Yosemite

Eric Miller wrote:
wrote:
http://nedsudduth.blogspot.com/2006/12/yosemite.html

Awesome photo of yosemite valley


Since we're all showing our Yosemite shots:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/honeymoon/yosemite_valley_bw.htm


Eric Miller

That's an interesting shot. Was that shot with film, or is it a digital
conversion to B&W.
If digital, I'd like to see the color version...

--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson

wrote in message
ps.com...
http://nedsudduth.blogspot.com/2006/12/yosemite.html

Awesome photo of yosemite valley


Or if you want to check out Half Dome at a closer vantage point see:
https://home.comcast.net/~severynj/p...icture_059.jpg
and even closer at:
https://home.comcast.net/~severynj/p...icture_060.jpg

Best regards,
J. Severyn

On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 21:01:03 -0600, Eric Miller
wrote:

[snip]
Since we're all showing our Yosemite shots:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/honeymoon/yosemite_valley_bw.htm

Not bad, not bad at all!

I'd like to do Yosemite during autumn or winter. I was there once in
1993 but unfortunately I was not really into photography then.

--
Kulvinder Singh Matharu

Website : www.metalvortex.com
Contact : www.metalvortex.com/contact/

Brain! Brain! What is brain?!

Mark² wrote:
Eric Miller wrote:
wrote:
http://nedsudduth.blogspot.com/2006/12/yosemite.html

Awesome photo of yosemite valley

Since we're all showing our Yosemite shots:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/honeymoon/yosemite_valley_bw.htm


Eric Miller

That's an interesting shot. Was that shot with film, or is it a digital
conversion to B&W.
If digital, I'd like to see the color version...


Shot with the Canon 10D and EF 28-135 IS USM. I'll post the color (and
moonless) version later today when I have more time.

Eric Miller

Eric Miller wrote:

Mark² wrote:

Eric Miller wrote:

wrote:

http://nedsudduth.blogspot.com/2006/12/yosemite.html

Awesome photo of yosemite valley

Since we're all showing our Yosemite shots:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/honeymoon/yosemite_valley_bw.htm

Eric Miller

That's an interesting shot. Was that shot with film, or is it a
digital conversion to B&W.
If digital, I'd like to see the color version...

Shot with the Canon 10D and EF 28-135 IS USM. I'll post the color (and
moonless) version later today when I have more time.

Eric Miller

I thought the moon looked fake! The shadows and lighting on the
rocks say the sun is above the trees to the left, but the
moon says the sun is down low (below the horizon),
so the directions do not converge correctly.

Also for a southwest view, the moon has entirely the wrong
orientation.

Roger

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:
Eric Miller wrote:

Mark² wrote:

Eric Miller wrote:

wrote:

http://nedsudduth.blogspot.com/2006/12/yosemite.html

Awesome photo of yosemite valley

Since we're all showing our Yosemite shots:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/honeymoon/yosemite_valley_bw.htm

Eric Miller

That's an interesting shot. Was that shot with film, or is it a
digital conversion to B&W.
If digital, I'd like to see the color version...

Shot with the Canon 10D and EF 28-135 IS USM. I'll post the color (and
moonless) version later today when I have more time.

Eric Miller

I thought the moon looked fake! The shadows and lighting on the
rocks say the sun is above the trees to the left, but the
moon says the sun is down low (below the horizon),
so the directions do not converge correctly.

Also for a southwest view, the moon has entirely the wrong
orientation.

Roger

This was my first trip to Yosemite and when I added the moon, I was not
certain of the compass direction I was facing when taking the
photograph. The only moon image that I had was a half moon and I knew I
wouldn't get the rotation correct either; it was a guess. In any event,
the moon was full on the date the photo was taken, which happened to be
the date that a lunar eclipse lifted the curse of the Bambino and
allowed the Sox to win the Series. Still, I liked the shot better with a
point of interest in the sky.

Eric Miller

Eric Miller wrote:
Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:
Eric Miller wrote:

Mark² wrote:

Eric Miller wrote:

wrote:

http://nedsudduth.blogspot.com/2006/12/yosemite.html

Awesome photo of yosemite valley

Since we're all showing our Yosemite shots:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/honeymoon/yosemite_valley_bw.htm

Eric Miller

That's an interesting shot. Was that shot with film, or is it a
digital conversion to B&W.
If digital, I'd like to see the color version...

Shot with the Canon 10D and EF 28-135 IS USM. I'll post the color
(and moonless) version later today when I have more time.

Eric Miller

I thought the moon looked fake! The shadows and lighting on the
rocks say the sun is above the trees to the left, but the
moon says the sun is down low (below the horizon),
so the directions do not converge correctly.

Also for a southwest view, the moon has entirely the wrong
orientation.

Roger

This was my first trip to Yosemite and when I added the moon, I was
not certain of the compass direction I was facing when taking the
photograph. The only moon image that I had was a half moon and I knew
I wouldn't get the rotation correct either; it was a guess. In any
event, the moon was full on the date the photo was taken, which
happened to be the date that a lunar eclipse lifted the curse of the
Bambino and allowed the Sox to win the Series. Still, I liked the
shot better with a point of interest in the sky.

I suggest you remove the moon and stick with reality in the shot.
The image is nice, but when you start playing with reality, it just loses
something...


--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson

I suggest you remove the moon and stick with reality in the shot.
The image is nice, but when you start playing with reality, it just loses
something...



Reality maybe?

I get your point. But where do I draw the line? After all, black and
white isn't exactly reality, neither is the way that I arrived at this
grayscale image by first discarding the blue and green channels and then
sharpening it. And, generally speaking, no one ever criticizes the moon
in this image until I tell them that I have added it, which tends to
make me think that the objection is more of a principled one than one of
immediate impression, i.e., that it isn't about the way the image looks,
but about the critic's view regarding certain types of manipulation. I
guess, to me, the wholesale abandonment of reality in this image lessens
the impact of criticism of only the placement of the moon. When I looked
at the nearly final image before adding the moon, I figured I had
already manipulated it so much, why not add a little interest in the sky.

Eric Miller

Eric Miller wrote:
I suggest you remove the moon and stick with reality in the shot.
The image is nice, but when you start playing with reality, it just
loses something...



Reality maybe?

I get your point. But where do I draw the line? After all, black and
white isn't exactly reality, neither is the way that I arrived at this
grayscale image by first discarding the blue and green channels and
then sharpening it.

It depends on the reason you photograph a scene. If you wish to render an
interesting interpretation of reality, there is a lot of leeway for that.
You can control exposure, contrast, perspective, color rendition, and on and
on. For me, knowing that the moon had no part in that scene turns it into
an imagined reality. Some are fine with that, and you'll have to decide for
yourself. There is a fundamental difference between paintings and photos,
in my thinking. -When people view a painting, there is a built-in
assumption that the artist has most likely taken license with the scene,
because it is a given that the scene COULD NOT capture at single moment in
time--rather it was created with bits and moments which "passed over" a
scene over the span of time taken to paint it. But with photography, the
assumption is that you recorded very close to a single moment in time of
what was there--at the very least...in terms of the objects and scene
elements. Folks could argue endlessly about long exposure exceptions, blah
blah blah, but a reasonable person will understand the difference I'm
describing here. As I said...you'll have to decide for yourself.

Perhaps it would help to describe a recent experience I had in a
photographer's image gallery/store that I recently visited in Big Bear,
California. There were a large series of landscapes and other
scenics...many of which had wildlife in them. One particularly striking
image was a panoramic of a stony, treed mountain-top. The lighting was
beautiful, and the detail was fantastic...UNTIL...I set my eyes on the
various rams which posed so perfectly on several rocks in the scene. Any
photographer worth his salt would have been able to determine that the rams
were superimposed into the scene. The shadows were a dead giveaway, and the
lighting was just plain wrong. This did two things to me: One...it took
what I was at first glance admiring as amazing timing, exposure and
opportunity of subject, and turned it into utter disppointment that no scene
ever really existed at all. Two...it immediately erased my interest in
viewing any of his other work, because it now became a demonstration of his
Photoshop skills, rather than a display of what WOULD have been impressive
captures made by patience, timing and expertise. I abandoned the shop, and
the photographer's work at that moment, because he had chosen to abandone
reality for trickery. No thanks. Heck, I could skip any further trips to
Alaska by his rules, because who cares if I actually capture that
grizzly...at just the right moment in time...under carefully-awaited
conditions...at that rare moment in time. -By his rules, I just need a few
crappy snaps to cobble together. Again... No thanks.

I'm not saying that your work is all fake, but were you a person whose work
I was familiar with, it would immediately call every one of your shots into
question in my mind.

And, generally speaking, no one ever criticizes
the moon in this image until I tell them that I have added it, which
tends to make me think that the objection is more of a principled one
than one of immediate impression, i.e., that it isn't about the way
the image looks, but about the critic's view regarding certain types
of manipulation. I guess, to me, the wholesale abandonment of reality
in this image lessens the impact of criticism of only the placement
of the moon. When I looked at the nearly final image before adding
the moon, I figured I had already manipulated it so much, why not add
a little interest in the sky.

Why not stick a penguin in the field? That might be interesting...


--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson

I think Mark² has summed up my own thinking on the matter pretty well.
Stieglitz, Strand, Adams, and others gave us our current concept of fine art
photography. It's ok to use filters, dodge and burn, and even spot out tiny
bright objects along the edge of the image. Adams gave us particularly a
visual vocabulary that applies to black and white images of El Capitan. I'm
not a religious person, but I have a little ghost, of St. Ansel, who tells
me whether I'm doing something wrong or not in Photoshop. He would not be
happy about adding the moon to a picture.

I often joke about writing a plugin called "moonslapper" that would add the
moon, in any phase and rotation, to an image. If such a plugin ever became
popular (God forbid) the moon would be recast as an unimportant bauble.
Imagine a digital camera with a built-in moonslapper function. Everyone
would have the moon in any picture they wanted, and the presence or absence
of the moon in an image would soon become unimportant.

Your Yosemite image has real impact, and I liked it even more after spotting
the moon in the sky. By the same token, after hearing the moon the image
lost its authenticity. It's as if the moon subtracts from the image, rather
than adding to it. If I felt you were a great soul of photography, and had
taken moonslapping to new heights, that would be different. As it is, it
seems you experimented with a short cut that any of us could easily take,
but don't.

Call it my own prejudice, but part of the contract of photography is that
your an image contains what you saw. If you step outside of that contract,
then you're competing with graphic artists at large, specifically with the
visual effects folks at ILM and Pixar. As a viewer, before I will suspend
disbelief, I need more than just something that looks like an excellent
photograph: you have to really do something incredible, on a par with the
best CGI, and that's a very high bar.

Anyway, it's still a damn good image, and I would add my voice to those who
suggest that you make it even better by taking the moon out.
--

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/