The Making of Pilbara Storm

[MarkL]

I would have less of an issue with it if these 'made' pictures were referred to by their creators are digital art. I don't buy the 'to match the emotion of being there" argument, if a picture needs that much work take a better picture.

[Farmer]

Wayne, I do agree and I did hesitate to "invoke" Ansel, but the reason it's become trite is because it is a well know, easily referenced sample to make a point - that point being the same one you made about emotion and the same one I had made previously, but which was refuted.  Had it been accepted, that would have been the end of the discussion, but when it's refuted with an almost dismissal, I think it is reasonable to bring into consideration the likes of Ansel and say, "well, do you say this is also not a photo"?

Let's face it - how many of us really see each other regularly in ideal modelled light and a creamy bokeh background?  But that's a very common and acceptable portrait technique.  We don't like it when the Photoshopping takes it into the realm of plastic, but who doesn't make use of some adjustments for effect?

If we want a photo-record, there's nothing wrong with that - it's a record shot.  If you want something to evoke art, there's nothign wrong with that - it's an art shot.  So on and so on, through the various genres and techniques.  They are all still photographs, and let's not for a moment think that film and chemical was never manipulated.

[Wayne Fox]

I would have less of an issue with it if these 'made' pictures were referred to by their creators are digital art. I don't buy the 'to match the emotion of being there" argument, if a picture needs that much work take a better picture.

Good point, but normally the camera in no way captures what we see and usually is a very poor representation of what we see ... it might not be a matter of a better image, just a way to figure out how to get the data to show what was seen and felt (and certainly that process is interpretive).

Wayne, I do agree and I did hesitate to "invoke" Ansel, but the reason it's become trite is because it is a well know, easily referenced sample to make a point - that point being the same one you made about emotion and the same one I had made previously, but which was refuted.  Had it been accepted, that would have been the end of the discussion, but when it's refuted with an almost dismissal, I think it is reasonable to bring into consideration the likes of Ansel and say, "well, do you say this is also not a photo"?

Let's face it - how many of us really see each other regularly in ideal modelled light and a creamy bokeh background?  But that's a very common and acceptable portrait technique.  We don't like it when the Photoshopping takes it into the realm of plastic, but who doesn't make use of some adjustments for effect?

If we want a photo-record, there's nothing wrong with that - it's a record shot.  If you want something to evoke art, there's nothign wrong with that - it's an art shot.  So on and so on, through the various genres and techniques.  They are all still photographs, and let's not for a moment think that film and chemical was never manipulated.

When I saw your Ansel comment I guess I've just seen it so much lately that I finally "had" to throw in my 0.02 cents.  Between the thread on Alain's column and this one pretty much everyone has voiced an opinion, I've sort of stayed out because it's sort of a no one's right/no one's wrong, lose/lose debate. As far as Ansel, I think it's perhaps not so much about being black and white, but about the manipulation with exposure/development in both shooting and printing which makes his work more of an "artistic" endeavor.

[Farmer]

When I saw your Ansel comment I guess I've just seen it so much lately that I finally "had" to throw in my 0.02 cents.  Between the thread on Alain's column and this one pretty much everyone has voiced an opinion, I've sort of stayed out because it's sort of a no one's right/no one's wrong, lose/lose debate. As far as Ansel, I think it's perhaps not so much about being black and white, but about the manipulation with exposure/development in both shooting and printing which makes his work more of an "artistic" endeavor.

I agree on all accounts.

Were it not for having spent most of my childhood travelling around so many of the remote regions of Australia, I may also have kept my mouth shut, but having seen it first hand and having experienced all manner of weather and events over decades I felt that dismissal of Peter's image as somehow unrealistic or overdone was out of place.  To each their own opinion, of course, and in particular as to whether or not one likes it.  I'm not saying people who don't like it are wrong!  I am saying that it is far less "baked" than they might imagine, particularly when you take into account the emotional aspects.

[dreed]

Photorealistic....

Ansel Adams pictures are Black and White : Just how realistic is that?

Ask someone that is colour blind?

[Farmer]

Monochromacy (particularly rod monochromacy) is very rare (even cone monochromacy is rare).

Most colour blind people do not see in "black and white".

[viewfinder]

I see this as largely an issue of degree,...had the photoshoping stopped at 'step 3' or possibly 'step4' everyone would have 'oohed and ahhed' over the result and admired the sensitive treatment and improvement over the original file.

At the end of the day it does not really matter whether the colours at pilbara were, or were not, like those in the final image,.....what matters is that the viewer believes and enjoys the result,..that he/she does NOT go straight into 'fake mode'.......

......I have never been to Pilbara, but, having now googled and researched images for the region, and re-examined the ORIGINAL image, I do (perhaps wrongly) feel that one woulde not see anything like the final image in that place,...the strange  unnatural atmosphere and overdone drama are entriely from photoshop,...and, as such, devalue the image from anything other than something that's been 'photoshopped'.

As mentioned before; plenty of people will love 'Pilbara Storm' and it will return money for it's creator, however, I'm surprised that it ( and the previous 'glowing island' fancy) has been given coverage on this site, since other photo 'fads' such as extreme HDR would be no-no's.

[Farmer]

You're right - it's up to the viewer.  There are a lot of people on both sides of the fence and to varying degrees.  I think that's enough for anyone to admit that it's a good piece of art, even if they don't personally like it.

[Patricia Sheley]

What does landscape do?
by Les Walkling on March 12, 2012


In my garden, Pigment Print, 111cm x 111cm, 2010

• Landscape as a represented and a presented space, is both a real place and its simulacrum.

• Landscape as an environment, whose historical formation circumscribed by European imperialism, is where we either find or lose ourselves.

• Landscape as a wounded space, devastated by our ‘ecological crisis of reason’ promotes the genocide it betrays.

• Landscape as a cultural medium, naturalises its ideological construction as if it were inevitable and ‘natural’.

• Landscape thus becomes a principle means of enlisting ‘Nature’ in the legitimation of the superiority of modernity.

The task for settler culture, is the bringing into question these contradictions and ambiguity.


PS
(Les was photographing at the same site with Peter as those storms were kicking up...just took a look through link at end of Peter's article and found this ....)