Some are reality shooters. Some shoot to create a base for what I call digital art. Both are art forms and require a separate set of skills. What rankles me is the failure to disclose which it is. For example, if someone posts an image of a bird flying in front of the moon, I marvel at his ability to catch that. When I find out it's a composite, my attitude changes. It's no longer a wonderful catch. It's a good job of assimilating various elements. I used to say that one requires one to be skilled in photography while the other requires skill in computer work. They are different skills. There are those who try to make us believe that until we have manipulated an image to the max, we haven't fully "developed" it. I disagree.

It's all in one's mission and purpose. Both are valid art forms.

when I view some of the posts that are put up on the hog, many of them are very nice,some are outstanding, and some are just too over prossessed.

Now this is just my humble opinion.

Some of the posts are just too evenly lit,every shadow detail is available, trees and mountains are all just picture post card perfect. Now I have been around enough to know that scenic opportunities are rarely ,if ever perfectly illuminated. So...my thought is, am I the only one who is satisfied with capturing a given scene SOOC ?

I often shoot my scenics with both eyes open with the thought of capturing in camera exactly what is before me, or as close as I can get it given the broad spectrum of light falling on a given vista.

I'm afraid that there is so much PP of everything ,that what we all are exposed to now are all just personal renditions of what is or was actually there. Some post are so perfectly PP'd, that they take on the apperance of a lithograph rather than a photograph.

Example: taking a picture of the sun will always render the rest of the scene whofully under exposed, yet I see shots with the sun as evenly lit as the surrounding landscape. Yes, there are times when it is possible to shoot a sun scene and have some forground or backround lit. But not evenly. I have tried. something has to give.

I feel like a lone wolf trying to capture what I see as it is, while many are manipulating their shots to render them more perfect or "pleasing" to the eye.

With so much pp going on, it's very hard to know what is real anymore.

Just my observations and ramblings.

It's a photographers prerogative to create an image any way he/she prefers.

That said, when the processing (medium) gets in the way of the message, the message gets lost in noise. When I think about some technical aspect of your image first, you probably haven't chosen the best way to communicate with me.

Here are a couple of images. First is a JPEG, straight out of camera (SOOC). Second is the same image, saved as a raw file, cropped slightly, and post-processed in Lightroom. I could have used HDR techniques on it, but I chose restraint instead. Does it look over-processed? I don't think so. It looks a lot more like the scene I saw. View the downloads for best results.

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when I view some of the posts that are put up on the hog, many of them are very nice,some are outstanding, and some are just too over prossessed.

Now this is just my humble opinion.

Some of the posts are just too evenly lit,every shadow detail is available, trees and mountains are all just picture post card perfect. Now I have been around enough to know that scenic opportunities are rarely ,if ever perfectly illuminated. So...my thought is, am I the only one who is satisfied with capturing a given scene SOOC ?

I often shoot my scenics with both eyes open with the thought of capturing in camera exactly what is before me, or as close as I can get it given the broad spectrum of light falling on a given vista.

I'm afraid that there is so much PP of everything ,that what we all are exposed to now are all just personal renditions of what is or was actually there. Some post are so perfectly PP'd, that they take on the apperance of a lithograph rather than a photograph.

Example: taking a picture of the sun will always render the rest of the scene whofully under exposed, yet I see shots with the sun as evenly lit as the surrounding landscape. Yes, there are times when it is possible to shoot a sun scene and have some forground or backround lit. But not evenly. I have tried. something has to give.

I feel like a lone wolf trying to capture what I see as it is, while many are manipulating their shots to render them more perfect or "pleasing" to the eye.

With so much pp going on, it's very hard to know what is real anymore.

Just my observations and ramblings.

Those old movie producers had access to the finest auxiliary lighting and lighting treatment devices known at the time. Most of what we see in those old B&W films was highly processed AT THE SCENE. Even the shadows of daylight scenes were heavily lit with fill light, and/or softened with diffusion tents or scrims. They had generator trucks to power tens of thousands of watts of auxiliary lights in remote locations. They had large portable reflectors to go where the generator trucks couldn't.

Lighting ratios between highlights and shadows were tightly controlled, because the films of the day had a lot of contrast. The goal was to simulate an ideal reality, and to do it in such a way that the viewer really couldn't tell it was simulated. The biggest movie houses were masters at it.

In the 1980s, I worked for a company whose parent corporation owned Consolidated Film Industries, a movie film processor, video transfer house, and special effects house in Hollywood. They made some filmstrip prints for me, as I was an AV producer at the time.

When I flew to L.A. to meet with the sales guy, I got a tour. His detailed explanation of their processes was VERY enlightening. I was amazed at all the steps they could take to make a scene look natural. But they told me the BEST techniques started with proper lighting design at the scene.