Google| Subject | Re: converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D |
| From | Floyd L. Davidson |
| Date | 12/04/2013 05:55 (12/03/2013 19:55) |
| Message-ID | <87li01fc4m.fld@apaflo.com> |
| Client | |
| Newsgroups | rec.photo.digital |
| Follows | PeterN |
| Followups | PeterN (10h & 37m) |
PeterN <peter.newnospam@verizon.net>wrote:
PeterN
On 12/2/2013 9:27 PM, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
No, that is not the rub, that is the very *essence* of it all!Floyd L. DavidsonPeterN
Let me quote something for you to put some perspective on what makes a photograph:
"When nothing superfluous is included and nothing indispensable left out, one can understand the interrelation of the whole and its parts, as well as the hierarchic scale of importance and power by which some structural features are dominant, others subordinate." Rudolf Arhheim, "Entropy and Art", 1971
The key concept is that each image has parts arranged according to "the hierarchic scale of importance and power by which some structural features are dominant, other subordinate." The photographer is responsible for prioritizing each part and then through composition, content, and other measures placing each item in exactly the right place on that hierarchic scale. That is the way in which pre-visualization, camera work, and post processing are tightly associated, each helping to provide that exactly right arrangement.
Therein lies the rub. What is essential is often a matter of individual taste.
The original scene does not ever have inherent priorities. Those always come from the photographer, and that is what makes style, it is what makes art, and all of it absolutely is a matter of individual taste and can never be ignored without loss.
My personal taste is minimalistic and interpretative. (with partial exceptions for wildlife.) I don''t want to drag another person into this, but there is one contributor in this group who takes documentary images. I tend to comment on the images as if they were intended to be the type of interpretative work that I like to do. He tends to leave far more detail in his images than I would. But, that doesn't mean his work is not good photography. Indeed it is.I repeatedly (not much here, as sane discussions here are so rare) try to convince people that it is virtually impossible to give a valid critique for any image without first having a statement by the creator telling what the image is supposed to communicate to the viewer. When someone asks "How can I make my pictures better?" I have no choice but to ask "Better at what?"
As you say, documentary is one thing... artistic, modernistic, minimal, and many other words characterize different things.
The point is *never* what was there in the scene before it was photographed, and it is always what the photographer wants to communicate, using that scene as the "language", to the viewer. Just as with the use of any language, we edit the symbols to clarify the message.
An obvious example is DOF, which for most documentary work of almost any kind, including a lot though not all Street Photography, is usually maximized. Yet for most portraits it is often minimized. Sharp detail other than the subject might be superfluous, or might be indispensable. It is always there in the original scene, but depending on what the photographer intends the image to be, it might be emphasized or diminished.
-- Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/ Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@apaflo.com
11/30/2013-
-
