And one has to remember that no photography can pretend to show the truth. A picture only shows a given situation under a very specific perspective, consciously or not, openly or not, relevantly or not. Photographers have to accept they can just convey fragments of illusory realities and relate their own intimate experience of the world. In this process of fictionalising an unreachable truth, it’s up to them to impose their doubts about any photographic truth, or accept being impotent pawns in the mediatic game. – Antoine d’Agata
It’s like Diane Arbus said, you are looking for the “gap between intention and effect.” People think that they present themselves one way, but they cannot help but show something else as well. It’s impossible to have everything under control. — Rineke Dijkstra
I’ve been noticing more and more lately that a lot of images posted by beginners have too much distracting details in the background. I get it. I understand that You want to show the location of your subjects! Do you realize that your main subject is getting lost in the background? The old saying comes to mind. “A Little goes a Long Way”!
There are several techniques that can help us here. Making your subject/s more prominent by getting closer or cropping out unnecessary details is the easiest to start. Lighting or the use of shadows is another. The creative use of “Depth of Field” by softening or making the background slightly out of focus is another easy method.
The immediate top two are actually the same image. I was playing in the B&W conversion trying to darken the image for more impact. But I now have a loss of separation lighting and contrast that kept the couple apart from the background, so they now get lost.
Above using “Depth of Field” and selective focus techniques in editing I am able to keep the Mare and Fowl as the main subjects while still showing location.
This is why we need to study and learn from the Great Masters of both Photography and Painting. Instead of reinventing and making obvious mistakes, we can spend our time learning and being creative.
To convey in the print the feeling you experienced when you exposed your film – to walk out of the darkroom and say: “This is it, the equivalent of what I saw and felt!”. That’s what it’s all about. – John Sexton
The expectation of capturing a scene exactly the way our creative eye envisioned it using the technology of modern day is hopeful at best. As much as our equipment has progressed it still lacks the abilities of our human heart and eyes.
Physically our human eyes have a much wider range of contrast controls between the brightest and darkest areas of a scene. This is why even the best exposure only captures the majority of a scene and sometimes other parts of that same scene fall outside the range of what is considered a proper exposure.
This is exactly why capturing a “Straight Out of Camera” or “SOOC” is soo difficult. Notice I said difficult Not Impossible!
There are specific Special Interest Groups for people who join together to further the ideas of Artistic Purity. All we have to do is pay attention really. The images are way above and beyond magnificent! To belong to one of the Special Interests Groups we have to learn about the Rules and the limitations they set on what the Final Image has to fulfill as requirements.
The Limitations can be both Camera Work and Editing. Capturing the perfect proper exposure is always the attempted goal as far as experience dictates. Some Special Interests Groups Do Not Allow Editing at all. See this confuses me and I can’t get my head around this one Concept.
My perspective comes from Old School Stuff and the Wet Darkroom. Stay with me here for a moment. I normally shoot in “Raw Format” which means none of the image manipulation apps in the cameras menus will influence my images. I manually edit the images later and that includes Contrast and Sharpness.
If we shoot in JPG Format the Cameras Menu Image Controls affect the images! Saturation, Sharpness and Contrast are the first things that come to mind. These are Now Saved as our Images. So to me in my mind those Images are already manipulated by the Camera and contaminated so how can they be considered “SOOC”?
This is one of the several reasons I shoot in Raw. I want complete control of my images and refuse to let the Cameras boxed limited variable understanding of the creative world influences my work. Or to explain more simply some person in a Lab Suit sitting in a Dust Controlled Environment Dictating what my work should look like. The picture modes on that dial are the perfect example. Cloudy, Sunny, Landscape, Portrait or Night. Think about it, Are All the images you’ve ever seen look exactly like one of the above categories? Of course Not.
So back to the Specialty Groups. Basic Understanding of the Rules are No Editing in your images to keep them pure! Can someone please explain this to me? This makes absolutely no sense! If my camera places contrast control adjustments on my images because it’s shot in JPG how is this then allowed?
Also how is B&W Allowed Unless a Camera is specifically converted to Shoot Only B&W which is extremely expensive by the way. I shoot in Raw then first convert the image to B&W?
Why do we do this to ourselves? Phew for the betterment and furthering the creative process. To help us become better in our chosen direction. I remember when I first purchased my very first lens all those years ago. I was having trouble getting used to the perspective that this New Lens brought to the table. By perspective I’m not just talking about angles of view which was very different. Distance to subject now has to be considered as well. Also the exposure numbers just changed, I’m used to a f3.5 and this new lens can go much faster. OK you think that’s funny huh? How far down does your Aperture go? f11 or f16? I still have an old lens that closed down to f32
So how do we change our personal perspective on some new equipment? We set limitations inside our head to Force Us to See! Put that New Lens on that Camera and go out and use it for a week, 2 weeks maybe more. Do Not Change Your Lens. Force yourself to use this One Lens so you can Develop your Creative Eye to Really See through this new piece of equipment.
Not4wood's Photography Blog 