Playing with photography

[DuncaninFrance]

They have all been 'worked on' in some way or another ( poped, cropped, colour/saturation) BUT they are still the same image as when they were taken.

[Niner]

If they look like you want them to and it expresses your creative self it is all good. They all look very magazine level professional.

[DuncaninFrance]

Thanks Robert.
I may well have said this before but,
What you see in an image - be it a drawing, painting, photograph ,lithograph, engraving or any other thing that has been produced by an individual could have been changed, doctored, enhanced, manipulated etc.............
Taking Photography which is my subject, it is true that the camera cannot lie, it produces exactly what it sees BUT, and this it the big caveat, what people do with that image beggers all imagination sometimes - and not just digitally either. You must have heard of 'airbrushing'
It is a well known fact that as Stalin got older the number of his associates got less! http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoov ... ticle/7288
I love working in Photoshop to produce acceptable images, 99.9% being as near to the original as possible but perhaps with the odd TV aerial removed or road sign. Lets face it, the morons who install signs in our world need airbrushing out - what arseholes

[Niner]

Some photographs stick in the memory for some reason. There are many thousands of photographs that stay with us and we know we have seen them before if we run across them again after long intervals of time. There are also many more thousands that our minds discard almost as soon as we see them. Only time will tell them apart. For me, I think that's the primary proof that a photo really works or not. Old b&w printing with dodging and burning or multiple computer programs are all means to an end. Serious photographers seem to take distinctively different paths as they create their individual styles and go after what they think photography is about to them. Obviously different paths have worked and new ones are found every day as quickly as new technological advancements are made.

[DuncaninFrance]

Here's one for Robert, taken in Arcachon this is one of the small oyster ports around the bassin.

[Niner]

I saw this girl standing next to the rail on the ferry that connects the Eastern shore to Dauphin Island. Something about the composition struck me as a good photo. Makes no particular sense why this is....but maybe that's why photography is interesting.

[DuncaninFrance]

It's the blues that make it work Robert

[Niner]

Geometry and balance has a lot to do with a photo working or not. Of course the geometry and balance is in your head and you have to be able to sense it when you see it when taking pictures as subjects come along. I think this particular photo works because it has much of the same kind of structure as if I had taken the time to "compose" the shot and create some geometry by selecting what objects and how I wanted them placed. But...often thinking about something screws up what instinct knows better....at least for me it seems to work that way.

What I see as balance in this photo....the two vertical cat heads..or whatever you call those posts to the right..... balance with the girl and the anchor on the left as vertical objects. The horizontal lines in the rail also balance in a different direction. The girls hat, the eye in the anchor, and the yellow caps on the post repeat a shape concept. The fullness of the girls dress balances with the thick line coiled on the right. The circular loops in the girls purse strap, the rope line loops, the loop on the wheel stop, the anchor eye, and the chain that fastens the anchor to the rail all relate in shape. And...although none of the "balance" makes the photo particularly good or memorable.... it helps.

I think what the photo is about is that it falls into the category of "No matter where you go. No matter what you do. There you are." It's the mystery that makes it work.

[DuncaninFrance]

No, it's the blue

[Niner]

Ok.....on second thought....if the "blue" works for you it works for me too.