Dolomites West October 2015

[Hans Kruse]

In October 2015 I visited the Western Dolomites. Like the Eastern part of the Dolomites there are here many great viewpoints and iconic locations.

[mbaginy]

More beautiful photos, Hans.  And technically perfect.  Wonderful!

[Petrus]

And technically perfect.

Look badly oversaturated to me.

[Hans Kruse]

Look badly oversaturated to me.

Going to your website I see a lot of poorly composed pictures.

[Paul Gessler]

Look badly oversaturated to me.

Sex Saturation sells.

Going to your website I see a lot of poorly composed pictures.

Shots fired! Dodge and burn!

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I guess that is part of the photographer's artistic expression. Personally I may aim for less saturation, I guess.

Here are some of mine:




That was another time but not another place…

Best regards
Erik

Look badly oversaturated to me.

[Tony Jay]

I have no quibbles with either group of shots.
The lighting conditions are clearly different - the differences in the images may partly be due to different approaches in post but are primarily determined by the prevailing light.

Either way the Dolomites seem to be a great place to treat one's camera!

Tony Jay

[ErikKaffehr]

Yes, of course!

I see it is as an artistic freedom to render the image.

I agree that the Dolomites is a great place. If you are looking for the magic light, I can recommend Hans Kruse's workshops. He knows about finding that good light and the right spots to shoot!

Best regards
Erik

I have no quibbles with either group of shots.
The lighting conditions are clearly different - the differences in the images may partly be due to different approaches in post but are primarily determined by the prevailing light.

Either way the Dolomites seem to be a great place to treat one's camera!

Tony Jay

[Hans Kruse]

Sex Saturation sells.

Shots fired! Dodge and burn!

Well, yes! I found the comment from Petrus inapropriate. It's not just about saturation and it's not about selling. Some make very weak colors and very underprocessed, which can be nice, but often it just looks like underprocessed I make my pictures as I like and I welcome comments, but I would ask for a little respect rather than the comment from Petrus.

[Hans Kruse]

Erik has shown pictures from a different time of day and a different time of year and this does look very different. My pictures are from the late autumn where the light is quite different and a number of the shots were from the very early morning and before the sun came up. I can say the colors were very very strong and I don't feel the saturation is too high for these images. But taste is different, of course, and this is the way I like to present these pictures given where I am today. In 2 years from now and going back to the same images I may process them differently.

Honestly I knew there would be comments like the one from Petrus. There always are.... Usually they are more respectful and more elaborate not just bluntly badly oversaturated! So I made a similar respect less comment to him if that makes it sink or not, I don't know

[Hans Kruse]

Hi,

I guess that is part of the photographer's artistic expression. Personally I may aim for less saturation, I guess.

Here are some of mine:




That was another time but not another place…

Best regards
Erik

Thanks Erik,

For my taste the first two of yours which are shot at a different time of day and of the year are a bit flat for my taste. The last one is fine.

Here is one shot almost at the same time as yours

[Hans Kruse]

Yes, of course!

I see it is as an artistic freedom to render the image.

I agree that the Dolomites is a great place. If you are looking for the magic light, I can recommend Hans Kruse's workshops. He knows about finding that good light and the right spots to shoot!

Best regards
Erik

Thanks Erik, and that is the point. And useful comments are ones where that freedom is respected. However comments can be useful for the author to say, e.g. perhaps I'll try to reprocess some images in a different way and see how it comes out. I don't think postprocessing should cast in stone in terms of approach and style, but be adapted to the image, the light in the scene and how to present it to a viewer. I do that with my images, but I do not know how this will look at other monitors or devices. When you were in the Dolomites with me we had some mornings with a good amount of color, but nothing that could compare with the morning shots above. One would not believe it. I knew, of course, that some people would feel they were totally overprocessed which actually they are not. But again, somebody else taking the same raw files as me would most likely get a rather different result. And that's how it should be imho.

[Hans Kruse]

I have no quibbles with either group of shots.
The lighting conditions are clearly different - the differences in the images may partly be due to different approaches in post but are primarily determined by the prevailing light.

Either way the Dolomites seem to be a great place to treat one's camera!

Tony Jay

Thanks Tony, and the Dolomites are quite amazing in my opinion. You can take a look, if you like, at my Dolomites pictures shot during the year from 2009 and up to 2015 here http://www.hanskrusephotography.com/Landscapes/Dolomites/ and get an impression of the locations and the different light over the years.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Hans,

I know that those images were different light, just wanted to show some examples of my preferences of image processing.

Your comment on the third picture is interesting, I definitively felt it was a bit overprocessed to my taste, but I wanted to make the experience justice.

It was a wonderful experience. I also recorded some video on that one, I feel it can really enhance a slide show.

Best regards
Erik

Thanks Erik,

For my taste the first two of yours which are shot at a different time of day and of the year are a bit flat for my taste. The last one is fine.

Here is one shot almost at the same time as yours

[Petrus]

My blunt statement was not aimed so much at the photographs themselves, but the words I quoted: "technically perfect". How can pictures where the saturation is totally over the top be "technically perfect"?

I myself have been to Brenta and Cortina seven times so far doing Via Ferrata climbs, have done a badly composed TV-documentary about those and a big magazine article (shot on Velvia, so "true"…). So I approximately remember what it looks like there, even them sunsets. With the recent trend of over saturating all landscape pictures it seems that they start to look natural to many of us and nobody is allowed to mention it anymore. Anybody in their right mind can see the saturation and color differences are not caused by being there in different years or time of the year.

What comes to Hans' instant and quick comment about my pictures being badly composed if find it a quite childish reflex-like reaction. I do not see its relevance at all. If I can not compose does it mean I can not notice if a landscape picture is over saturated, out of focus or has cameras shake? As my photography is flawed in some way I can not comment on other's pictures? Or is it just that critique is here not really wanted, only pats in the back?

In fact I find 75% of pictures presented on this site for critique quite worthless but keep my mouth shut. Still amazing numbers of other members comment favorably. It is much worse on more popular sites, though, where comments true but negative enough are simply moderated away.

Pictures on my site ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/112698197@N08/sets ) are documentary / street in nature, so there often is no time to tweak the composition much, just frame and grab the shot. I would be extremely happy if Hans, a good man, would privately pick out a few worst samples and point out my mistakes. Maybe not here in public, would be to embarrassing, but privately.

 

[Jeremy Roussak]

Well, yes! I found the comment from Petrus inapropriate. It's not just about saturation and it's not about selling. Some make very weak colors and very underprocessed, which can be nice, but often it just looks like underprocessed I make my pictures as I like and I welcome comments, but I would ask for a little respect rather than the comment from Petrus.

He seems to enjoy being condescendingly dismissive. Look back through his posts: you'll struggle to find anything helpful.

Jeremy

[Hans Kruse]

My blunt statement was not aimed so much at the photographs themselves, but the words I quoted: "technically perfect". How can pictures where the saturation is totally over the top be "technically perfect"?

I myself have been to Brenta and Cortina seven times so far doing Via Ferrata climbs, have done a badly composed TV-documentary about those and a big magazine article (shot on Velvia, so "true"…). So I approximately remember what it looks like there, even them sunsets. With the recent trend of over saturating all landscape pictures it seems that they start to look natural to many of us and nobody is allowed to mention it anymore. Anybody in their right mind can see the saturation and color differences are not caused by being there in different years or time of the year.

What comes to Hans' instant and quick comment about my pictures being badly composed if find it a quite childish reflex-like reaction. I do not see its relevance at all. If I can not compose does it mean I can not notice if a landscape picture is over saturated, out of focus or has cameras shake? As my photography is flawed in some way I can not comment on other's pictures? Or is it just that critique is here not really wanted, only pats in the back?

In fact I find 75% of pictures presented on this site for critique quite worthless but keep my mouth shut. Still amazing numbers of other members comment favorably. It is much worse on more popular sites, though, where comments true but negative enough are simply moderated away.

Pictures on my site ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/112698197@N08/sets ) are documentary / street in nature, so there often is no time to tweak the composition much, just frame and grab the shot. I would be extremely happy if Hans, a good man, would privately pick out a few worst samples and point out my mistakes. Maybe not here in public, would be to embarrassing, but privately.

 

The statement of technically perfect was not cup of tea either to be honest. I suspect that this comment was based on technical parameters and not how it was post processed. After this discussion I need to say that my purpose of shooting landscapes is not to be documentary. I like to bring the landscapes to life via finding good viewpoints, special light and post process such that it brings this out that I'm looking for. I'm not looking for the ordinary although quite often the scenes can look quite ordinary most of the time! When I'm shooting landscape I try to judge which locations will work given the weather and the knowledge I have ab out the different locations.

Saturation as a single parameter is a bit strange to me. For me it is a lot more about distributing light across the frame in a way that makes it come to life. This involves contrast a lot and local adjustments. I use the tone mapping sliders a lot and use also white and black point in setting contrast. I fine tune contrast to my liking using the tone curve and not very often via the contrast slider. I use clarity sparingly and most pictures I do not touch either the saturation or vibrance sliders. The saturation in my images comes as a side effect of making the contrast and exposure and other light adjustments. I sometimes feel like taking the saturation a bit down and then drag either saturation or vibrance down but it seldomly successful and therefore it not often I do that.

So as you can see from my images I'm not looking for a straight mapping of the scene into the final picture. Some people like that if that works for them that is fine. But honestly I find that boring. I also see some pictures where it is clear that the photographer has spent quite some effort in making a really good composition, but if the light is bad or the post processing does not do it justice, well then in my view it is not a successful image.

Again I underline in my view or for my taste. I do not like absolutes about photography and way too often opinions are expressed as absolutes. I do like to make the technical underpinnings for a photo as good as possible, but that does not make the photo, it only makes the starting point for what the post processing brings out.

Regarding your pictures, Petrus, I'm not going to comment further, but I will say that I have seen documentary photographers and photojournalists (e.g. seen in World Press photos) not only captures the moment but also pay great attention to composition and detail. And many also do the post processing to bring out the drama that might be conveyed by the pictures. Those are the kind of pictures that makes an impact (for me). You call my comment a childish reaction and you are welcome to have that opinion, but saying this is not only condescending but also not understanding what I already commented earlier in this thread. In your comment about oversaturation you just forget to add: In my opinion or for my taste! Photography should (in my opinion) be about image making and not about an objective or scientifically correct reproduction of the world at a given GPS coordinate and time for documentary purposes.

[sierraman]

Very nice! I'm good with the color. 

[pluton]

Hans, Your shots here are not 'oversaturated', but merely feature strongly saturated colors. 
I find the good taste with which you have deployed the strong saturation to be a pleasure for my eyes, which are tired of the common, amateurish, mindlessly oversaturated style that we see every day on the web and often in advertising.  Bravo.
Also, your compositions are superior to the other few competing samples offered.

[wtlloyd]

I was in the Dolomites, with Hans, this June - highly recommended trip to anyone who can keep up with him for 9 days!

Without fail, every single time I have shown photos from this trip, someone has commented on the saturation. And I have honestly had to say I have desaturated those shots slightly, as no one would believe they were not pumped up if I just ran a straight conversion.

You've got to see the Dolomites in June to believe it with your own eyes!