On Wed, 20 Jan 2021 07:02:12 +0000, Melanie van Buren
wrote:

On 20/01/2021 05:11, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jan 2021 22:15:31 -0600, gray_wolf
wrote:

On 18/01/2021 5:49 am, Savageduck wrote:
On Jan 18, 2021, Eric Stevens wrote
(in ):

[snip]

This photograph has been cropped.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cyn4s5sjkm...99-br.jpg?dl=0
Does it meet your standards?

That tree is not wearing black stockings and stilettos, so other than having been cropped it misses her minimum standard.

I think we covered most of the other issues to be found in that image when you first posted it years ago. ;-)


What's the story on this photo? I remember the photo very well but none of the
details.

I was just responding to Melanie van Buren's comment about, that
except for cropping, there being no role for Photoshop in her work. To
many people Photoshop means grafting on and distorting things to
create something which one could never see in real life. I did none of
that with this image. All I wanted to do was redistribute the light so
that I could see in the print the tree that I saw on the site. What
the camera had seen was dark and stodgy in comparison. I can't
remember the details now except that to achieve what I wanted with the
fine structure of the tree and grass I had to make extensive use of
channel masks. Quite an educational experience. Was that cheating? It
depends on your point of view. The print is the tree I would have
tried to paint if I was a painter.

Things depending and points of view are what matters here and something
missing from discussion recently. Things are different when you take
this into account.

Yes anything I publish commercially is "what the camera sees" apart from
the basics including any white balance or exposure if I can be bothered
or dodging and burning (rarely) and any film look presets and (mostly)
cropping. Pixels are not manipulated. I know how to play the camera and
use lens distortion so my ass looks bigger in some shots etcetera but
this is about it. It's not "fake" and saves a lot of work. It's a
standard like newspapers used to have a standard of what the camera sees
with minimal adjustments like dodging and burning and perhaps minimal
cropping as long as it didn't change the meaning of the scene. As long
as everyone knows the standard and you don't cheat there is no
reputational damage. Lightroom is good enough for me. Seriously, I'm too
lazy to use Photoshop. I have CS6 somewhere but it's more effort than
it's worth.

There's also the issue that people can look different in a photo to real
life. This can be accentuated when clients feel overenthusiastic or
panicky. 50% of the photograph is the woman. 50% of the photograph is
perception. It's the same in person. I've had a few social chats with
and without wine with clients and just drawn them in. "Seductive".
Clients words, not mine. It's nothing I'm doing I assure you! Ok, not
entirely but you know what I mean.

There's loads of books on art and also on perception and creativity and
subjectivity etc.

I'm unsure if your end result can strictly speaking be called a
photograph but more a work of art. You didn't move pixels but you
tortured the light a little from what you say. Is it valid? I guess so
although it's digital not an analogue process like what a printer would do.

Your brain tortures light also. All I was trying to do was extract
what my brain had seen from the relatively little that the camera saw.

So not too different in some ways just different starting points.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens