Anvil wrote:
This is a landscape shot, and I could have put it in that section, but an important part of the finished product has as much to do with post processing as it does with creating the raw shot, in the first place.
If I happen to take a photo that really speaks to me, I will put it through its paces in Photoshop. Most keeper shots just get Lightroom treatment, but the ones with real potential get the chance to shine. At first, the vast majority of the shots that I thought warranted the Photoshop treatment were wildlife shots. I found that I was not content simply to present a tack sharp, nicely balanced capture of a wild animal. It had to have more.
After a while, it dawned on me that I was trying to create shots that appeared as if they were studio shots, yet could not possibly be studio shots. That was an interesting challenge.
Lately, I've been trying to develop some skills in the area of landscape photography. I feel I'm making some progress when I take a shot that begs to be sent to Photoshop. (I don't go to Photoshop to save a shot. That's usually a waste of time.) I took such a shot, today. The area is called The Devil's Backbone. It looks like a gargantuan Stegosaurus died, face down, and its body petrified, leaving a miles long ridge with enormous plates growing out of it.
When I finished with Photoshop, I liked the result, but the interesting bit was what I realized, when I finished. This shot has many of the same qualities of those faux studio wildlife shots I mentioned, and that was intentional. It dawned on me that I had been trying to create finished works that looked as if they were shot on film, rather than digital. I did not start out trying to do this -- I was trying to create things I liked. I have no notions, whatsoever, what attributes any given type of film would impart to a photograph. I just have, in the back of my mind, a somewhat vague notion of what a quality, artistic film shot would look like.
Such a shot would focus on feeling, rather than sharpness and clarity, unless those qualities happened to support the feeling, in the shot. In this shot, I could have stressed the clinical sharpness of the rock formations, but I felt that, to stress the power and immensity of the rock formations, much of that detail had to remain in the shadows. That seemed to coincide with the feeling of power coming from the clouds, as well.
Anyway, when I was finished, I thought it had more of a film feel than a digital feel. Those of you with extensive film experience might say I'm all wet, and I can handle that.
This is a landscape shot, and I could have put it ... (
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This is truly an interesting topic that you've opened up. (I love the image, BTW, it has that Hudson River School feel to it that I find appealing and is somewhat similar to what I do with landscape images).
I agree with you that our processing has just as much to do with our finished product as our capture choices. I can capture an image and make it look a hundred different ways, and sometimes I almost do that. The darkroom, whether traditional or digital, allows us to interpret the capture as we see fit, and many of those choices are based on how we experienced the scene, or how we imagined it to be. We bend and sculpt light, we push and pull on pixels to make things softer or sharper, we nudge the color wheel.
In the journey of developing our editing skills we often find a certain kind of editing that holds a consistent appeal for us, and we may stick to it. Over time, we may begin to call it our "style" or our "signature look". Before I realized I had such a thing, some online friends began to tell me they could identify my photos without looking at who posted them. And I realized it was because I was applying steps that would take the photos towards a particular look that I used a lot. So I held onto that look, and I still use it.
In time, I've added alternate looks, other softwares, attempted to acquire extra skills, so that I don't get stale. But for me, my unedited image is like an un-iced cake right out of the pan. It may be good but it's usually not all that interesting and it says more about the camera than it does about the subject or about my impression of it.
Thanks for an interesting discussion.