Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: leeonmaui on July 03, 2016, 12:24:55 am
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Fitz Roy River, El Salto Falls, Patagonia, Argentina
Pentax 645D 35mm FA stacked grads
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Beautiful. The red makes it.
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Do you have a toned down version? This is one of the most contrasty saturated images I have seen on the forum. The composition is fine but I think it is too vivid.
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Do you have a toned down version? This is one of the most contrasty saturated images I have seen on the forum. The composition is fine but I think it is too vivid.
+1
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I'm sure there is a great shot in there!
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I really like it a lot be would like to see it with a bit less blue. You wouldn't loose those vivid reds. A toned down version would also be interesting.
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Do not change a thing. This is a fine art landscape shot, not a forensic court evidence. It is powerful, striking, eye-catching, and yet some would like to drag it down to mundane.
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Agree with our good friend Slobodan!! The whole thing needs to be just as it is!
Very nice!!
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Do not change a thing. This is a fine art landscape shot, not a forensic court evidence. It is powerful, striking, eye-catching, and yet some would like to drag it down to mundane.
And here-in lies the great schism... The photograph is very eye-catching and exudes richness. The photographer has certainly left their individual, unique mark on the scene through the chosen style of treatment. So I agree with you, Slobodan.
However, at the same time, the photograph comes across as artificial-looking in that it is a completely natural scene, made to look like a plasticky video game background lit with a black light (no offence intended, just the only descriptor that came to mind, thus showing my built-in bias!)
Is their anything wrong with draping one's own interpretation on a natural scene? Some would say no, others would say yes. Still others might claim, "But that's the way it was!", but they are the ones fooling themselves as a camera captured a representation of the scene via silicon into a series of 1s and 0s.
The realists quake and shiver; the more free-thinking artists say "Good on ya!"
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Feels like late evening in a deep gorge to me. I like it.
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Well, I find myself on the side of the schism that includes Stamper, Graeme, Cornfield and Francois, rather than the side taken by my good friends Slobodan, Framah, and Sdwilsonsct.
As Shakespeare put it, in King John (Act 4 scene 2):
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess."
;)
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I suspect that what we have here is another case of a breakdown in color management, rather than radically different artistic judgments. Those of us viewing the image on wide gamut monitors are seeing what seem to be outlandishly saturated colors (particularly blues and reds), whereas those viewing it on more standard sRGB devices are just seeing a normal (if a bit heavy) blue cast from evening shadows. (I have both types of devices handy.) When I take the image into PS, it has no assigned color profile. If I assign the sRGB profile to it, it looks the same on my wide gamut monitor as it does on the sRGB monitor. So I'm guessing that the OP did not see nor intend to portray the image in the more saturated manner.
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Fitz Roy Valley, Patagonia
Pentax 645D 35mm FA
A Fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
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Well, I find myself on the side of the schism that includes Stamper, Graeme, Cornfield and Francois, rather than the side taken by my good friends Slobodan, Framah, and Sdwilsonsct.
As Shakespeare put it, in King John (Act 4 scene 2):
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess."
;)
This is a quote I must hang on to. Thanks Eric!
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Well done!
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Fitz Roy Valley, Patagonia
Pentax 645D 35mm FA
A Fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
Superb image! And completely circumvents any controversy over color.
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Superb image! And completely circumvents any controversy over color.
No, I don't think so. I got turned-off the instant I saw it. Completely over saturated. Tone it down and you have a very nice image.
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Well, I like it as it is. I suppose the folks who think it is oversaturated never used Velvia...
The B&W is wonderful too.
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The poster didn't state whether he thought that this was a realistic rendering that he saw or what the camera captured or it was his idea of artistry. Other members that have posted similar garish images have tried to "explain" that was the way it was and it should remain the way it is. Some scenes that are in shadow do have increased saturation and contrast due to the lack of direct light. Maybe the poster can enlighten us?
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Well, I like it as it is. I suppose the folks who think it is oversaturated never used Velvia...
The B&W is wonderful too.
If that is what what Velvia rendered then I am glad I never used it, then again I haven't shot film. ;) BTW I like the B&W.
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I never like the Velvia look either.
The saturation in the B&W is just perfect.
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For what it's worth to those pondering this issue, Firefox is managing the image correctly (i.e., it assumes it is in sRGB color space, even without an embedded profile) on my Windows 10 machine with wide gamut monitor; whereas both Chrome and Microsoft Edge are not.
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I find my self torn, betwixt and between both camps. I can appreciate both sides in this argument and find myself happy to be conflicted. Either way, I still enjoy the photo and I am glad that the person shared it with us. And Eric, your quote is sublime. Now I will have to re-read Shakespeare. This is why I like this forum; it is so rich thanks to the people who post their photos and comments.
Well, I find myself on the side of the schism that includes Stamper, Graeme, Cornfield and Francois, rather than the side taken by my good friends Slobodan, Framah, and Sdwilsonsct.
As Shakespeare put it, in King John (Act 4 scene 2):
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess."
;)
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... As Shakespeare put it, in King John (Act 4 scene 2):
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess."
Shakespeare, the hypocrite: using too many words to describe a scene is "wasteful and ridiculous excess" :D
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Indeed! And yet, fun! I enjoy the good-natured humour on this site.
Shakespeare, the hypocrite: using too many words to describe a scene is "wasteful and ridiculous excess" :D
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I've been following this discussion with interest. I recently joined LuLa, and for just this sort of repartee.
Here's an observation: The first major exhibition of the French impressionist painters, the "Exposition des Impressionists," was held in the salon of the photographer known as Nadar. From that point, painting has progressed through various degrees of freedom, almost always with some negative criticism along the way. In fact, this 1874 Exposition was the subject of a very critical work which labeled Monet's painting, "Impression: soleil levant," as merely a sketch, more fitted as a wallpaper pattern than as a finished work of art. Photography also went through its travails, though rather more limited by the tools available. We had the "pictorialists" and romantics and we had the f64 realists (though they knew how to torture a negative pretty well).
Today, we find ourselves confronted with as much of a challenge as that faced by the art world of 1874, when something new burst on the scene. I think we're handling it badly, too quick to condemn anything which doesn't fit our notion of a proper photo, especially among landscapes. We fail to realize that none of our depictions of reality are reality itself. And we fail to allow latitude for those who want to stretch reality more than we do.
For me, the test is if I have a reaction to the work. Does it tell me a story? Convey a feeling? Does it do this well (even if not the way I would have done it just so)?
For the OPs photo, my answers are yes, yes and yes. It's a powerful photo, even if that waterfall was never blue and even if that tree was not so red. This view tells me something about what the photographer saw in his mind and what he felt and I value that.
I'll post one of my own interpretations of reality soon and see what happens.
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Shakespeare, the hypocrite: using too many words to describe a scene is "wasteful and ridiculous excess" :D
I'll be sure to tell him, next time I see him. ;D
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Superb image! And completely circumvents any controversy over color.
No, I don't think so. I got turned-off the instant I saw it. Completely over saturated. Tone it down and you have a very nice image.
In that post I was referring to his second image, the black and white one.
I'm a little surprised that people are still talking about the original image as if it is intentionally hugely over saturated, and that the differing opinions are being ascribed to whether one likes highly saturated images or not. Have those of you who think it's way too saturated tried looking at in Firefox, which renders it in the proper (sRGB) color space? It does still have a strong blue white balance in that case, but not outside the bounds of reason.
I'm attaching a copy of the original image, but with the sRGB profile assigned (as preferably should have been done to begin with), so that it should now look pretty much the same whether you view it on a standard or wide gamut monitor, or in a variety of color managed browsers. Some may still not like the way it looks, but at least improper color management should no longer be a factor.
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If that is what what Velvia rendered then I am glad I never used it, then again I haven't shot film. ;) BTW I like the B&W.
Back in the early 1990's, Velvia 50 was the slide film of choice of many a landscape and nature photographer. Great to learn also, as the exposure latitude was about 1/2 stop; no room for mistakes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvia
http://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2013/02/25/color-film-choices-for-landscapes
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Sorry, but the new version still looks unbelievable to me, in Firefox or Internet Exploiter.
But I always preferred Kodachrome, because it never exaggerated colors. ;)
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The newer version looks even more garish. We are all entitled to a different opinion but in all honesty you need your sunglasses on whilst viewing it.
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Internet Exploiter.
:)
Oh well. I guess there's only so much help one can expect from a browser.
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For those complaining about the image not being realistic, how about hyperbole as a literary device? Enhanced saturation or contrast is to photography what hyperbole is to literature. Since we already brought Shakespeare as a witness for the prosecution, let's see how he holds under cross-examination:
"Romeo and Juliet" is filled with examples of hyperbole, such as when Romeo says that "[t]he brightness of [Juliet's] cheek would shame those stars,
Seriously, Willy!? What were you thinking!?
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If that is what what Velvia rendered then I am glad I never used it, then again I haven't shot film. ;) BTW I like the B&W.
Velvia was never as color-saturated as the first image is. Even though the image is over-cooked, it sure grabs your attention like it or not. :)
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Do not change a thing. This is a fine art landscape shot, not a forensic court evidence. It is powerful, striking, eye-catching, and yet some would like to drag it down to mundane.
Agree with our good friend Slobodan!! The whole thing needs to be just as it is!
Very nice!!
Agreed.
The image is enchanting as-is ... to make it less than that, as others suggest, would be a shame.
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Sorry, but the new version still looks unbelievable to me, in Firefox or Internet Exploiter.
But I always preferred Kodachrome, because it never exaggerated colors. ;)
+1 & I'm on a normal gamut display (calibrated ).
I used Velvia once to photograph stained glass - never again.
The B & W image looks great.
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:)
Oh well. I guess there's only so much help one can expect from a browser.
Fired Fox didn't do any better. ;)
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huh? wow!
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huh? wow!
You see, that exact reaction makes it a true Art. Pop art, on the other hand, causes the opposite reaction: "Wow! Huh?" ;)
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You see, that exact reaction makes it a true Art. Pop art, on the other hand, causes the opposite reaction: "Wow! Huh?" ;)
Thanks for the information, Slobodan.
I was thinking of titling a book of my photos "Wow! Huh?" but now I guess I'll have to change it to "huh? wow!"
:D
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For what it's worth to those pondering this issue, Firefox is managing the image correctly (i.e., it assumes it is in sRGB color space, even without an embedded profile) on my Windows 10 machine with wide gamut monitor; whereas both Chrome and Microsoft Edge are not.
For anyone who cares:
I should have pointed out, but forgot (because I did this so long ago), that for Firefox to color manage untagged images appropriately, you have to change a setting for Full Color Management to a value of 1, instead of leaving it at the default value of 2. It's easy to do, and is described here:
http://www.gballard.net/firefox/
And an excellent discussion, with test images, on color management of various browsers with tagged and untagged images is here:
http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html
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Together you would make a great comedy team.
Thanks for the information, Slobodan.
I was thinking of titling a book of my photos "Wow! Huh?" but now I guess I'll have to change it to "huh? wow!"
:D
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Together you would make a great comedy team.
8)
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Together you would make a great comedy team.
My comment was serious. But is it art? (Too) many books have been written on this subject. Two characteristics are necessary: it should be new/ original and, it should be of longlasting value. Especially the last one is overlooked. It implies that not You or I decide on "is it art?" But the community: in time. This takes time and sharing. Sharing is easier these days and therefore many consider themselves an artist. If the wow is everlasting, this might be art. The "huh?" is just the punctum, the catch. Many think this is enough to be an artist.
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Aloha,
Ok; I never liked this image, the composition is way off and the rock in the foreground especially bothered me just hanging there, but cropping it out took away from the small fallen leaves on the left which I really did like.
There were some fresh cut logs near the base of the small falls and up on the right, all that had tone cloned over, I actually made a new rock to cover the one log.
Its a shame I did not take more time to work at that location, as it really had potential, I should have gone a few steps down and gotten in the middle of the water/stream to balance out the falls.
I used high-tech stacked grads, which alway give things a tint, even when you work out the tint the image is affected.
But too many people started to show up, this is an easy place to get to (once you get to the ends of the earth) and I was with a group of people that i met up in the valley, and they were not photographers, and I could see they wanted to go.
That was my first mistake, and broke a long standing rule of mine, don't go anywhere to work with other people, its too much of a distraction.
So anyways, I never planned to do much with this shot, and if I ever go back to Patagonia, its not on my list to do over...
Funny story about that day;
In El Chaltan, the place where you can stock up and where you start your hike into the valley, there are a good number of local dogs that pretty much wander around, they hang out by the restaurants, waiting for scraps or a scratch on the head, they are pretty friendly and cool. the day we hiked to El Salto, this big dirty white dog was hanging out by were my friends and I gathered to start our hike. I had met this dog before, and given him some leftovers, so he seems pretty happy to see me again, once we started our hike, he just tagged along, doing dog stuff, running ahead to make sure the coast was clear and smelling everything to see what was up, he was as excited about the hike as we were.
El Chaltan is outside the national park, as you hike down the road, at some point, you enter the national park, there are signs posted, entering Los Glacier National Park. On the signs are posted the things you can't do; no fires, stay on the trail, do not litter, bring out your trash, stuff like that, and also on the list; NO DOGS!
The big scruffy white dog, who had been eagerly hiking right along with us approached the sign ahead of us; slowed and sat down precisely in front of the sign. We approached the sign and walked pasted it, walked into the park, past the invisible boarder. Right away the dog, started to whine in that baleful lost sad dog whine, it knew it could go no further, but was begging us for some sort of sign that it could join us! As much as he wanted to, he was not breaking his training, but you could almost read his thoughts; man one day I'm going! I really really want to check that place out, whats everybody going there for!
4 hours later when we hiked back out, he was there to greet us and happily walked back into town with us, where he helped us finish our lunch and got his ears scratched.
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Great perspective, Jim.
I've been following this discussion with interest. I recently joined LuLa, and for just this sort of repartee.
Here's an observation: The first major exhibition of the French impressionist painters, the "Exposition des Impressionists," was held in the salon of the photographer known as Nadar. From that point, painting has progressed through various degrees of freedom, almost always with some negative criticism along the way. In fact, this 1874 Exposition was the subject of a very critical work which labeled Monet's painting, "Impression: soleil levant," as merely a sketch, more fitted as a wallpaper pattern than as a finished work of art. Photography also went through its travails, though rather more limited by the tools available. We had the "pictorialists" and romantics and we had the f64 realists (though they knew how to torture a negative pretty well).
Today, we find ourselves confronted with as much of a challenge as that faced by the art world of 1874, when something new burst on the scene. I think we're handling it badly, too quick to condemn anything which doesn't fit our notion of a proper photo, especially among landscapes. We fail to realize that none of our depictions of reality are reality itself. And we fail to allow latitude for those who want to stretch reality more than we do.
For me, the test is if I have a reaction to the work. Does it tell me a story? Convey a feeling? Does it do this well (even if not the way I would have done it just so)?
For the OPs photo, my answers are yes, yes and yes. It's a powerful photo, even if that waterfall was never blue and even if that tree was not so red. This view tells me something about what the photographer saw in his mind and what he felt and I value that.
I'll post one of my own interpretations of reality soon and see what happens.
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El Salto, less blue...
The falls are named El Salto, the minerals filter through the rocks, the walls have different coloured mineral deposits on them, theres a place in the Narrows in Zion that has a similar effect, the place in Zion has a similar name, like the salt wall or the blue wall, I forget.
But anyway, even the print proof is not as blue as the image posted, went a little blue somehow in the conversion i guess.
However the tree was a really bright red!!! there always seems to be a singing star of a tree right where you wanted it when I was shooting down there...
Ps I'm really just posting this to see how many post views it will get lol
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Aloha,
holy crap! remarkable rocks had almost 16,000 post views, I give up!