Landscapes Only!

[abraxas]

Those are some great photos.

I guess I had my watershed moment last year. I had been having mild success selling my photos to magazines. All I started to think about is was is this image sellable. I began to think too much about each photo and my photos actually got worse. I really stopped enjoying taking photos and I wasn't selling for a while. I realized how I was making myself miserable putting so much pressure on each photo and I was ruining something I had been taking great pleasure in for the past 17 years. So I stopped caring so much. I went out and took pictures of dogs, chickens, anything and I wasn't thinking the whole time who could I submit these too. After that I really began to enjoy photography again. I still riding that wave, , after just getting back from a week in Yellowstone. It feels like I was 15 and learning the dark room and each print felt like magic. After all this I'm actually selling more photos!

I'm glad to hear things are getting back on track for you. In the last year I've been doing a lot of what I feel like doing. I've been having considerably more fun, and producing better photos.

I think I know what you mean though, at least as far as what I see as maybe trying too hard. I lost some nice sales a few years ago because my shots (all digital) looked good on the web, but the clients needed something with much higher resolution. I upgraded and went into a one year flurry of reshooting locations. I upgraded again a year later, but since my 'forced march' style of revisiting and shooting locations didn't make that that much of a difference, I figured I'd just do as I please. The last couple months things have gotten better, but it's the work I've done in the past year that has been responsible for the improvement.

 

[abraxas]

I was going through looking at some of the -others- at AnselAdams.com;

Color
http://www.anseladams.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=14

B&W
http://www.anseladams.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=13

 

[Iron Flatline]

Rolfe Horn

 

[abraxas]

Rolfe Horn

Great link- The pages about how he processes his work are inspirational to me. -Thanks!

 

[skieur]

Galen Rowell's work is very impressive. One thing I noticed for sure is that he likes to saturate colors quite a bit. But even without the saturation, his comps are impeccable. .

Actually it is more the use of software filters and considerable postprocessing that contributes to the colour rather than simple saturation. The use of a graduated blue filter plug-in is obvious in many of his shots as well as a graduated neutral density filter. Software vignetting and central lighting from filters also seemed to be present. Some selective work has been done as well.

As you indicated, the shots are impressive and a lot of viewers would not recognize the level of postprocessing involved.

skieur

 

[abraxas]

Wow. Rolf Horne- I went off the deep end with that one and have been out 3 of the last 4 days with some of his notes in my head. Thanks again IF. I hope I'm better for it.

Here's another couple of favorites I found digging around this evening.

http://library.nau.edu/speccoll/exhibits/muench/photo_gallery_muench.htm

http://www.barrygoldwaterphotographs.com/index_arles.html