As I read more and more about photography in particular and art in general, I come across quotations that resonate. This series of posts will be used to pass these along.
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The Photographer as Artist – Introduction
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the role of the photographer as artist. I don’t think there’s doubt in anyone’s mind that photography can be a sublime art form.
But not all photography is art and not all photographers are artists. Just about everyone has a camera these days. In fact it seems you can’t buy a cell phone without one. Virtually everyone is taking pictures but not very many photographers are trying to produce art.
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Genuine Fractals Impressions #4
I just ran another test on Genuine Fractals. Here it is.
I’m working on an image for the Orange County Fair and I want to blow it up to 16X24. It is Kolob Terrace taken with my 10D last year in Zion so the image size is 3072X2048 or 6 M pixels.
I use Image Print to make my prints on my Epson Stylus Pro 4800. Image Print likes to print at two PPI settings – 180 and 360. So here is the question: Can I get the same degree of sharpness with Genuine Fractals at 360 PPI as I can get with 180 PPI?
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Genuine Fractals Impressions #3
I finally had a chance to perform a test with Genuine Fractals that’s been on my mind for some time. This test was performed on an image from a Canon 10D with a 6 M pixel sensor. The image was blown up to 24″ long at 180 ppi.
Now, there’s no way you can get a super sharp image of that size with a 6 M pixel sensor. So that wasn’t the point of the test. When I previously blew this image up there were a lot of artifacts that were enhanced, especially when I performed the output sharpening. I spent about an hour with clone stamp and healing brush removing these artifacts one by one.
So the point of the test was to see how well the smooth areas were enlarged; that is, if GF could enlarge them without creating these artifacts.
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Thoughts on Raw vs JPEG
I’ve been having a discussion with a friend regarding the benefits and challenges of JPEG and RAW file formats. There’s already a lot of discussion on this topic out there but here’s a bit more.
The challenge my friend has with RAW is that the images are not as striking as JPEG. In fact, she says the RAW images are rather flat and she’s right.
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Genuine Fractals Impressions #2
This is not so much a comment on Genuine Fractals as it is on the workflow end game, namely, resizing (Genuine Fractals) and output sharpening (Photokit). Here’s the test.
- Resize a 6 M pixel image using Genuine Fractals to 16″X24″.
- Create output files at three resolutions – 180 ppi, 240 ppi and 360 ppi
- Sharpen the image using Photokit output sharpener for 180 Matte, 240 Matte and 360 Matte respectively.
- Examine the resulting images on the monitor for image quality.
And quickly, here are the results.
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Genuine Fractals Impressions #1
Improve your photography skills, stimulate your creativity and have a fantastic time.
I picked up Genuine Fractals by onOne software this weekend. What does it do? It allows you to upscale your digital images. And just what is upscaling? It comes down to adding pixels to your image to make it larger. Whenever you add pixels you have a problem. What color and intensity should the new pixels be?
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Journey to a Fine Art Photograph Continued
In the first post (http://ralphnordstromphotography.com/wordpress/2008/02/18/journey-to-a-fine-art-photograph/) I talked about the importance of the first step you take with your image, the opening move if you will. I don’t know if this ever happens to you but it happens to me all the time – I work on an image for several evenings only to end up in a box canyon, a dead end. It’s not going anywhere. And so very often I think, “Wow, I started it all wrong. I did X but if I had done Y I would have avoided this problem.” It’s too bad but sometimes the weaker opening move isn’t manifested until you have quite a few hours invested in the image. But the only thing to do, if you still believe in the image, is to start all over again. Maybe you do so right away or maybe you set it aside for some weeks or months and just let it ferment in your mind.
That leads to another ‘Ah Ha’. Do you ever sit staring at an image and ask yourself, “What do I do next?” Like I said before, I’m of the school that discovers the emotional content of an image as I work with it, not necessarily in the field when I’m shooting it. “Discover” is the key word here. Here’s the way it seems to me – it feels like walking across a meadow in a thick fog. Sure, you can see one or two steps ahead but you can’t see the other side of the meadow until you get really close.
Each step you take is based on the one or two most obvious things you see when you look at the image. Perhaps the first thing you notice is the need to address contrast. You choose a tool to deal with it, say curves. Once that’s corrected you see another thing, say color. Maybe you choose selective color for that. Next you see something else, perhaps a highlight that’s distracting from the overall composition. You choose a tool to correct that, say dodge and burn. And on you go, step by step, dealing each time with the most obvious correction that is calling out to you.
It’s in this process of picking our way across the creative meadow, through the fog, step by step that our personal style emerges. Because, two artists looking at the same image on identical monitors will respond differently. They may very well see different things calling out for attention. And even if they see the same thing, the tools they choose to address them may be different. And even if the tools are the same, the way in which they apply the tools will most surely be different. And that’s just one step in the journey. There are many, many more to go. It’s fun listening to people who criticize us when we stand shoulder to shoulder with other photographers, cameras all pointed in the same direction, clicking away like mad. They laugh about the individuality of artistic expression. But of the two dozen or so photographers I shared the bridge with over the Virgin River shooting the Watchman in Zion this past Thanksgiving, I’ll lay odds that not a one of them has a photograph that looks anything like mine. Not a one of them took the same path across the foggy meadow that I did.
The foggy meadow analogy also works to understand the importance of the first step you take with the image. If it’s to the left, the right or straight ahead, you’ll end up in a different place on the other side. You may end up in a place that you find inspiring or you may not.
The journey across the meadow can also be a journey of self discovery. As you progress, the image takes on more meaning. And as it does, you perhaps relate to the emerging meaning in ways that are new for you, ways that give you an insight into yourself, a deeper understanding of your inner self. This in turn can lead toward exploring the image in yet different ways which can reveal new layers of meaning. In this way, you and the image leap frog across the foggy meadow in a journey of understanding and self-actualization.
So, that a marvelous, miraculous and mysterious journey this is, from the field to the digital darkroom to eventually an expressive image hanging on the wall that carries so much of you, just as you carry the image and the journey that led you to it.
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