Discussion: Weekly Competition #19 The Monochrome Landscape

Answer D) If it isn't working then I wouldn't bother

Seriously, Dan, this probably stems from my moving picture background where you cant crop (well, you can but image quality plummets so much you would have to have some extreme reason) and you are stuck with the landscape format which now brings with it even more problems. Cameras shoot 16:9 but there are still a significant number of people using 4:3 TV sets so you have to bear that in mind and any crucial information in the image has to fall within the 4:3 middle of the 16:9 frame, so you cant put faces or graphics on the exrtreme edges. Like I said its just personal choice and discipline.

My training in wedding photography plays a part too, using 6x6 but composing a 10:8 landscape or portrait for machine printing to fit into album overlays or mounts. You have to get it right first time.

Ken

When you look at a scene, your eye's iris opens up and closes down, effectively spot metering for each bit of the scene you look at. So the brain forms an HDR composite of what the eye has recorded.

So my take on these is that if they're natural, like Ammonyte's woodland one a week or two back, they're absolutely fine, and arguably more natural than a single exposure.

The real question will be "is it a good image?". How we got there doesn't bother me...

However, if being entered for a competition then it should be all our own work.

I hope somebody isn't going to ask now, "What about trade processed prints and slides?"

John,
How do you stand on trade prints and enlargements?

Seriously though, my take on the matter is that if it is a photo competition then the empahasis should be on the art of taking the photo in the first place. I have also seen, even in the days of film, finishing competitions where the emphasis was on the post processing/D&P side of the equation. Indeed there used to be proffessional awards for the best prints rather than the best picture. To this end, a "selective" enlargement or a small amount of post processing is right but once you start melding images and using large amount of post processing, it becomes more of a competition of computer skills.


Kim

Did it have to start in a camera?

We had a thread a while back where we had to determine which pictures were 'real' and which were generated entirely by rendering software on a computer.

Some of them were damn difficult to tell.

Most competition definitions state that there must be an original that starts with the use of light on a light sensitive surface. That would cover film or a sensor.

I think it just goes to show that the more we try to define something, the more there is to define.

Almost 100% of the time I think we can identify what is a photograph. At some point it may become Graphic Art, but I ain't losing any sleep over it!

hmm... I'm going to try a landscape shot with the k10's in-camera multi-exposure.

I'll post up a few images when I've done it.

I totally agree, the submitted picture should be 100% your own work.

Nothing else.

But how you submit that picture, surely, that's up to the photographer ?


As to digital manipulation, well I used to 'dodge and burn' my B&W prints
in the 70's', in an old cupboard, that wouldn't fit a case of Guinness.

I still 'dodge and burn, it's just I can do it in my front room now.

Oh, how I miss the taste of developer, and the smell of fix . . . . NOT.

I only come alive when the 'Red' light come on, just ask the wife !!!

I don't understand what you mean.

For these forum competitions they are submitted via the web.... or am i missing something?

What I was trying to say, was, that I agree that the picture submitted should be the work of only the photographer, but the final image that he/ she submits, could be any variation of the original photograph, i.e. a crop, B&W, HD, or anything else the photographer / artist wants to do, to arrive at an image that pleases him/her.

Do you accept every image straight from the camera ? Not if you shoot RAW or jpeg, you rely on software to sort your picture. Even shooting FP4, I used to see variations on my films, when the times/ temperatures were a bit off. Nothing is constant. You compensate.

It's the final image that counts, nothing else, as long as it's ALL your own work

Used to be a purist, but I'm ok now

Sorry, when you said 'submitted', I was thinking about how the image was transported to wherever, not how it looked.

i just like the picture

[opinion]

I'm, currently watching the BBC TV series The Genius of Photography which apart from showing that the BBC can still make excellent old fashioned documentaries, serves to remind that a camera is merely a tool at the disposal of the photographer, who then uses that tool as creatively as they like. I think that as long as the resulting image is not used fraudulently nor is fraudulently mis-represented, then that's fine by me.

Photomanipulation to create images is a wide and complex subject from cropping, dodging and burning, use of filters, to modern advanced digital techniques, which has a history as long as photography itself. It isn't going to go away. Have a look around the photos at Ephotozine and I'll bet that very few pictures have not been touched in some way.

Serious competitions expect the photographer to declare any alterations, but I don't think the intention on this forum was to have a serious competition!

I never used a darkroom, my photography fun used to end when I took the film to the chemist. Now I have as much fun after taking the pictures as I do whilst taking the pictures, and I suspect this is increasing true for a lot of people.

[/opinion]

I've been looking through my old negative files looking for a suitable candidate for this competition and found a few that, despite some promise, always eluded a decent print in the darkroom. That was despite a load of stuff like dodging and burning, pre-flashing and split grade printing. Having just scanned one or two in (and being forced into a rare foray into Windows to do it) I can see some real potential with a couple of them that I never had the darkroom skill to bring out before. But if I could, I most certainly would have done.

So digital just allows me bring out something from the negative that my lack of darkroom skill could never have done.

Just my $0.02

I have just checked into this thread and just wish to set the record straight for my own satisfaction that my sky was as it came on the day.

Not that I think above comments was directed at me personally, but must admit I had to scan through them all to see which one he was referring to!

I actually have never got around to PSing a sky from another time and another place into an image of mine.
I like to try and keep my images as au naturalle as possible.

Anyway, here is mine without the slap on, warts and all!