The Morning Patrol

[canonrebel]

The daily border patrol on the farm.

Aproximately 1.5 to 2 hrs after sunup.
Canon Rebel 300d | Aperature Priority | Kit Lens's widest focol length.

Manipulation:
Cropped
Selective saturation and levels gradient has been manipulated to control morning fog and sky detail


Original snapshot...

 

[MDowdey]

i really like the original better....great shot though...


md

 

[thebigbillybob]

once again the diference between digital art and digital photography... i like the effect of the fog but it isnt THERE its not even evident in the original... i just dont agree with adding things to pictures that arent there and still claiming it as a digital PHOTO when its really a digital COMPOSITION when editing my digital PHOTOS i am a firm believer in the fact that as long as you limit what you change in them to something you can do in a darkroom then its still a photo... now i dont tihnk the fog was there to begin in fact to me it looks like you just used the dodge and burn tool in ps to dodge a few areas to give it a fog effect in fact im almost positive thats what you did... i geuss you could do that to a degree in a darkroom however the sky thats just cheating.... this is a digital composition not photo at least thats my 2 cents/opinion hate all u want

 

[canonrebel]

once again the diference between digital art and digital photography... i like the effect of the fog but it isnt THERE its not even evident in the original... i just dont agree with adding things to pictures that arent there and still claiming it as a digital PHOTO when its really a digital COMPOSITION when editing my digital PHOTOS i am a firm believer in the fact that as long as you limit what you change in them to something you can do in a darkroom then its still a photo... now i dont tihnk the fog was there to begin in fact to me it looks like you just used the dodge and burn tool in ps to dodge a few areas to give it a fog effect in fact im almost positive thats what you did... i geuss you could do that to a degree in a darkroom however the sky thats just cheating.... this is a digital composition not photo at least thats my 2 cents/opinion hate all u want

Once again:

Manipulation:
Cropped
Selective saturation and levels gradient has been manipulated to control morning fog and sky detail

Folks, this was a manipulated photo.

bigbillyjobob, Are you serious? You should smile when your're kidding.
It's manipulated -- So What? I said it was manipulated. I didn't try to sneak anything over on you as your tone implies. I've even showed you the original for comparison. I've told you how I did the manipulation.
And still you want to raise an issue as if your views are the only views that count. You can't dictate your personal set of commands about what's right or wrong in this forum--you're too inexperienced. And the rules of the forum have already been posted anyway, not that you've bothered to read them.

Why do you have so much hate? -- You should be ashamed.

Please, let me apologize to you for my submission right now at the very onset and put a stop to this pissing contest.

billyjobob, I personally apologize to you for my manipulated submission. Please accept my humble apology and allow the submission to stay
The Rebel

 

[danalec99]

Both the pictures looks good except for a slight tilt, UNLESS thats what you wanted!

And, the title is neat!!

My best preference would be the manipulated version, since it relates to the title of the image!!

 

[karissa]

once again the diference between digital art and digital photography... i like the effect of the fog but it isnt THERE its not even evident in the original... i just dont agree with adding things to pictures that arent there and still claiming it as a digital PHOTO when its really a digital COMPOSITION when editing my digital PHOTOS i am a firm believer in the fact that as long as you limit what you change in them to something you can do in a darkroom then its still a photo... now i dont tihnk the fog was there to begin in fact to me it looks like you just used the dodge and burn tool in ps to dodge a few areas to give it a fog effect in fact im almost positive thats what you did... i geuss you could do that to a degree in a darkroom however the sky thats just cheating.... this is a digital composition not photo at least thats my 2 cents/opinion hate all u want

BillyBob.... Ok, give Canon some credit. He did say it was manipulated. Also, we all understand that you dislike the way he has presented his art form. However, as grown adults, I do believe there is a much more tactful way to go about presenting your opinion. I do not see any need to get overly upset about it. To me it is The Photo Forum version of road rage. Now, in your words... that is my 2 cents hate it all you want.

Canon... I like the first one you did. However, what does bother me is the slant of the landscape and the brightness of your sun spot. To me it wouldn't be that bright in real life. Or at least... I don't think so. Cool idea... I like it. It also would have been cool if the dog would have had a better pose but... you can't really control much of that.

 

[canonrebel]

Canon... I like the first one you did. However, what does bother me is the slant of the landscape and the brightness of your sun spot. To me it wouldn't be that bright in real life. Or at least... I don't think so. Cool idea... I like it. It also would have been cool if the dog would have had a better pose but... you can't really control much of that.

I never noticed the slant. I took for granted that it was the lay of the land as it is the "lower 10" and isn't level. But since you mentioned it, I noticed that the perpendiculars such as the fence posts and tree trunks aren't true perpendicular. It is definitely slanted.

The bright area in the sky is an area that I left unmanipulated from the original. I left it untouched (washed out) because I wanted to exagurate the appearance of a lazy hazy early morning sun without cutting or pasting anything. I've watched my kid brother achieve similar results in my darkroom. I admit that I, myself, have never accomplished anything remotely resembling this in my darkroom.

The rest was done with selective gradients and lowering levels and selectively raising/lowering saturation on many feathered seperate selections so the sky wouldn't appear to be so washed out. It wasn't achieved in a mere half hour. Burning and dodging in PS doesn't have the proper finesse to accomplish this. In fact, it would be impossible for me to achieve this result with the elementary tools of dodge and burn. There is nothing in the manipulated version that wasn't already there in the original.

A stone mason sees only the stone. A sculptor sees the statue which was always in the stone.

Thanks for your comments.
Rebel

 

[LaFoto]

Rebel, I'm impressed by your "post-original-photography" work and I'd say these kinds of manipulations do go with photography - have always gone with photography.

Even the very restricted knowledge that I personally have on the matter comprises that of manipulation done in the darkroom, for my dad used to have a darkroom when I was little and he showed me some.

Today - with a more and more digitalised world - you have two ways in which to manipulate an original: in the darkroom, like you say your kid brother is a master at doing, or digitally.

When I first came to this forum, I was very much on the side of the "purists", i.e. in my mind you had to evaluate a scene beforehand, and photograph it accordingly.

Then I began to realize that this need not always be "the only true path" to a good photo. Manipulation can be the ONLY means to make an otherwise "normal" photo special. Like the fog that you added to what you had, although IN FACT it was not there when you and the dog were there. I like the first, the manipulated contribution to this thread much better than the one with the very white, featureless sky. And I must say that I am quite impressed by your work.

When I drove round the countryside taking photos of a series on "Barns, Sheds and Stables", it happened to be an overcast day, which has brought about a good many washed out skies (which is why you haven't seen ANY of those photos here as yet). With those I only wish I had the knowledge to some something GOOD about them, manipulate them, if you so please, so as to SAVE some of them that otherwise look like snapshots...

Would you maybe care to help me with the odd photo of mine, Rebel?

 

[thebigbillybob]

hey i appologize i was just stating my opinion i do believe it is an art to be able to manipulate an image... however i just dont think it could still be a photo when its manipulated once again MY OPINION so sorry to offend anyone for thinking for myself... canon i will apologize i know your thing says its manipulated i just was stating my views so i cant apologize for having an opinion but i will for stating it and i guess comming off arguementive...

 

[LaFoto]

I feel like it's OK now, BillyBob, for I know how you feel, coming from the same area that you're in.
I don't know how old you are?
My guess is you're still young?
Well, I'm an elderly woman of 44, and believe me, you can become more relaxed about opinions in general when you grow (older).
And still: even at 44 I still learned that if you see photography as an art (and don't we all aspire just A LITTLE towards that?), manipulation is part of it. Just like a painter may take months (and months of changes!) to his painting.
Do you see my point?

 

[thebigbillybob]

definantly i see manipulations as a seperate art themselves though... not to bring up the the subject above but as for rebels composition above the original had a blown out sky with little to no detail at all and his manipulation completly changed that by digitally adding a much more pleasing sky into the picture which takes skill and is an art however to me it isnt photography... if its not in the original capture, how is that photography when it actually wasnt photographed... yes you are right i am young just turning 18 in august however my love for photography is pure and i just believe in the pure form of the art... but like what i think i got from your post... and its kinda a sane art is what you make it or something along those line i dunnno its late i have to be up in 4 hours im off to bed

 

[ZacKrohn]

I cant realy decide which one I like better...I do have to say though that my views are very much inline with bigbillybob.

my love for photography is pure and i just believe in the pure form of the art... but like what i think i got from your post... a

about sums it all up for me. I realy enjoy playing around in photoshop but I dont see that as photography as much as graphic arts.

 

[photobug]

Well, I actually like the composition of the original better I think. It's hard to tell on my iBook, but I think the area you left "original" in the upper right sky could be a tad darker. There's too much of a hard edge between that & the rest of the sky.

Maybe you could try going a bit lighter overall on the sky as a whole first, then darken the majority to taste. I'd like to see it without the highlight included for comparison.

 

[sobi]

I feel like it's OK now, BillyBob, for I know how you feel, coming from the same area that you're in.
I don't know how old you are?
My guess is you're still young?
Well, I'm an elderly woman of 44, and believe me, you can become more relaxed about opinions in general when you grow (older).
And still: even at 44 I still learned that if you see photography as an art (and don't we all aspire just A LITTLE towards that?), manipulation is part of it. Just like a painter may take months (and months of changes!) to his painting.
Do you see my point?

funny you use that analogy. Some of the most prestigeous works in the world are done only partially by the one person who gets the credit. Take the sistene chapel for example.......much of it was done with the hands of his helpers.

 

[canonrebel]

Folks, I appreciate your comments and especially the apology. I’d like to try once more to explain away my sin.

When I did that shot, it was early in the morning maybe 7 o’clock or 7.30. The humidity was about 95 %. There was yet heavy fog that the 2-hr-old sun had’nt yet burned off. The exposure at shutter-time on that shot failed to display the fog and I was disappointed. Too late to go back and redo the shot, the moment had passed.

I had the theme for this shot in my head before I even stepped off the patio. The dog is about 65 years old in human terms. She’s had a hard life and still she makes this daily morning vigil around the homestead parameters. She has survived being run over by a car. She survived a gunshot wound. She has arthritis and every step is painful but still she does that daily morning patrol thing. That dog is an old soldier that will die while on patrol duty.

I have added nothing to the shot. I was disappointed when the exposure didn’t capture enough of the fog. So I digitally changed the exposure value in several selected areas. The manipulation was subtractive rather than additive. I selectively revealed the fog that was already there. I did no magic, I didn’t add anything that wasn’t already there. If you want to see want to see the original view as it actually existed, download the original and apply about 2 extra f-stops to it and you will have an idea of how the view looked to the naked eye. The fog was so thick and the humidity was so high that my shirt was wet and my camera strap was damp after about half an hour. My sneakers and socks became completely soaked form the dew upon the grass.

In my opinion, a purist should be an

absolute

purist. I believe it is rationalizing talent when a certain amount of manipulation (which they can do) is accepted and more intense manipulation is disallowed.

Many state that digital manipulation comparable to the manipulation of a darkroom is acceptable as photography. Yet, they have never had a darkroom. Never even been inside of a darkroom. Never mixed a batch of chemicals. Never constantly regulated chemical temperature during the entire process of developing. Never re-tuned a color analyzer to a new batch of paper. Never spent an entire Saturday processing ten 8x10s. Never hung them on a clothes line stretched across the basement and waited for them to drip-dry while hanging over a thick layer of newspapers and rags spread out to protect the carpet from chemical wash. Never paid the dues. Talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.

In my opinion even Ansel Adams was no purist. Everything he ever did was phony. He would often make a hundred different copies in his darkroom before he got one that represented the vision that he knew was hidden in the orginal scene. And only then would he display it. And everything he displayed was way different than what you would have seen had you been standing beside him as he snapped the shutter. Had he been a sculptor, he would have seen the hidden statue in the shapeless piece of stone. So that “darkroom only” synopsis does not keep with my views of what photography can be.

Ansel Adams invented the “Grey Scale” and the technique to use it. Everyone since has adapted/adopted his technique. I doubt if any monitor can display, any printer or digital camera can capture all ten levels of the grey scale. Ansel Adams manipulated his darkroom procedure so that the most important detail would be inside the visible range of the grey scale (probably about 5 levels). I’d also be willing to speculate that Ansel Adams never had an “Automatic” or a “program” selection on his camera.

Think how Ansel would have used the technology that exists today....now that's an interresting thought!

How many purists shoot in full manual mode? Could it really not be photography unless it was done like Ansel Adams did it? Nah! That doesn’t support the purist program.

When you have some spare time, Google up some of Charlebois’ photography. He is a well known modern photographer, but the images that he concocts are definitely not purist by any definition or standards. Look in some of the work considered to be photography that appears in COSMOS, VANITY, HOME and GARDEN, PHOTOGRAPHER, MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY, even PLAYBOY.

I have always respected and will always respect everyone’s right to their own views even if I perceive a slight amount of “kidding themselves”. Whatever makes them happy is fine as long as it isn’t dictated upon me. I’ve taken a chance of expressing my opinions in this post because there are many different opinions already expressed and they’ve been accepted gracefully and peacefully.

I keep it in mind that this forum is intended to be for help in improving our craft. It wasn’t intended to be competitive (there’s a separate thread for that) . It wasn't intended for temporary rules of fairness and unfairness. We’re not going to grow if we close or minds to creativity.

If you aspire to be a professional (make a living at it), you must produce a salable product. I wouldn’t consider myself a professional if I labored under false limitations to creating the best product that was possible.

I’m not a radical in my views on photography, but I do care very much about it. I care about how far it has come; where it has been; where it is going. I care about it as a business. I care about it as a pastime. I care about it as Art. I care about it as a hobby. I care about it as a vehicle to pull people out of stressful existences of everyday responsibilities of living. I don’t care for it when it perpetrates stress and undo competitiveness. It’s results should be pleasant and beautiful to experience.