots.com/photo/413517809/413520342DjZynN
And then my gf convinced me that the one I finally submitted was better. What do you think?
That movie sounds very interesting. I wonder if it will ever be shown here. 😕
Originally posted by RagnorakAll of my photos are "modified" in Photoshop to a certain extent. In almost every case, the "modifications" are the same kinds of modifications that good analog photographers use in the darkroom when they are printing photos from negatives or positives, rather than digital media. In essence, Photoshop is my darkroom. These techniques include dodging and burning (terms taken from actual darkroom techniques), and very gently modifying colors, contrast, and brightness. These last three techniques are essentially "correcting" what the scanner did. I use slide film almost exclusivley. When I project a slide on the wall and it looks really great, and then I scan and print it and it looks somewhat less spectacular, I figure it's fair game to correct the scanned image to be as close as I can get it to what I saw on the wall.
To my untrained eye, Leaf on Rock looks like a natural shot taken using a long exposure (8 secs). If you look at the other leaves, they are in natural colours. I thought that pic was so good because of the contrast between the red autumn maple leaf and the mellow blue of the rest of the early morning/late evening pic.
http://kailey.biz/Photos/006.jpg
In that light, when someone mentioned at some point that we ought to indicate if we had modified the photos electronically, I didn't consider the kinds of "modifications" I had made to be ones that required notification (and more than Ansel Adams was required to note where he dodged and burned his photos - not that I think I'm anywhere close to his class of photographer). To me, an altered photo, is one where the modifcations are either obvious (like the coloration on Stone Henge), or misleading (like electronically merging two photos to produce something that doesn't really exist).
All that having been said, for Leaf on Rock, I actually did stretch the bounds of classic darkroom techniques in enhancing the colors of some of the leaves in the photo - something that you probably could do in the darkroom, but it would take an awful lot of trial and error and significant amounts of patience. Please note, I didn't alter the colors of the leaves, just livened them up a bit.
Originally posted by RagnorakThanks Rag.... they're awesome shots but would like to know the settings as to how they were achieved. If I'm wrong about PS use please take this as absolute homage for stunning work.. taking such craft is truely difficult for we learners.
I can't find any colour in Dolmen, and DdV only takes pics in B&W AFAIK.
To my untrained eye, Leaf on Rock looks like a natural shot taken using a long exposure (8 secs). If you look at the other leaves, they are in natural colours. ...[text shortened]... if you know what I mean. 😛 Anybody else see it/rate it?
D
Camera doesn't matter as much as lens and focal settings even if auto or aperture priority. I don't mind filter use or PS filters. If we don't share settings or PS/Corel use then all we are doing is looking at pictures.
PS edit.. Cheers Plumbie for clarification it was a great shot and you do great work. Love your site too.
Leaving comment to the end just lets everyone vote on what they like without this type of discussion hindering them. At Camera Club (1st meeting I've been to) the main crux of the conversation hinges around lens and settings..
The comment on a pic "Auto - no enhancement" or "55mm 125th f5.6 82a filter" would add to camera enthusiasts enjoyment and would effectively level the playing field.
Anyway.. The round was hard to vote for.. I favoured non-scenery pics and did like the extra effort that into amalgamated to show man-made stuff. Wide Angle was wonderful too.
Originally posted by Tirau DanI understand 55mm and f5.6, and I guess 125th is the exposure time (1/125 second? ). But what is a 82a filter?
The comment on a pic "Auto - no enhancement" or "55mm 125th f5.6 82a filter" would add to camera enthusiasts enjoyment and would effectively level the playing field.
Oh, and when I said what information I usually give about my aurora pictures, I forgot to mention the ISO number of the film, which is very important because otherwise the exposure time doesn't tell you much.
Sorry for not being able to vote for this round, but I just returned from holiday. If I had voted, it would have given 'Music for the Eye' an even bigger lead, as I like it a lot. Congratulations, Nordlys, nice work again.
I'm very glad with the compliments for my own images, thanks! Glad you liked them.
I do find the discussion about manipulation interesting. I think it's as good as impossible to define a clear line between a 'real' photograph and a 'manipulated' one. As ThePlumber mentioned, in both digital as analog photography, every step in the process of making a print has impact on how the end result looks. For analog photography, choosing a film, determining shutter speed and aperture, selecting a film developer, the way you develop, what printing techniques you use, what kind of paper, developer etc. etc. all determine what your picture looks like. For digital, photoshop replaces a lot of these selections and develops, and adds a few.
I do consider there to be a difference between a photograph and other kinds of visual art, but I can't find a clear set of general criteria to determine what is what. Even 'possible to reproduce in analog darkroom' isn't a clear criterium, since you can cross-process to have extreme colour changes or add objects to another image by printing two negatives on to of each other, or making double exposures etc. I wouldn't accept such images as unmanipulated photographs, while I do consider pictures where the photographer extensively dodged and burned as unmanipulated. It's all highly personal, I guess.
Most of the time, I don't bother much with looking for manipulations. I try to evaluate each image as it is presented. I liked to be told only when an image is significantly different from what was captured in a single shot. The question "how did (s)he do that?" pops up more often, and I'm always interested in hearing details about how the image was made.
As for my own pictures, I work analog and the reason I always have to enter b&w images is that traditional b&w films are the only ones I can process myself. Processing colour films just seems like to much of a hassle to bother. I reserve colour for holiday snapshots but most of the time I shoot b&w.
Photography to me is still mostly about a print. IMO, that's the real end-result of photography. Nothing beats a good print on baryta paper. Though with the convenience of the net, I tend to look at a lot of digital images and take some time to put mine online too. Sometimes, I scan straight from prints, and do some minor adjustments to correct the differences caused by scanning. For other pictures, I start from a negative scan and do the stuff I can do in the darkroom in photoshop. I usually try out some stuff in photoshop anyway, to know what I have to do when I start printing in my darkroom. I'd guess that about 60% of the images you see online are ones that I have a print of, 30% I'm pretty sure I could produce a print of, and 10% that I think I could make a print of, but where I'm probably overestimating my darkroom skills.
It's amazing how much time and trouble you can save using photoshop, and how much easier it is to work in detail. You can dodge and burn very selectively in PS easily, while it takes hours to make masks and try out stuff in the darkroom to achieve the same result.
About my contribution to this round, both wide angle and organic were pretty much straight prints. Only dolmen had some dodging and mainly burning inflicted on it, to create a vignetting effect, but that's all.
I really enjoy this competition, it's nice to see that much interest and to see that many great images. Kudos to Ragnorak for going through the trouble of setting it up.
Originally posted by NordlysThey're both done while you're exposing your photo paper. When dodging, you make a shadow over a part of the image so that part gets a bit less exposure time and appears lighter in the print. Burning is the opposite, you give a certain area of your image more exposure, and it appears darker in the print.
Sorry about my ignorance, but what exactly is dodging and burning (in the context of picture manipulation)?
The corners of my dolmen picture are considerably darker than the center of the picture because I burned those parts, gave them more exposure time.
(I like to use the terms because that's about the only thing I can do in a darkroom 🙂 )
Originally posted by NordlysHere's the whole monument: http://home.online.no/~khgott/Helsinki2004-16.JPG
It was a lot of fun to take pictures of the Sibelius monument in Helsinki. I might put some other pictures online, so that you can see the whole structure.
And Sibelius in profile: http://home.online.no/~khgott/Helsinki2004-21.JPG
I had a hard time to decide which picture of Temppeliaukio Church I should send in. Here's the other one I considered: http://home.online.no/~khgott/Helsinki2004-02.JPG
I really like the reflections, but I thought the picture might be too confusing. What do you think?
I would also like to hear what people thought about "Drying Fish". I had expected it to do better. Personally, I don't think I like it less than "Music for the Eye" (which I think is overrated). A friend commented that it was difficult to make out the fish. That's true, but for me it's the structure and the shadows which are interesting. (I have some close shots of dried fish, too... not very pretty. 😉 )
Edit: Thanks for the explanations, DdV!
Those were fish!? There were actual fish in that picture!? Pass the tartar sauce! Sorry did'nt see em. But then there's a lot I don't see these days. 🙂 First the eyes go, then the knees. Soon I'll need viagra just to get UP in the morn, but that's a story for another day.
Originally posted by ictoanWhy do you think the picture is called "Drying Fish"? 😉 You can see the fish better in this picture: http://home.online.no/~khgott/Svolvaer/15.jpg (that's not one of the close-ups I was talking about, I haven't scanned those).
Those were fish!? There were actual fish in that picture!? Pass the tartar sauce! Sorry did'nt see em. But then there's a lot I don't see these days. 🙂 First the eyes go, then the knees. Soon I'll need viagra just to get UP in the morn, but that's a story for another day.
Originally posted by RagnorakThanks...gone fishing was taken at Disneyland, so is all fake lol
I really liked your gone fishing pic.
But I've a question about Stone Henge... Is it on a hill?
D
And stone henge is on a bit of a hill. The pic was actually taken from the car as we drove past, so it was a bit hit `n` hope.