Posts
At what point does an experiment turn into a project?
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Complex Vs. Cohesive
The other day someone commented on the irony of having a very complex image in my book on the page opposite my claim that images should be simple. In fact the image he was concerned about had a very limited colour palette and all the lines worked together and reached upwards to a single point and there wasn't a single extraneous detail in the image to distract from it's strong design.
This then leads to how to make complex multi element subjects work in a photograph. You may well be able to look at your image and discount all the elements that don't help the composition, while concentrating on those that do, but can someone who isn't familiar with the subject or the image do so easily?
Apart from the image features that I referred to in the first paragraph, how do you assure yourself that your images are going to be 'understood'?
1) Survey the image for elements that don't add anything to the story or the composition. If you can't reduce their effect (through darkness or contrast), then you may not have a good image here despite all the good things it has.
2) Is the placement of all the elements of the image (which do work for the story) optimal?
3) If you can't keep things simple in one way (say the number of items or their positions or directions or disparity in shapes) can you keep things simple in other ways? If not,... Sometimes simply switching to black and white can solve the problem.
4) If the many and complex items of your image can be arranged so that there is a virtual 'pathway' around and through the image, then your viewer might well be able to handle the complexity with aplomb.
5) Sometimes complexity can be handled through layering - that is arranging the camera position so that classes of elements are in different planes. Obviously in a two dimensional image this means nothing except where elements overlap so that is what you have to use to simplify the complex design. Two rocks may well be different distances from the camera, but if they don't look it, it complicates things. If one overlaps the other, then the arrangement is made clearer, which if not actually simplifying things, has the same effect in making the image more readable.
6) We tend to assume that smaller things are further away so that even if they aren't further, they tend to be treated as 'background'. Should they overlap something larger though, then you can't pretend they are background material.
7) Sometimes when an image has many elements to it, the elements naturally or with effort on your part can be made to fall into groupings which can simplify the reading of the image and strengthen composition. Four blocks of four is easier to 'read' than 16 random scattered items.
8) Consider the possibility that a complex image will look better in a big print, in which the elements have breathing space and aren't a jumble. This only works sometimes, but when it does...
9) Consider reducing overall contrast in a complex image so that the viewer is left with the impression of a group rather than of a lot of separate elements. In some ways this completely contradicts # 8 suggesting a large print - you just have to see what works in each situation.
10) In the end, if an image is really complex, but you are convinced it works, show it anyway. Who said everyone has to like every one of your images anyway? If all your images are too complex for your audience, you either have to change your pictures or your audience. If the occasional image is important to you and you want it seen, go for it. You might not choose to do it this way when submitting for a contest or hoping to be published, but if you already are, then why not sneak in the occasional challenging image.
This then leads to how to make complex multi element subjects work in a photograph. You may well be able to look at your image and discount all the elements that don't help the composition, while concentrating on those that do, but can someone who isn't familiar with the subject or the image do so easily?
Apart from the image features that I referred to in the first paragraph, how do you assure yourself that your images are going to be 'understood'?
1) Survey the image for elements that don't add anything to the story or the composition. If you can't reduce their effect (through darkness or contrast), then you may not have a good image here despite all the good things it has.
2) Is the placement of all the elements of the image (which do work for the story) optimal?
3) If you can't keep things simple in one way (say the number of items or their positions or directions or disparity in shapes) can you keep things simple in other ways? If not,... Sometimes simply switching to black and white can solve the problem.
4) If the many and complex items of your image can be arranged so that there is a virtual 'pathway' around and through the image, then your viewer might well be able to handle the complexity with aplomb.
5) Sometimes complexity can be handled through layering - that is arranging the camera position so that classes of elements are in different planes. Obviously in a two dimensional image this means nothing except where elements overlap so that is what you have to use to simplify the complex design. Two rocks may well be different distances from the camera, but if they don't look it, it complicates things. If one overlaps the other, then the arrangement is made clearer, which if not actually simplifying things, has the same effect in making the image more readable.
6) We tend to assume that smaller things are further away so that even if they aren't further, they tend to be treated as 'background'. Should they overlap something larger though, then you can't pretend they are background material.
7) Sometimes when an image has many elements to it, the elements naturally or with effort on your part can be made to fall into groupings which can simplify the reading of the image and strengthen composition. Four blocks of four is easier to 'read' than 16 random scattered items.
8) Consider the possibility that a complex image will look better in a big print, in which the elements have breathing space and aren't a jumble. This only works sometimes, but when it does...
9) Consider reducing overall contrast in a complex image so that the viewer is left with the impression of a group rather than of a lot of separate elements. In some ways this completely contradicts # 8 suggesting a large print - you just have to see what works in each situation.
10) In the end, if an image is really complex, but you are convinced it works, show it anyway. Who said everyone has to like every one of your images anyway? If all your images are too complex for your audience, you either have to change your pictures or your audience. If the occasional image is important to you and you want it seen, go for it. You might not choose to do it this way when submitting for a contest or hoping to be published, but if you already are, then why not sneak in the occasional challenging image.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Pioneer Acres
One of my patients invited me to visit Pioneer Acres, N.E. of Calgary. It's a museum and club and farm and has probably 100 tractors between the club and it's members, plus old trucks and threshers and combines and some thngs which even Tom couldn't identify.
Most cities have something like this, if not displaying farm equipment then mining or steel making or water mill or whatever. Often if they are well out of the city, they have enough land to store the 'somedays', the old stuff that hasn't been rescued yet or is simply being stored as a parts source. This can be a great source of photographic subject matter.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Oops
Mike Johnston at TheOnlinePhotographer.Com (look for Color Junkies) has written today a deliberate challenge to colour photography suggesting that black and white is almost always better. of course I'm sure he doesn't really mean it - he's simply taking an extreme point of view to get the conversation going.
I was tempted to write back with an example of one of my images in which even a very small amount of colour was essential to the image. To do so, I had to do a black and white convert of the colour image, and as I had remembered; the black and white version was awful. I have, however; previously noted that black and white conversion often need more contrast and so I started to work on the image, and guess what, I quite like the adjusted black and white version.
Above you see first the colour versi-on I have been showing for the last couple of years, the straight black and white conversion and the edited black and white version (involving several layers and painted masks as well as some dodging of highlights and even a little dodging of mid tones at the end.
In a print, the colour image shows more detail and the subtlties work better, but I have to say I quite like the depth to the black and white image. So much for my point.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Future Of Fine Art Photography
Scenario: you create a wonderful fine art image, edit it with skill and artistry and make a gorgeous print. You don't normally make really big prints, but this image suits it and deserves it so the final image is 20X20 inches.
Now what?
You beetle off to the local framing store, check out the framing and matting options and with care select the best possible combination for your work of art. You even splurge on that new really low reflection glass and without waiting for the price, head out.
A couple of weeks later you get a call, your frame is ready. It looks every bit as good as you had hoped, but My God!, the bill for the framing is $750. How are you going to explain that to the spouse?
You take the image home and having spent that kind of money, you'd better find someplace good to hang it - but guess what - there's no room at the inn!
You end up taking down some other piece of artwork so you can justify this (admittedly very nice) expensive picture.
Well, you won't be doing that again very soon.
Sound familiar?
Fast forward to a year or two from now. Electronic picture frames now come in big sizes, for relatively reasonable amounts, say in the order of $1200.
You can now put a single 24 X 24 inch frame (hey, I can dream about square format can't I?) on the wall and of course images can change at a whim. It's even practical for you to have a different selection than your spouse, or a different selection for when the grand kids come over.
More to the point, do you not think that the fine art consumer market isn't going to do the same thing? It just seems obvious that this is the way to go. No more delicate, expensive, HEAVY framed images sitting at the back of a closet for lack of hanging room.
We're going to have to figure out how to market, price and deliver high resolution files to the fine art image buyer. Boy, sure will make shipping images a lot easier, but now that people can have hundreds of images on their walls, a whole new pricing system will need to be invented.
How will we make sure that our images aren't duplicated? We are going to find ourselves in the same spot as the music and movie industries with pirating issues.
I hope someone is working on the security issues because the technical capabilities are basically here now, and where it was only Bill Gates who could afford to put his art work on large flat screen TV's in the past, I can't see any way that this won't be the way of the future - it's just too darn sensible.
Now what?
You beetle off to the local framing store, check out the framing and matting options and with care select the best possible combination for your work of art. You even splurge on that new really low reflection glass and without waiting for the price, head out.
A couple of weeks later you get a call, your frame is ready. It looks every bit as good as you had hoped, but My God!, the bill for the framing is $750. How are you going to explain that to the spouse?
You take the image home and having spent that kind of money, you'd better find someplace good to hang it - but guess what - there's no room at the inn!
You end up taking down some other piece of artwork so you can justify this (admittedly very nice) expensive picture.
Well, you won't be doing that again very soon.
Sound familiar?
Fast forward to a year or two from now. Electronic picture frames now come in big sizes, for relatively reasonable amounts, say in the order of $1200.
You can now put a single 24 X 24 inch frame (hey, I can dream about square format can't I?) on the wall and of course images can change at a whim. It's even practical for you to have a different selection than your spouse, or a different selection for when the grand kids come over.
More to the point, do you not think that the fine art consumer market isn't going to do the same thing? It just seems obvious that this is the way to go. No more delicate, expensive, HEAVY framed images sitting at the back of a closet for lack of hanging room.
We're going to have to figure out how to market, price and deliver high resolution files to the fine art image buyer. Boy, sure will make shipping images a lot easier, but now that people can have hundreds of images on their walls, a whole new pricing system will need to be invented.
How will we make sure that our images aren't duplicated? We are going to find ourselves in the same spot as the music and movie industries with pirating issues.
I hope someone is working on the security issues because the technical capabilities are basically here now, and where it was only Bill Gates who could afford to put his art work on large flat screen TV's in the past, I can't see any way that this won't be the way of the future - it's just too darn sensible.
Monday, May 05, 2008
How Wow Art Thou?
Some images are more dramatic than others - they have more 'wow' factor. They grab you through subject matter or dramatic lighting or through contrast. Wow landscape images make great calendars, wow people images tend to be dramatic and the subjects either gorgeous or incredibly wrinkled.
A lot of fine art photographers who take their work very seriously don't often make images like the above. Instead their work is often quiet, thoughtful, of rather ordinary subjects. Often the images are about showing parts of normal life that we wouldn't normally pay any attention to in our daily lives.
This raises the question - Which is the better photograph? Are the fine art photographers who produce these quiet images, often made with extremely high craftsmanship; possibly deluding themselves into thinking that effort is in fact talent?
Which images are going to be valued in the future, say 20 - 50 years from now, if any?
Could it actually be that the quiet image is simply that way because the photographer wasn't patient enough or determined enough to show up time after time to capture the one day with the incredible lighting or dramatic sky or to take the trouble to choose the really terrific looking subject for a portrait, or the model with the perfect body for a nude?
I sure as hell hope not!
Is there any evidence to help resolve this issue?
Not much doubt that it's the dramatic images that make it to the top on photo web sites and often feature on book and magazine covers and calendars. On the other hand those are all situations in which they need to grab your attention in a glance.
If instead of looking at contests, we review the work of the masters of photography, we seem to be learning a different lesson. Take Joel Meyerowitz for example. He is famous for his colour 8X10 work - Cape Light, The Arch, his street photography and even his work with the 9-11 site. Although he uses light and atmosphere with great care, he doesn't rely on dramatic sunsets and brilliant colours. He photographs fairly ordinary subjects, porches, sea shore, garages and such, ordinary people (all be it with red hair) and so on.
On the other hand, the Muench family are both famous and highly sucessful for their grand landcape, dramatic lighting, incredible colour. They have sold thousands of coffee table books full of finely crafted but definitely 'wow' images.
Rather than bore you with an extended list of argument and counter-argument as I think of photographers who fit in one camp or the other, I suspect you can probably supply your own list of photographers who fit in one camp or the other.
Ansel Adams 'name' was largely made on his 'wow' images though interestingly when he is criticized, it's often by people who don't like at some of his more intimate landscape and even his industrial work or his portraits or even his work with graffiti before it became popular as a subject. Those of us who continue to admire Ansel as a photographer (as opposed to printer or teacher), often do so based on the strength of these of his images.
So, have I just argued myself out of making a point? Probably? Is there anything to be learned then from this discussion? Well, I think so.
I think the conclusion is that there is room in fine art photography for 'wow' images and 'wow' photographers and just as much there is room for the 'quiet' photographers and 'quiet' images.
Sousa marches are all well and good but sometimes you want Debussy.
A lot of fine art photographers who take their work very seriously don't often make images like the above. Instead their work is often quiet, thoughtful, of rather ordinary subjects. Often the images are about showing parts of normal life that we wouldn't normally pay any attention to in our daily lives.
This raises the question - Which is the better photograph? Are the fine art photographers who produce these quiet images, often made with extremely high craftsmanship; possibly deluding themselves into thinking that effort is in fact talent?
Which images are going to be valued in the future, say 20 - 50 years from now, if any?
Could it actually be that the quiet image is simply that way because the photographer wasn't patient enough or determined enough to show up time after time to capture the one day with the incredible lighting or dramatic sky or to take the trouble to choose the really terrific looking subject for a portrait, or the model with the perfect body for a nude?
I sure as hell hope not!
Is there any evidence to help resolve this issue?
Not much doubt that it's the dramatic images that make it to the top on photo web sites and often feature on book and magazine covers and calendars. On the other hand those are all situations in which they need to grab your attention in a glance.
If instead of looking at contests, we review the work of the masters of photography, we seem to be learning a different lesson. Take Joel Meyerowitz for example. He is famous for his colour 8X10 work - Cape Light, The Arch, his street photography and even his work with the 9-11 site. Although he uses light and atmosphere with great care, he doesn't rely on dramatic sunsets and brilliant colours. He photographs fairly ordinary subjects, porches, sea shore, garages and such, ordinary people (all be it with red hair) and so on.
On the other hand, the Muench family are both famous and highly sucessful for their grand landcape, dramatic lighting, incredible colour. They have sold thousands of coffee table books full of finely crafted but definitely 'wow' images.
Rather than bore you with an extended list of argument and counter-argument as I think of photographers who fit in one camp or the other, I suspect you can probably supply your own list of photographers who fit in one camp or the other.
Ansel Adams 'name' was largely made on his 'wow' images though interestingly when he is criticized, it's often by people who don't like at some of his more intimate landscape and even his industrial work or his portraits or even his work with graffiti before it became popular as a subject. Those of us who continue to admire Ansel as a photographer (as opposed to printer or teacher), often do so based on the strength of these of his images.
So, have I just argued myself out of making a point? Probably? Is there anything to be learned then from this discussion? Well, I think so.
I think the conclusion is that there is room in fine art photography for 'wow' images and 'wow' photographers and just as much there is room for the 'quiet' photographers and 'quiet' images.
Sousa marches are all well and good but sometimes you want Debussy.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Surprise
I spent the afternoon photographing a local park. Originally it had been a working ranch only minutes from our house and my wife used to board her horse there. Eventually the ranch was broken up for development and how hosts hundreds of houses in a new sub-division. Forutnately the forrested area was saved. I was standing on a small log bridge and the view was pretty enough but it was all light and shadow and I really didn't think it would photograph well - if at all. I shot it anyway, not even bothering to multiple expose because I didn't think it worth the effort.
After working on all the "good" images which turned out to be pretty disappointing, I decided to at least have a look at this image. I first noted that despite the sun and shade, the camera had recorded the contrast very well and it actually looked more even in the image than it did standing there - how often does that happen?
Next I decided to bring it into black and white (using the black and white adjustment layer in Photoshop CS3 - and suddenly the dappled sunlight looked really nice, especially with a bit of filtering (ie. using the individual colour sliders in the black and white conversion adjustment layer.
A little darkening of the water, slight cropping on one side and eliminating a fair amount of foreground water so the banks came to the corners and you see here the results. Frankly, a hell of a lot nicer than I predicted at the scene. Below is the original colour image, pleasant but hardly interesting.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Fine Tuning
The image above is one I showed a few days ago. I made a print, put it up in the office and lived with it for a few days. I wasn't happy - oh, it's nice enough, but what I imagined isn't what the print shows. Too much clutter and distraction. I see the image as being about the three light coloured bumpers, looking a bit like the reverse of some Japanese character painted on paper. I tried darkening the rest of the print - didn't like it. I wondered about whether there was some kind of curve that would keep the darkest parts of the print showing some detail but the midtones pushed way way down and leaving the highlights where they were.
Today I tried this and though I didn't record the curve, trust me, it's a bizarre looking one
and this is a reproduction of roughly how it looked. Normally this would produce a very unnatural looking result with incredibly muddy tones, but guess what, it did exactly what I wanted.
I wondered though, whether I should help the print glow just a bit. Normally I'm not a great fan of diffused highlights. This used to be a feature of soft focus lenses, now it's simply a Photoshop trick, and frankly, overdone, but perhaps if it didn't hit you like a sledge hammer, it might be ok, and certainly it fit with my plans for this particular image.
I duplicated the image in another layer, then used gaussian blur of around 20 pixels, changed the blending mode to lighten (so we get the flare, not the spread of dark pixels). I then used the adjustment layer opacity slider to tone down the effect till I thought it reasonable. In fact it may not show enough on screen, though it will help if you take the final image and click on it to have the larger version show in it's own window.
Oh, and there's several dozen minor changes made - I cloned out the numbers pasted on a bumper in the bottom middle of the image, removed a number of scratches and spots that looked more like print defects than part of the image, and in several steps lightened the third light bumper on the right to make it stand out equally to the vertical one and the one on the left.
I'm quite pleased with the print - certainly a lot more than with the original. The glow is subtle - you can't actually see it in the details, it just exists. Exactly what I wanted.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Life Of A Pro
Luminous Landscape a few years ago featured an article written by Doug Brown, largely about his stitching techniques in action photography. As this is still an unusual technique, it remains interesting, but what I liked recently on rereading the article is the description of a working pro photographer and what he goes through to get the shot. From that point of view, it's quite revealing and I thought you might enjoy (re) reading it.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Lens Resolution
As a landscape photographer, it's important to me that lenses be of good quality, right to the corners. As I use a 16 MP camera, any flaws in the lens tend to show, should I some day go to an even better camera (say the 1Ds4) then it will be an even bigger issue.
That said, 95% of the images I take are shot at f11 or f16, perhaps 0.5% at 5.6 or wider.
For me, looking at resolution figures for wide open are pretty pointless. Looking at peak resolution, often at around f 5.6 isn't really all that much help either.
More practical is looking at f8 to f16 since those are the working f stops.
Other types of photography have different requirements. Someone shooting theatre or sports might well need maximum resolution wide open. They may well however not care much about resolution in the corners where I obcess about it.
Some lenses that perform very poorly in the corners do so because of a focus shift (ie. not a flat field) rather than simple outright low resolution - the 17-40 L Canon lens is known for this, focusing closer in the corners than in the middle. Stopping down and adding depth of field may well bring the corners within the area of decent sharpness.
So, as you can see, it's important to 'read' resolution charts and graphs and tests with your own needs in mind.
You'd think that once you stop down pretty far, all lenses tend to be equal. While there is some truth to this, diffraction being what it is; the reality is that complex lenses don't follow simple rules and diffraction does in fact vary from lens to lens and it can be important to check lens performance stopped well down.
That said, you can sure see what happens to resolution when you really stop down - say f 32 on a full frame camera or even f11 on a thumbnail sized sensor on a point and shoot.
Lens flaws like barrel distortion and even chromatic aberration are getting easier to correct, even with Photoshop and Camera Raw so are less of an issue than they were once. Sometiems though the distortions in a wide angle zoom are complex, featuring both barrel distortion in the middle and pin cushion at the outsides (as the lens designer tries to compensate for the barrel distortion) and these complex distortions require outside help from PTLens or DXO etc..
Long and short, consider your needs before comparing two lenses - if lens A is dramatically better than Lens B but only in ways that aren't useful to you, you may be picking the wrong lens, paying too much or carrying too much weight.
That said, 95% of the images I take are shot at f11 or f16, perhaps 0.5% at 5.6 or wider.
For me, looking at resolution figures for wide open are pretty pointless. Looking at peak resolution, often at around f 5.6 isn't really all that much help either.
More practical is looking at f8 to f16 since those are the working f stops.
Other types of photography have different requirements. Someone shooting theatre or sports might well need maximum resolution wide open. They may well however not care much about resolution in the corners where I obcess about it.
Some lenses that perform very poorly in the corners do so because of a focus shift (ie. not a flat field) rather than simple outright low resolution - the 17-40 L Canon lens is known for this, focusing closer in the corners than in the middle. Stopping down and adding depth of field may well bring the corners within the area of decent sharpness.
So, as you can see, it's important to 'read' resolution charts and graphs and tests with your own needs in mind.
You'd think that once you stop down pretty far, all lenses tend to be equal. While there is some truth to this, diffraction being what it is; the reality is that complex lenses don't follow simple rules and diffraction does in fact vary from lens to lens and it can be important to check lens performance stopped well down.
That said, you can sure see what happens to resolution when you really stop down - say f 32 on a full frame camera or even f11 on a thumbnail sized sensor on a point and shoot.
Lens flaws like barrel distortion and even chromatic aberration are getting easier to correct, even with Photoshop and Camera Raw so are less of an issue than they were once. Sometiems though the distortions in a wide angle zoom are complex, featuring both barrel distortion in the middle and pin cushion at the outsides (as the lens designer tries to compensate for the barrel distortion) and these complex distortions require outside help from PTLens or DXO etc..
Long and short, consider your needs before comparing two lenses - if lens A is dramatically better than Lens B but only in ways that aren't useful to you, you may be picking the wrong lens, paying too much or carrying too much weight.
Radiant Vista
I have mentioned Radiant Vista in the past but I think it a good enough resource that it's worth mentioning again. I popped over last night and listened to his comments on a submitted image, two young people sitting in what looks like warm late day light, the fellow taking a picture, the young woman staring into the distance (presumably at what he's photographing. My initial impression was 'nice picture' but Craig was able to find a goodly number of things to improve the image, all of which, in hind site; made sense and improved the image. Sometimes we can't improve an image because we simply haven't seen examples of the kinds of improvements that could be made. My next book is going to address that but in the mean time, Radiant Vista is an excellent resource for pointing out how to improve already good images.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Productivity
Just how productive are we meant to be?
I had a three day weekend (we take every second Friday off) and could have gone to th3 mountains, visited the badlands or generally done some really productive shooting. Instead I was feeling stressed and not sleeping well (long story - too much on my plate) and had little ambition to do anything. I'm sure this is a relatively common phenomenon and in fact there are lots of other reasons to be less productive than normal - the muse deserts you, family need your time, work is too busy, etc.
This raises the whole question of how many good photographs we are meant to produce. there are some photographers who are really productive. They tend to work in fashion, figure and colour landscape. After a while all their work tends to look the same and I don't envy their productivity.
I suspect that many serious 'fine art' photograhers would be happy to die (but not for a while) with a portfolio of 3 dozen really strong images. Problem is, unless you plan to die very young, this translates into about one image a year. Many of us would be so discouraged by such a poor output that we'd give up.
It's the decent but not wonderful images that keep us out there week after week, trying for the wonderful and not quite getting there. Like the carrot leading the pony, we need to at least get a sniff of glory every once in a while, even if we hardly ever get to eat the whole thing.
In terms of productivity, all any of us really needs is just enough success to keep us going, to give us some confidence that with a bit of effort, wonderful is at least possible. Just how many good but not wonderful images we need to keep us going clearly will vary from person to person, not to mention how good is good.
Unless we are selling our work on an ongoing assignment driven basis (in which case none of the above applies), productivity really doesn't enter into it. You might be jealous of someone who can come home from a weekend's shooting with 12 good images while you are lucky to do one quarter of that in a month, but really it doesn't matter, so long as you see enough progress, enough success to motivate you to go back out again.
I had a three day weekend (we take every second Friday off) and could have gone to th3 mountains, visited the badlands or generally done some really productive shooting. Instead I was feeling stressed and not sleeping well (long story - too much on my plate) and had little ambition to do anything. I'm sure this is a relatively common phenomenon and in fact there are lots of other reasons to be less productive than normal - the muse deserts you, family need your time, work is too busy, etc.
This raises the whole question of how many good photographs we are meant to produce. there are some photographers who are really productive. They tend to work in fashion, figure and colour landscape. After a while all their work tends to look the same and I don't envy their productivity.
I suspect that many serious 'fine art' photograhers would be happy to die (but not for a while) with a portfolio of 3 dozen really strong images. Problem is, unless you plan to die very young, this translates into about one image a year. Many of us would be so discouraged by such a poor output that we'd give up.
It's the decent but not wonderful images that keep us out there week after week, trying for the wonderful and not quite getting there. Like the carrot leading the pony, we need to at least get a sniff of glory every once in a while, even if we hardly ever get to eat the whole thing.
In terms of productivity, all any of us really needs is just enough success to keep us going, to give us some confidence that with a bit of effort, wonderful is at least possible. Just how many good but not wonderful images we need to keep us going clearly will vary from person to person, not to mention how good is good.
Unless we are selling our work on an ongoing assignment driven basis (in which case none of the above applies), productivity really doesn't enter into it. You might be jealous of someone who can come home from a weekend's shooting with 12 good images while you are lucky to do one quarter of that in a month, but really it doesn't matter, so long as you see enough progress, enough success to motivate you to go back out again.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Body Panels
In an industrial part of town, these were stacked next to the road in a large pile and I had fun composing using both shape and colour. It vaguely reminds me of the Union Jack.
My first reaction was that pity I cut off that light coloured panel, top middle, though as it would have spoiled the two corners had I included it and as it doesn't look out of place cropped, it's one of those compromises in which you have to throw away the good to eliminate the bad, and the image has to stand as is.
WARNING! Rant Ahead
Why is it that photographers and galleries insist on displaying work in tiny on screen images? Is there really such a market for 800 pixel representations of the image that the photographer must fear their theft? Surely it's more likely that all it will do is create advertizing for their work, for free?
I think we hit a new low in the link below. I'd seen the work of this Italian photographer in the latest Black and White. The photographer has no website but there was a gallery for his work, in San Francisco no less - here's their idea of viewing pleasure!
Nile Tuzun Gallery
See, I just gave them some advertizing. Mind you, the images are so small you are lucky if you can even see what it's about.
I think we hit a new low in the link below. I'd seen the work of this Italian photographer in the latest Black and White. The photographer has no website but there was a gallery for his work, in San Francisco no less - here's their idea of viewing pleasure!
Nile Tuzun Gallery
See, I just gave them some advertizing. Mind you, the images are so small you are lucky if you can even see what it's about.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Slim Pickings
The best I could do yesterday in a walk-about.I did find that using exposure blending worked well, producing undistorted results quite painlessly.
I set up the 40D to shoot three images with +- 2 stops as well as correct. I took the images right from Bridge into Photomatix Pro Standalone for exposure blending, minor adjustments to the blend point and saturation and save the output as 16 bit TIFF.
All that was required then was to edit the images in Photoshop as usual. I think this is the technique to use for sunny day shooting. Will have to try it on landscapes too.
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