Grand Canyon Daytime

[mecrox]

If Alain's image was in black and white then almost all the "how awful" points raised here would be irrelevant. I wonder what it is about colour that leads people to feel that it must always be true to life. No one (or few) think this of a painting where deep shadow can be rich red, even bright red (Auerbach, e.g.). I usually change the saturation and luminance values in a colour shot I am converting to black and white because the result is closer to what I'm hoping to express, so it's hard to see why not with a full colour image too. I often use Topaz plugins to achieve this effect (sunset, seasonal colours, etc.) because the result is sometimes more pleasing and easier to achieve than faffling around with sliders and layers in ACR and/or Photoshop. It's a lot more difficult to come to terms with the sheer quantity of Yassies out there (yet another saturated sunset) with slo' mo effects et al. Why anyone would want to photograph a sunset ever again is perhaps a bigger question. Maybe I am biased, since I've found Alain's many articles and books helpful in developing my photography and I hope he continues to contribute to LuLa..

[Colorado David]

I think a number of people, and not just in this topic, but many other discussions, are stuck trying to differentiate between art and reality.  Fine art photography is not documentary photography.  Here is an image of a painting by Birger Sandzén, a Paris trained, Swedish immigrant artist who painted with a bold style. Should he have been required to make his paintings conform to absolute reality?

[jeremyrh]

I wonder what it is about colour that leads people to feel that it must always be true to life.

I don't think that's the issue here - it's that the result is ugly (yes, I know).

[kencameron]

Alain seems to receive a lot of negative feedback, quite wrongly imo and I hope he isn't discouraged by this thread.

I would put that as an expectation rather than a hope. With his track record, he is surely not going to be discouraged by some adverse commentary, giving rise to strong defense, on a LULA thread.

[kencameron]

I think a number of people, and not just in this topic, but many other discussions, are stuck trying to differentiate between art and reality.  Fine art photography is not documentary photography.  Here is an image of a painting by Birger Sandzén, a Paris trained, Swedish immigrant artist who painted with a bold style. Should he have been required to make his paintings conform to absolute reality?

Interesting and thought-provoking point. In his commentary on the posted image, AB says he is trying to make an image taken at one time of day look as if it was taken at another time of day. That surely rather undermines the relevance of the distinction between art and documentary photography in this case. I have no objection to strong color in painting or photography - would love to own the Birger Sandzén image you posted - and no objection to unrealistic photographs (eg, B&W, monochrome, selectively colored, desaturated, saturated, all totally unrealistic but potentially having artistic/emotional impact). On reflection - stimulated by your post - what makes me queasy about the image under discussion is twofold - that its combination of colors is artistically/emotionally subtly unpleasant (artistic issue), and that it fails in the stated objective of  depicting how the light looks at a particular time of day (documentary issue). The first is my main objection - if I liked the image I wouldn't care about its relation to absolute reality (whatever that might be).

[kencameron]

I wonder what it is about colour that leads people to feel that it must always be true to life.

That would certainly be a mistake. The point is surely that combinations of colors can be emotionally and artistically coherent and persuasive, or not, whatever the degree of saturation. Just like combinations of sounds, or tastes.

[Colorado David]

That surely rather undermines the relevance of the distinction between art and documentary photography in this case.

I interpret everything Alain writes through the filter of his artist's statement.

[earlybird]

Where can I view the photo being discussed?

Thanks.

[AreBee]

earlybird,

Where can I view the photo being discussed?

Here.

[earlybird]

Thank you.

[amolitor]

I think Alain, by popping the colors, may have damaged the sense of vast distances, here, and thus damaged the sense of scale, of bigness.

And since that's kind of the point, I find myself doubtful about the whole enterprise.

Looking at it big, and/or in a print, might restore the sense of distance, I don't know, obviously.

[kencameron]

The real message here is that we have the tools to essentially make any photograph we take look however we want it to.

We certainly have the tools to try. And someone may have automated it. Is there a "sunset look" plugin for lightroom? If not, there probably soon will be. We may or may not succeed in producing something that looks good, or looks right.

[jeremyrh]

Or rather that *YOU* think that it is ugly.

That's sort of what I implied, no?

IMHO, there's a lot of merit to this article and what it says.

On average, there are 12 hours of daylight per day yet photographers seems to have convinced themselves that only close to sunrise and sunset is it an appropriate time of day to take photographs that are "beautiful." It's great to see a case being put forward about how to use those other 10-11 hours of the day to be productive shooting photographs.

As Alain points out in his essay, at close to sunset there are light quality issues throughout the canyon, so if you want valleys lit with sunlight then you're pretty much forced to shoot mid afternoon, etc. The same is true for many other real world situations - if you want to get sunlight on a specific subject, you may be forced to shoot it well away from sunrise/sunset. Of course the photographer could give up on shooting said subject because "it doesn't get good light during the golden hour" or grow a pair and work out how to make it work (both with tools in the field and at home in post processing) at other times of day.

The real message here is that we have the tools to essentially make any photograph we take look however we want it to.

Indeed - and with great power comes great responsibility, or for Alain's benefit "Ils doivent envisager qu’une grande responsabilité est la suite inséparable d’un grand pouvoir."

[Peter_DL]

IMHO, there's a lot of merit to this article and what it says.

On average, there are 12 hours of daylight per day yet photographers seems to have convinced themselves that only close to sunrise and sunset is it an appropriate time of day to take photographs that are "beautiful." It's great to see a case being put forward about how to use those other 10-11 hours of the day to be productive shooting photographs.

As Alain points out in his essay, at close to sunset there are light quality issues throughout the canyon, so if you want valleys lit with sunlight then you're pretty much forced to shoot mid afternoon, etc. The same is true for many other real world situations - ...

The real message here is that we have the tools to essentially make any photograph we take look however we want it to.

+1, I too see the merits of the article and what it tries to achieve,

however, referring to the image editing approach and the intensive use of the Selective Color tool, there might be some risk to disconnect the different hues, means to violate – as pointed out by others here - what was described as perceptually "coherent and persuasive".

Out of interest I was taking the Jpg from the article into Camera Raw, trying the effect of some sliders vs. the image as it is. To me it seems that the overall tonal contrast is rather low, and also the global saturation does not seem to be unusually exaggerated, but it is indeed some single hues (i.e. Red and Blue) which were quite heavily pushed to emphasize the color contrast.

Nothing wrong with it, but then it is probably the nature of every particular processing style/look that some will like it, and others not.

Peter
--

[HansKoot]

Nothing wrong with it, but then it is probably the nature of every particular processing style/look that some will like it, and others not.

Peter
--

Right, some people add color, some take it, (what is pretty surreal too). What you like is a different question, and probably what you do yourself. In a couple of decades we will probably also know if it was art...

[jeremyrh]

Not really - your comment read more like a statement of fact rather than an opinion. It's missing a qualifier such as "I think", etc.

You need to look again at what I actually wrote which was:

"I don't think that's the issue here - it's that the result is ugly (yes, I know)."

Note the amazing clairvoyance with which I predicted that someone would reply "that's just your opinion". Incredible, eh?

[daws]

While I appreciated Alain's article, I'm not a fan of that particular photograph -- over the web and on my monitor, it looks too saturated and sugary-feeling for me.

[kencameron]

Note the amazing clairvoyance with which I predicted that someone would reply "that's just your opinion". Incredible, eh?

Not sure about that. Could have been based on inductive reasoning rather than clairvoyance.

[Isaac]

On average, there are 12 hours of daylight per day yet photographers seems to have convinced themselves that only close to sunrise and sunset is it an appropriate time of day to take photographs that are "beautiful."

Apparently Alain Briot is also convinced that only close to sunrise and sunset are the photographs "beautiful". So he fakes it.

I interpret everything Alain writes through the filter of his artist's statement.

Let's view Alain Briot's art through the filter of his artist's statement, but expect what he writes to stand on it's own.

The real message here is that we have the tools to essentially make any photograph we take look however we want it to.

And if you tell people it's art they might "buy it" !

Brilliant Clean!

[daws]

Brilliant Clean!

Um... the girl is out of focus. The sky is blotchy with compression artifacts.

Thought you'd want to know.