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Photo of the Day - June 2009
- Thread starter techie4life
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Blue LED Calculator
My favorite calculator display back in the day - blue. Also, I like the red ones...
Olympus E-420, ISO 800, 1/6, f2.8, 25mm (50mm equiv), Carl Zeiss Distagon T*
My favorite calculator display back in the day - blue. Also, I like the red ones...
Olympus E-420, ISO 800, 1/6, f2.8, 25mm (50mm equiv), Carl Zeiss Distagon T*
Gone
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Neighbors look on as a old house is destroyed to make way for new ones in Whistler Canada.
Neighbors look on as a old house is destroyed to make way for new ones in Whistler Canada.
I generally agree that post processing is an important skill to develop, but I would also have to agree with Doylem that starting with it is not the most expedient approach to making great images. I taught Photoshop classes for several years and definitely saw a lot of people getting hung up on it as a panacea for problematic photographs (I did too for many years). Post-processing is great to learn alongside traditional photographic principles and methods, just so long as it really is alongside. I think that learning about light and composition should take priority over anything else.
By all means, experiment! Just don't let the magic of post-processing software seduce you into neglecting the power you have at the moment of capture.
I generally agree that post processing is an important skill to develop, but I would also have to agree with Doylem that starting with it is not the most expedient approach to making great images. I taught Photoshop classes for several years and definitely saw a lot of people getting hung up on it as a panacea for problematic photographs (I did too for many years). Post-processing is great to learn alongside traditional photographic principles and methods, just so long as it really is alongside. I think that learning about light and composition should take priority over anything else.
By all means, experiment! Just don't let the magic of post-processing software seduce you into neglecting the power you have at the moment of capture.
Sounds about right to me. I was getting to feel that my views were somehow eccentric, when they're actually pretty 'mainstream' in the context of photography over the years. 'Proper' photographers used to insist "It's all about the light", though there is a new generation of photographers who would now disagree.
Why wait for the light when you can sort that out - and more - in Photoshop? Well, the answer, for me, lies in the hundreds, thousands, millions of images floating round the internet which share the same 'over-manipulated' look. The 'effects' may be different (there's quite a choice of software and plug-ins out there...) but the impetus is much the same: "the pic didn't look very interesting in the viewfinder, so let's see what I can do to jazz it up a bit". And the temptation is always to crank up the effect to the max (all the way up to 11 on Spinal Taps's speakers).
Learn some manipulative technique straight off and what you've got, essentially, is a party trick: "It's a photo but, hey, it looks like a painting!!!" Begin to understand light, though, and this understanding will be applicable to any kind of photography you turn your hand to. Photography becomes an open road, with possibilities stretching out to the distant horizon. Over-manipulation, on the other hand, is like a cul-de-sac. At some point, if you want to make real progress in photography, you're going to have to retrace your steps... and trying to learn the basics at that point is unlikely to be as easy as it would have been if you'd tackled them at the start.
These are just my opinions, and it doesn't matter whether they 'chime' with anyone else, or whether they don't. I'm happy to argue my corner and carry on finding out new things through the medium of photography. But what I don't appreciate, on this forum, are personal attacks. Photography is a broad church, and we're all free to pursue it in whatever way we want. Just as we're all free to offer up our comments and opinions in a - hopefully - constructive way.
And it is all about the light...
Yes, it's all about the light. Where on here or anywhere else did anyone ever try to claim otherwise?
What I and half this board take issue with is the annoying sanctimony constantly issued from a vocal minority around here who prance about acting like post-processing is just a trifle pittance only taken upon by the neophytes and the dull-witted. And like I said before, it can get nauseating.
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What I and half this board take issue with is the annoying sanctimony constantly issued from a vocal minority around here who prance about acting like post-processing is just a trifle pittance only taken upon by the neophytes and the dull-witted. And like I said before, it can get nauseating.
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It doesn't need saying. It's obvious from the many, many images which are 'tarted up' in a vain attempt to make a silk purse out of the proverbial sow's ear...
Sanctimonious? Nauseating?? I'm glad we've dispensed with the personal attacks...
And my prancing days are over...
Contrasting styles and contrasting views but still both beautiful photos.
Even though I see my previous picture lead to a discussion, I would like to post another HDR image that ended up looking good.
But I also understand that I should not get sucked up in HDR, I will try to learn more about light and those things, I am just having sum fun with my new camera.
Here is the image:
But I also understand that I should not get sucked up in HDR, I will try to learn more about light and those things, I am just having sum fun with my new camera.
Here is the image:
Powell by Dusk
I spent the 4th of July at Lake Powell a few years back. I rented a boat and camped on secluded beaches for a week. It was really fun, and the views spectacular.
Can't we all just get along? At least agree to disagree, and move on....
I spent the 4th of July at Lake Powell a few years back. I rented a boat and camped on secluded beaches for a week. It was really fun, and the views spectacular.
Can't we all just get along? At least agree to disagree, and move on....
Even though I see my previous picture lead to a discussion, I would like to post another HDR image that ended up looking good.
But I also understand that I should not get sucked up in HDR, I will try to learn more about light and those things, I am just having sum fun with my new camera.
Here is the image:
Nice image Dirk. I am not usually a HDR fan, but I like the way this turned out. Keep having fun with your photos.
I remember how fun it was to run all those photoshop filters (like watercolor, charcoal, pencil, flare, etc...) when I first started using Photoshop. But after awhile, I noticed that whenever someone else used the same filter, most of the time it looked an awful lot like mine...
I say use whatever tools you want to. Heck, use Adobe Illustrator if it suits you, and go to town making creative computer generated graphics - there's good money in it, BTW. I will agree, (and politely, because I'm not taking sides personally) with Doylem's approach coming closer to my ideas about learning photography. But, that's just me, not speaking for anyone else... because my interests first and foremost are the "straight" image, one I could obtain in a jungle with a camera, film and a rudimentary darkroom. It's where I came from, long before all these incredible high-tech software tools became available to everyone. The struggle was to master a discipline in a world of film budgets, chemical budgets, and the "camera doesn't lie" era of thinking. It's not in any way intended to be advice... just a way of thinking... one way of thinking - that's all. Take from it what you want to, or ignore freely (at your own peril... <okay, okay... jkidding, everyone..>
Sometimes I honestly can't tell if an image originated with a camera, or was just CG - like what's going on in the action movies these days. It allows the imagination to go anywhere it wants to, and locations, time of day, light, even reality... don't enter into it - it can all be created, simulated. And damn well, too. It's an amazing art form to be able to generate images from out of the imagination, and have them be as beautiful, maybe even more beautiful in many ways than real life. It's a completely different set of artistic skills, and sensibilities, but equally legitimate. Thank God for creative imaginations!!
Doylem was speaking about "learning photography," as I understood him, and I completely get what he was talking about. I don't see why his opinion should upset anyone at all. It's his opinion, stated from someone who knows his craft. Disagree if you must. But I just don't understand the touchy nerves. This happened a week or so ago, and I though we got through it.
Sorry for the long windedness, but I just wanted to say my piece... respectfully.
I say use whatever tools you want to. Heck, use Adobe Illustrator if it suits you, and go to town making creative computer generated graphics - there's good money in it, BTW. I will agree, (and politely, because I'm not taking sides personally) with Doylem's approach coming closer to my ideas about learning photography. But, that's just me, not speaking for anyone else... because my interests first and foremost are the "straight" image, one I could obtain in a jungle with a camera, film and a rudimentary darkroom. It's where I came from, long before all these incredible high-tech software tools became available to everyone. The struggle was to master a discipline in a world of film budgets, chemical budgets, and the "camera doesn't lie" era of thinking. It's not in any way intended to be advice... just a way of thinking... one way of thinking - that's all. Take from it what you want to, or ignore freely (at your own peril...
<okay, okay... jkidding, everyone..>Sometimes I honestly can't tell if an image originated with a camera, or was just CG - like what's going on in the action movies these days. It allows the imagination to go anywhere it wants to, and locations, time of day, light, even reality... don't enter into it - it can all be created, simulated. And damn well, too. It's an amazing art form to be able to generate images from out of the imagination, and have them be as beautiful, maybe even more beautiful in many ways than real life. It's a completely different set of artistic skills, and sensibilities, but equally legitimate. Thank God for creative imaginations!!
Doylem was speaking about "learning photography," as I understood him, and I completely get what he was talking about. I don't see why his opinion should upset anyone at all. It's his opinion, stated from someone who knows his craft. Disagree if you must. But I just don't understand the touchy nerves. This happened a week or so ago, and I though we got through it.
Sorry for the long windedness, but I just wanted to say my piece... respectfully.
It doesn't need saying. It's obvious from the many, many images which are 'tarted up' in a vain attempt to make a silk purse out of the proverbial sow's ear...
Sanctimonious? Nauseating?? I'm glad we've dispensed with the personal attacks...
And my prancing days are over...
The bike photo that started this whole thing was not tarted up.
You're living in a different time period. There are billions of ridiculously flat, boring, lacking drama, blurry, out of focus, photographs of garbage on the internet that never saw the light of photoshop.
Where could it all be coming from?
Photography has never been so accessible to everyone. You don't need access to a dark room, you don't need chemical supplies to make prints of your photos, and you don't see the 1000's of mucked up prints that a photographer went through until they reached their final piece.
Common sense just isn't so common.
Anyone post processing or experimenting with HDR would probably not mention a photo could really be better if they tried HDR, so why is it needed to try and stray someone else way from experimenting with HDr.
That's a great one! Lol I was really wondering if you snagged one of those rover's photos and doctored it up... till I saw the grass at base of red rock.