B&W photographer with an interesting viewpoint

The_Traveler

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www.lewlortonphoto.com
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On Wednesday night, I went to the second of three presentations by a marvelous local photographer Arthur Ransome. His presentations were refreshing, in that he declared himself relatively free of knowledge about post-processing and didn't mention his choice of camera gear once. What he is tremendously good at is, imo, seeing images that have enormous potential for striking B&W images.

He admits he knows enough post-processing to get from his raw image to his final result but disclaims any expertise or interest in answering technical questions. His first presentation was on seeing images and the importance of seeing the b&w tones in the color landscapes we see. The second presentation, this past Wednesday, was demonstrations of his technique for conversion. There were no magic bullets or actions, it was taking well framed and well conceived images, converting them and then reinforcing the important parts that make up the image.

There was no BS about special lenses or sensors or image noise or even complicated processing. After the conversion using Lightroom (and a preset) he did every with quick mask and curves layers, quickly and economically of time and effort.

You might like to look at his site to appreciate Arthur's insight into what makes good b&w landscape photos.
 
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Lew, I don't understand this recent campaign against those who value/enjoy the process from start to finish. I'm sure I have seen you say "what matters is the final image" and I 100% agree with that.

I don't think it matters how much involvement the artist has after clicking the shutter release, that click records all of the "data" available to be used to create that final image. It is all about decisions we make along the way and that can range from removing the film/card and handing it off to someone who we trust, quick post processing with presets, or taking full control of post processing with a deep knowledge of the editing program being used or doing your own darkroom work.

I would venture to say that there are amazing artists in every category I mentioned, none are better or more right or more of an artist than the others, they all make decisions that effect their final product and make it what it is.
 
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On Wednesday night, I went to the second of three presentations by a marvelous local photographer Arthur Ransome. His presentations were refreshing, in that he declared himself relatively free of knowledge about post-processing and didn't mention his choice of camera gear once. What he is tremendously good at is, imo, seeing images that have enormous potential for striking B&W images.

He admits he knows enough post-processing to get from his raw image to his final result but disclaims any expertise or interest in answering technical questions. His first presentation was on seeing images and the importance of seeing the b&w tones in the color landscapes we see. The second presentation, this past Wednesday, was demonstrations of his technique for conversion. There were no magic bullets or actions, it was taking well framed and well conceived images, converting them and then reinforcing the important parts that make up the image.

There was no BS about special lenses of sensors or image noise or even complicated processing. After the conversion using Lightroom (and a preset) he did every with quick mask and curves layers, quickly and economically of time and effort.

You might like to look at his site to appreciate Arthur's insight into what makes good b&w landscape photos.

If you read he shoots B+W film

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk 2
 
Lew, I don't understand this recent campaign against those who value/enjoy the process from start to finish. I'm sure I have seen you say "what matters is the final image" and I 100% agree with that.

I don't know what you mean.
I really like Arthur Ransome's work, he doesn't get all nuts about what he uses to get the image, how he edits the image, he just does it. He uses PS and Efex Pro as I do, because he has a preset that gets him close and saves him time. He always works with smart objects so he can go back and edit his edits.

My campaign is, if it is seen as a campaign, against the constant railing about the right ways to do things, shoot manual, use flash, think and talk the way it is correct to think.
Who gives crap?
Do what you want, believe what you want, just don't use your chosen belief, idea, opinion, mehod as a club to beat on anyone else.
The picture is all that counts.
 
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Hmm, possibly the point is to shoot it right from the start ??
As a film shooter myself, I know to get everything right just before pressing that shutter button as it is a pain in the ass to correct during development and printing stages.
I still do this when shooting digital. I still take a lot of time before pressing the shutter and I don't often view the image afterwards ... I don't even take many shots of the same subject as I don't want to run out of film. Some habits are hard to break.
Back to my point ... why PP when the shot was taken perfectly to begin with !!! (OK, I admit that is something I have yet to perfect) ... but many images require PP to produce the image that was visualized (yeah, a reference to Ansel Adams).
 
How dare he use the name Arthur Ransome! That name belongs to an author, quite long dead. Humph.

I've run across this guy before. He has good ideas, and a tragic tendency to beat them into the earth. Every portfolio seems to consist of 2 or 3 very decent photographs, repeated over and over. This is a major risk in a portfolio, one must balance variety with unity properly, and Arthur doesn't do it very well.

The 2 or 3 photos in each portfolio are very decent, though.

It is also, from time to time, obvious that he's discovered HDR to nobody's particular benefit.
 
My campaign is, if it is seen as a campaign, against the constant railing about the right ways to do things, shoot manual, use flash, think and talk the way it is correct to think.
Who gives crap?
Do what you want, believe what you want, just don't use your chosen belief, idea, opinion, mehod as a club to beat on anyone else.
The picture is all that counts.


TPF attracts a lot of beginners and people who are learning photography. As a result you'll always see lots of advice for people to try different things and use different methods. Often this is going to build toward encouraging people to learn as much full control as they can.

Once people are in the know - once they've learned different methods they can then choose to use or not use them; if they just do as they want and never experiment and are never encouraged to learn then they just shoot as they do from a position of ignorance - which hinders their creativity greatly.
 
My campaign is, if it is seen as a campaign, against the constant railing about the right ways to do things, shoot manual, use flash, think and talk the way it is correct to think.
Who gives crap?
Do what you want, believe what you want, just don't use your chosen belief, idea, opinion, mehod as a club to beat on anyone else.
The picture is all that counts.


TPF attracts a lot of beginners and people who are learning photography. As a result you'll always see lots of advice for people to try different things and use different methods. Often this is going to build toward encouraging people to learn as much full control as they can.

Once people are in the know - once they've learned different methods they can then choose to use or not use them; if they just do as they want and never experiment and are never encouraged to learn then they just shoot as they do from a position of ignorance - which hinders their creativity greatly.

I have no argument with that, it's the constant insisting that certain techniques, behaviors, ideas are sensible and others are not that irritates me.
But, otoh, me being irritated doesn't affect anyone, they can choose not to listen to me.
 
How dare he use the name Arthur Ransome! That name belongs to an author, quite long dead. Humph.

I've run across this guy before. He has good ideas, and a tragic tendency to beat them into the earth. Every portfolio seems to consist of 2 or 3 very decent photographs, repeated over and over. This is a major risk in a portfolio, one must balance variety with unity properly, and Arthur doesn't do it very well.

The 2 or 3 photos in each portfolio are very decent, though.

It is also, from time to time, obvious that he's discovered HDR to nobody's particular benefit.

Arthur Ransome is dead? Yikes. I missed the memo. It didn't happen to be that dang Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the candlestick again was it? Man, they really need to melt that thing down.
 
I have no argument with that, it's the constant insisting that certain techniques, behaviors, ideas are sensible and others are not that irritates me.
But, otoh, me being irritated doesn't affect anyone, they can choose not to listen to me.

Well you'll forgive me here but you went down pretty much this exact same road in another discussion. You posted something regarding how it's demeaning to be referred to by the title of photographer, some people disagreed which is perfectly natural, and then you played the victim card and decried us all for not agreeing with you wholeheartedly.

Look, I have no idea who this Arthur guy is - and frankly I have no idea how good he might be nor do I particularly care. I don't really use black and white myself, it doesn't lend itself well to my style of photography and frankly I think it is massively overused by entirely too many people already. If that artsy over dramatized look appeals to you great, not my cup of tea.

But seriously, this habit you have of posting something that you have to know not everyone will agree with and then you get all defensive when not everyone does agree with you - well honestly you might want to give that one some thought. I hope you'll understand that this is offered for your benefit, but honestly the only person I see taking a narrow and dogmatic approach here is you.
 
Yes, it's true! There is no point in waiting for a new Swallow and Amazons novel :(
 
Yes, it's true! There is no point in waiting for a new Swallow and Amazons novel :(

I can't believe Colonel Mustard got away with it again. Sheesh. Someday somebody is going to get a knife out and get that guy good. That's right, somebody really should cut the Mustard.

Lol.. wow, can't believe I went there.
 
My campaign is, if it is seen as a campaign, against the constant railing about the right ways to do things, shoot manual, use flash, think and talk the way it is correct to think.
Who gives crap?
Do what you want, believe what you want, just don't use your chosen belief, idea, opinion, mehod as a club to beat on anyone else.
The picture is all that counts.


TPF attracts a lot of beginners and people who are learning photography. As a result you'll always see lots of advice for people to try different things and use different methods. Often this is going to build toward encouraging people to learn as much full control as they can.

Once people are in the know - once they've learned different methods they can then choose to use or not use them; if they just do as they want and never experiment and are never encouraged to learn then they just shoot as they do from a position of ignorance - which hinders their creativity greatly.

I think some personality types benefit from just making their own way through the creative jungle as opposed to being thoroughly educated.

For me, self-teaching and formal education have destroyed a lot of my creativity to the point that I actually get down about it. It's like I stole my creativity...from myself...I have bankrupt my own creativity.

For example...

2009, before I knew what "good" photography looked like:







2013, after being "educated" and entering a competitive atmosphere:






David....what the f*** happened? Srsly. I am beginning to wish I had never started looking at "good" photography, and I'm not trying to pull the I'm so ugly card. I actually don't really enjoy the path that my own creativity has taken, but it's not like I can just backtrack. I see my younger self having so much potential that has basically just amounted to becoming generic.

As odd as it sounds, I blame this on my personality and how I react to knowledge. And probably also the fact that I'm just generally not naturally very creative.
 
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Heh. You've been normed!

Now you know how to make pictures that look like everyone else's pictures. That's a valuable skill, make no mistake. Making pictures that look like my pictures is easy. Making pictures which people like is also easy. Making pictures which look like my pictures and which people also like is tough.

TPF is actually a pretty terrible place to develop ones own voice. There's a lot of social pressure toward norms here, which is fine because this is aimed at relative newbies. Most newcomers to photography aren't that interested in "finding their own voice" they just want to make nice pictures, that look like those pictures on Flickr Explore, or whatever. TPF fills that need handily, and you can genuinely learn a lot about how to do that here.
 
Heh. You've been normed!

Now you know how to make pictures that look like everyone else's pictures. That's a valuable skill, make no mistake. Making pictures that look like my pictures is easy. Making pictures which people like is also easy. Making pictures which look like my pictures and which people also like is tough.

TPF is actually a pretty terrible place to develop ones own voice. There's a lot of social pressure toward norms here, which is fine because this is aimed at relative newbies. Most newcomers to photography aren't that interested in "finding their own voice" they just want to make nice pictures, that look like those pictures on Flickr Explore, or whatever. TPF fills that need handily, and you can genuinely learn a lot about how to do that here.

Bingo. I agree with everything you said. On a technical front TPF is great. But there doesn't seem to be much creative encouragement. There is the occasional photo that has more to it than a pretty girl in a field, but most of those photos seem to come from newbies or people who are new to the forum. Many TPF veterans seem to be looking more for compliments instead of critique, so they post nicely done...but sometimes emotionally sterile.
 

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