Thursday, September 25, 2008

Jemez


Jemez, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Little more digital processing of this one than usual. I wish that tree in the middle wasn't there.

6 comments:

Matt Dick said...

I had to try, right?

Josh Gentry said...

Sweet! I like it without that tree.

Unknown said...

I like the version without the tree too. How much professional photography is manipulated like this? I suppose painters in some mediums get a redo to add/remove stuff. Seems like photographers shouldn't to me.

Josh Gentry said...

In this day and age, much if not most professional photography is manipulated like this. Especially in commercial photography. Little less so in fine art, I think.

I know what you mean, and I do it rarely, but its not logical. Photographers have heavily manipulated images in the dark room since photography began. Canonical example, everyone likes Ansel Adams, right. Huge part of his work was in the dark room. In some ways, photoshop is just a better dark room.

That said, my goal when I take a picture is to not need to manipulate it afterwards.

Matt Dick said...

Your goal *should* be not to manipulate it, but not because of some notion of honesty, but because it will make you a better photographer.

Your recent sidewalk zen shot, of the lone stone on the sidewalk... what about that was honest? Please don't get me wrong, it was a very nice photograph, one of my favorites from your recent crop but...

Was that rock sitting in some large expanse of sidewalk, or did you have to zoom in to keep out the spot of chewing gum? Was it in front of a puddle, a comic book store, etc? Even not shooting in color removes some of the context in which that rock sat. You produced something that was deliberately contextless. That was to achieve an effect that was separate from reporting about that rock.

So I think it's unfair to pretend that photography isn't (or even could be) manipulation--it necessarily is.

Luke I think most photography is, and as Josh points out, if you include lighting, it *all* is. You can't produce a photograph without making decisions about lighting that aren't "what your eye would see". You can't do that, what your eye sees is a massive interpretation of the world that can't be captured on film.

Check out photoshop disasters for funny failures.

msd

Josh Gentry said...

our goal *should* be not to manipulate it, but not because of some notion of honesty, but because it will make you a better photographer.

Agreed.

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