Tag Archives: processing

Commentary, Ideas

What is ‘Real?’

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This is another one of those posts “borrowed” from something I wrote in a discussion somewhere else on the web, in which some folks were debating the relative value of two versions of a photograph, one of which was more or less “straight from the camera,” and the other had been modified in post in a number of the usual ways. Here, with a bit of editing, is my stream of consciousness reply to that thread:

The boundaries are difficult and subjective. The “no alterations” people are denying how photography actually works with the possible (and arguable) exception of certain types of documentary and journalism photography. I know it isn’t news to most reading this, but photography is not an objectively truthful medium. In the end, I’m less interested in some hopeless attempt to literally recreate the subject than I am in what the photograph tells me about the artist behind the camera.

Specifically in landscape photography, an attempt to “reproduce” the objective reality of the original scene by eschewing “manipulation” is going to produce something in almost all cases that is not an honest or accurate recreation of the subject we saw as we made the photograph – even if that is what we were interested in. The nature of the subject and our perception of it is never wholly visual – it is bound up in a web of senses evoked by sound, the movement of air, warmth or cold, and much more. In order to somehow evoke something closer to what we felt when we saw the original subject – and that is what we are interested in, right? – we must strive for something other than a limited pseudo-true visual reproduction.

There are boundaries, but even they are not absolute. For example, many would call the classic landscape photographs more “truthful” than some of today’s color-manipulated images. But what could be less realistic than a black and white photograph? I’ve never been out on a day when it was black and white outside! On the other hand, a photographer who makes a claim to believable portrayal of the subject and then pumps up the contrast and saturates the color into Thomas Kincaid territory is going to encounter some issues about the honesty of his/her work.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission fromG Dan Mitchell.


Commentary, Equipment, Technique

Quick Examples of iPad Photo Post-Processing

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I recently posted a report on my initial use of my iPad for photography (and other) purposes while traveling. (See “An Itinerant Photographer and His Ipad: A First Report.”) My general conclusion was that you can do some post-processing on the iPad but that – no surprise here – it isn’t exactly Photoshop.

But still… if necessary you can do certain types of real work on the iPad. One of the reasons I was in New York last week was to photograph ‘Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required’, an interesting combination of opera performance, opera rehearsal, and conversation about the work and its preparation that was presented at the Gershwin Hotel. (As an extra bonus, my wife was playing principal oboe on the first two nights, and her brother was playing bassoon!) You can see examples of the results at the oboeinsight.com blog, where initial photographs from the first night of  are posted. (Note that the last photo in the series was made on my iPhone and uploaded directly.)

After transferring my 5D2 RAW files to the iPad, I used the Photogene app to open the files, edit basic settings such as saturation, brightness, black point, curves, sharpening, and so forth. Then I cropped the files, reduced their pixel dimensions for web display, exported as jpg files, and uploaded them.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Commentary, Equipment, Ideas

An Itinerant Photographer and His iPad: A First Report

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I returned last night from a week-long visit to New York City. While this wasn’t just a photography visit, enough photography was part of the plan that I had to carry a reasonable amount of equipment. Typically I would bring along my Macbook, but this time I decided to leave the laptop at home and see if I could get by with just an iPad instead.

I knew that this would necessitate some compromises in the way I usually operate on the road. For example, serious photography applications like Photoshop and Lightroom simply don’t run on the iPad, so there would be no possibility of doing real post-processing work on the road. The iPad doesn’t have a “real” keyboard, instead providing an on-screen “virtual keyboard” – more on that below. On the positive side, the iPad is positively tiny compared to any real laptop. It makes my 13″ Macbook seem terribly bulky by comparison. The iPad slips easily into the external pocket of my Crumpler Eight Million Dollar Home camera bag, and doesn’t add enough weight to the package to be worthy of note. The battery life is tremendous and the charger is very small.

What follows is an early report on certain aspects of iPad use by the traveling photographer – or at least this mobile photographer. Continue reading An Itinerant Photographer and His iPad: A First Report →

Commentary, Ideas, Photographers, Technique

Video: Michael Adams on “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico”

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As if on cue, right after I posted my “Photographer versus Photoshopper” piece yesterday, in which I mentioned Adam’s “Moonrise…” photograph, I saw this wonderful video interview with Ansel Adams’ son Michael in which he offers a basic description of the extensive post-processing that Adams applied to the original negative to produce the print we know so well.

The interview also reminded me of another topic for the “Photographic Myths and Platitudes” series that I am thinking about, namely the claim that great photographers always carefully compose and consider their subjects before they trip the shutter. Sometimes they do, but quite often it is more a matter of “tripping” over the tripod as one scrambles to capture a moment of beauty that appeared unexpectedly and which may disappear any second if you don’t work quickly. Of course, well-developed technical and aesthetic instincts help when it comes to turning such a moment into a photograph.