tomcat

I'm waiting for that new mirrorless camera from Nikon that can capture the smells. I can video the experience, but I want the smells. Disney can do this already, so it can be done.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

I am saying I feel the time passing me by and all the best memories I have are related to sound, taste, feel (touch), smell and the feeling of freedom or confinement.

None of that can be rendered with a camera, even a video.

Living a moment is intense and more often than not when trying to freeze it to remember it just does not work.

I was looking at clouds the other day. They were 'running' across the bay (Pensacola). Smoke stacks added a link to earth as it was surprisingly cold enough that the fumes were condensed onto funnels that tied the sky and ground. It felt like we were in a giant cave with a moving ceiling.

While the description is interesting and a picture would be better the feeling I had watching this cannot be rendered in anyway I can think of.

This scene is what prompted this post. Those who sometime read my threads can see a pattern here as I often rage against this limitation. In more ways than one music works much better. Alas I am not not a composer and not even a player so I just listen.

It is not about being good or bad at photography but about frustration. I saw it as a panorama but the fast moving clouds would not be 'great' nor would be a wide angle that would reduce everything to small groups of pixels. (Just remember that when we look at something with interest our brain tricks us into focusing onto elements and make them appear closer than they really are. A camera on the other hand does not care...)

tomcat

These are the times that I marvel at the wonders of God's creation.....

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

and the existence of life itself. It's all amazing, isn't it.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

The term "enhancement" means different things to different people. With a bit of skill and imagination it's possible to enhance a photo so that it more clearly evokes the feelings that you experienced as a witness to the scene. As others have said, that's venturing into the realm of creative editing. Some might say that's not photography, others might say that's the very essence of photography.

Geezer Bill Loc: San Diego County, CA

I record an image to please myself first. If others appreciate my efforts then there is satisfaction giving them something to look at, but the final reason again is to please myself. Each and every image (transparency) I have stored in boxes is a reminder of a moment and place in time that I was doing that which I enjoy doing and not something I had to do. I would wager that I could take you to ninety percent of the places that are recorded on those images. If I were to stop and start rationalizing just how every image will look I probably would not bother to get gear out of the bag. Maybe it is to windy for most things, but not a shore bird with a tail wind ruffling its feathers. In the old days I would burn 5-6 rolls of Velvia in a trip to Borrego for wild flowers. They definitely were not all keepers but now with digital and the all important delete button I can fire away at the humming birds and quail who visit my back yard daily. They are still not all keepers but I don't have to drive an hour and a half and spend a bunch of extra money for one hour processing so that I can and throw away a lot of not real good imagery!

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I did not respond to Stephan originally as I felt the question was absurd. I had to look up KOAN. Seems it has a number of related or similar meanings. I would guess Stephan meant as to Zen. I can be a little Zen-like for purposes of say Contemplative Photography and other Arts. But being trained in Science I have to think of Music or Sound in the Scientific, Mathematical, Physics sense. I find Philosophical Arguments or Riddles of that sort annoying, surely as you also say, a violin will make a violin sound. Where and when would it ever make an oboe sound? Humans are not necessary to perceive the universe for it to exist. Say if I am listening to music and then leave the room or even house, my Dog is still hearing it. I can't be sure of what she thinks of it but she seems to like Pink Floyd or Sonic Youth as she has her head right up against a huge speak enclosure. Peace.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Most of the time I am not trying to record something to remember, I am usually trying to create an image or concept in my mind's eye. The object is the subject or reason not the place or time. So I will photograph something to make it appear as I want it to look that may actually be rather abstract and not grounded. Yet at the same time I virtually never create total fantasy (I don't have the skills for that, or interest), but strive for the "photograph" I want and still have it look like a photograph.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Trying to convey something as abstract as a feeling is always going to be an ambitious objective, and the more abstract the feeling, the more ambitious the objective. The same thing can be said for using a still image to tell a story that's excessively obscure. This creates the situation where the success of the image will depend on the viewer making an obscure interpretation of your image, and the more obscure your intention, the more obscure the required interpretation.

One possible answer is to make our objectives more realistic, which has the advantage that it increases the chances of success. One such objective (but certainly not the only one) is to attempt to capture the visual impact that a situation had for you, which will typically mean simply focusing on what it was that caught your eye in the first place. Visual impact can be presented unambiguously and even explicitly, and success doesn't depend on the viewer making any kind of obscure interpretation of your image.

anotherview Loc: California

Agree.

anotherview Loc: California

You write: 1) "While the description (of the scene) is interesting and a picture would be better the feeling I had watching this (scene) cannot be rendered in anyway I can think of." 2) "It is not about being good or bad at photography but about frustration."

Your writing goes to the nub of things -- beyond the cant of still photography as more than a visual record (in two dimensions) of a subject.

Simply put, a photograph cannot capture, much less reproduce, the ephemeral feeling that a photographer may experience in connection with the subject when he takes its picture. After all, photography functions as a wordless medium of human expression and does so in visual terms only.

Trying to shape photography into other terms, like emotive ones, must fall short because no one-to-one relation exists between the visual record and the emotional states of conscious awareness. After all, consider that the variance in visual recognition of a photographic rendition of a subject must by itself naturally introduces a difference in viewer response to this rendition.

So, trying to control this response must result in failure every time. The photographer cannot put himself in the shoes of the innumerable viewers of his photographs. Each viewer will react in his own way.

Your frustration appears to generate from a sense of your inability to impart your feelings toward a subject into the strictly visual terms of photography.

Let me please suggest you do photography with your own sense of beauty in mind. Then your photography will evoke both in you and in viewers your sense of the beautiful. Even then, variance will enter this experience. For as the poet said, "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder."

petercbrandt Loc: New York City, Manhattan

Depends; are you a picture taker, or, 'picture maker'.
If a 'maker' , then manipulate the image til it tells your story (angle, exposure, color accent, adding an extra image or part there of) . Depends on how much energy you want to put into it. Want to be an artist ?

User ID

" ..... does it make any NOISE "

When you sub "sound" for "noise", you
undo the "lesson" value of that old tree
falling in an unihabited woods riddle.

Sound is physics. Noise is a value call.

Q: What did the Dead Head say after
giving up drugs ?
A: "Hey doood, whazzall that NOISE ?"

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User ID

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https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/newest-post-attachment-list?page=1

Click the above, for entree to several
hundred reasonably well executed pix
of birds, bugs, flowers, trees, sunsets
and other brik-a-brak that will never
induce any feelings. Does that mean
NO photo can EVER induce feelings ?

Are photographers all just catalogers,
amateur botanists, etc etc ? Certainly
they can fall into that, but I doubt it's
the fate of every practitioner. Skill at
camera work is just a competence at
a craft. Someone with something to
say can practice a craft ... writing or
music or illustration or whatever ...
and actually induce feelings in their
audiences. There's evidence of it all
throughout history ... including a few
sprinkled into the pages linked above.

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User ID

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Smelevision. Been around for decades.
Here's the top-of-page-1 google search
hit for "scratch sniff movie":

About 794,000 results (0.90 seconds)
Search Results
Web results
Polyester (film) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyester_(film)
Polyester is a 1981 American black comedy film
directed, produced, and written by John .... The
2011 film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World uses
a scratch and sniff card now called "Aromascope",
which is advertised as providing the fourth dimen
....... ...

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