Hans, just as Murry said, I wanted the path leads me through the garden to this person at the end, who apparently shows up there. My first photos taken there were just with some path, I like here how it’s covered with all those red autumn leaves, so that’s why I composed this photo like that.
Once again, thank you for your nice note!

Monika
#860616

V/R #914795

Keep shooting but try to see, and capture, the image before you put it in your computer.

BF
www.sportsshooter.com/aavspj #916646

Bob and Rhina, I’m sorry I have disappointed you but I like to have some fun with Photoshop and my images from time to time. Lighten up you two :-)

Monika
#917156

Those of us who make our living with photography, and I mean media-related images, are not allowed to alter photos in any manner that is not possbible in a wet process darkroom.

The wording is something like, if it's not in the image at the time of exposure, you can't add or subtract anything.

So, I have no problem with those who create something that was not there as long as it is not compared in the same light as unaltered photographs. I even suggested having a real photo category on this site, and for contests, one that allows no manipulation other than that allowed by journalistic standards, but those who run the site have thus far refused to even answer my emails. Perhaps this site would be better understood if it were callled something like, BetterPhotoManipulations.

As long as I'm on a roll here, I'd also like to once again say that this part of the site is titled Constructive Criticism and should be treated as such. Comments like wonderful, or beautiful image, do nothing but stoke egos, that can be done in the Friendly Praise section. Suggesting improvements do help, as long as one listens to them.

Feel free to respond, and I'm sure many of you will.

Have fun and keep shooting.
BF
www.sportsshooter.com/aavspj #917316

Digital Darkroom
This category is appropriate for digital art - images created or drastically altered in software like Adobe Photoshop. Although digitally manipulated images are also allowed in the above categories, this is a category exclusively showcasing such art. If the digital darkroom work is the main attraction of the photo, or plays a big part, enter it here.

This seems pretty close to the distinction you are looking for.

Monika #918145

V/R #918475

I guess it means, put your glowing, flowery, unhelpful comments here so shooters can feel good about themselves. Whereas a heading of Friendly Praise must mean the opposite.

All I have been trying to say, now read my lips here, is, anyone desiring only praise and kudos, put them in the Friendly Praise section. If you want serious, helpful suggestions on how to improve your photography, or get a feeling on how the image would do in a contest or media situation, not necessarily your manipulation techniques, post them in this area. Again, Friendly Praise is just that, Constructive Critique is not Friendly Praise.

If anyone still does not understand, I suggest you go to the section of this page that spells out just what all the discussion heading mean.

It's pretty cut and dried. Not wet at all.

BF
www.sportsshooter.com/aavspj

#918739

Rhina and Bob, "Constructive Critique" in the discussion section just means that the person who submitted the first comment had a critique to give, not that the photographer was specifically requesting critiques. The location of photos within the categories on the discussion page are determined by the first person to post a comment. If you want to see what category the photographer entered the photo in, you'll need to go to the Contest Home Page where the 10 categories a photographer can choose are listed. One of these is "Digital Darkroom" which is created just for people who like to take a good photo or photos and apply their artistic side through manipulation.

If you don't like digital effects no matter what, you probably shouldn't comment on pieces that were designed using these effects. If you'd like to start a discussion about the pros and cons of photographic manipulation (or join one of the many that already exists) you should go to the Question and Answer section of this site. If you like a photograph, but think it would look great without the effects, you can ask the photographer to post in in their discussion. Only then can you really judge their skill as a photographer.

(Sorry to hijack part of your thread to go on a rant, Monika. There have been a lot of these negative types of comments circulating lately, and I guess it was building up in me... Congrats again on getting a finalist!)

Pam #926712

I guess in the future I will only comment on real, unalterered images on this site, since I guess everyone out there knows how I feel about manipulated images by now.

I really am trying to help. Ask some of your other members who request that I honestly critique their images.

Have fun and good luck.

BF
www.sportsshooter.com/aavspj #926741

Oh and by the way, my comment about people not being able to take constructive criticism was not directed towards monika, but to all the others that jump at the rescue as if the most horrible thing was just said. In the end, all that matters is that she likes it.

Very Respectfully again, #926744

travel place
landscapes
animals
special effects
flowers
detail/macro
people
digital darkroom
monthly theme (gratitude this month)

Go to the contest page and click on the seperate category entries to browse photos. If you had done that you would know that this picture of Monica's was entered in the Digital Darkroom category which is specifically for artistically manipulated digital images. I entered one there today actually, a polariod transfer simulation done in photoshop. Monica knew just what she was doing and was rewarded a finalist for her effort in digital manipulation.

Regarding digital manipulation--Bob, in some areas of media (think magazines, books, wall art, greeting cards, graphic design, advertising) there is a HIGH demand for excellently manipulated photos. Special effects are done constantly--and I would say it's folly for some of us NOT to learn photoshop. As a children's book writer I want to illustrate my own books someday with my photos. I need to know photoshop very well. I strive to take excellent photos to begin with, and then I strive to enhance them to produce a result.

If you don't like digital photo work go to a purist photography site. There's dozens of them! But why come here and try to change the way this site is established? Some of us actually NEED a site like this.

Monica, your work is lovely. Keep it up!

Karma #926811

Perhaps from a totally purist perspective you find sandwiching to be severe manipulatation. I can assure you that the resulting image is not an illustration. It is a sandwiched photograph. Hopefully you understand the concept of 1+1 photographs layered on top of one another still equals one combined photograph. Do you consider someone like Freeman Patterson to be less of a photographer for employing similar methods? Why should it be considered less of a photograph when Monika does it in an image editing program?

Also, since digital art is not an endeavor to which you subscribe, then why on earth would you comment on it? Wouldn't your lack of knowledge or experience in this area preclude you from making judgement on it? It would seem to me that you would want to lend your photographic knowledge in the realm of purist photography and leave the world of "manipulated" photos to those who know and understand this highly technical and artistic art form. It's amazing to me that some photographers consider digital art to be fluff, but in reality the skills and technical mastery that are required to create these images take years to acquire.

In this instance your ignorance can be forgiven because you don't understand the technique that Monika used to create this lovely image, but for you to suggest that she go back to straight photography methods if she wants to be a "good" photographer, especially after she won a finalist award is frankly, ridiculous. In the future, you might want to consider confining your critiques to those images which are in the realm of your own experience.

#926868

Patricia, and others, maybe now that you know my job you must understand that someday I might be put in the position of having to fire my best photographer (or I might get fired as well) for ONE manipulated photo. That's one of the reasons I get inmediately turned off when I see a manipulated image; that doesn't mean that I don't appreciated them as well...but if someone can say "Wonderful," why can't I say "Wonderful image, but I don't like it because this and this."

V/R (stands for Very Respectfully)
#926954

Monika, I understood very well what Murry ment. I´ve printed your photo out on paper and played with the cropping and I still must say, that the leading of the path is just as good when it not do lead to the corner. I´m very sorry when others take my constructive idea as a negative talk. It was NOT ment as that. After disagreement in this very small detaill I still like the picture, as I said in the beginning.

But I´m also glad for Rhinas and Bob comment in another way. Their expressions are right in many way, but has nothing - or very little - to do with your picture, Monica. I read their words as a generally comments to imaging problems of today. And I agree in many ways, but not all. One of the problems on all photosites on the Internet are comments as: lovely, nice shot, beautiful, god shot. If any should learn of such comments, nobody would learn. Readers should comment more about detaills in composition, coloring, ideas. This would make others learn more.
Hope I expressed myself good enough, english is not my daily language. #927101

Monika modified the original photograph to match her VISION as an artist. The photo is clearly labeled as being software modified, and no journalistinc standard is implied or appropriate. Artistic photography has always been about creating the image, NOT about precisily rendering reality.

I have many photography books, dating back to the 70's, which discuss in great detail how to achieve the kinds of effects now done in software. Everything from filters to darkroom techniques. But until they were done in software, I never heard any of this "It's no longer a photograph", whining.

#927406

Please keep in mind that the people who may employ digital techniques on this site are also photographers, many of them excellent ones. If you are immediately turned off to their work, then it would seem that you would refrain from commenting. We should not feel compelled to comment on photographs that we don't care for or are not qualified to judge. This is true whether the image appears in a constructive critique category or not. The problem is that from the beginning, neither you or Bob offered Monika any thoughtful critique on ways to improve her image, but rather dismissed it entirely from the start, using the column as a forum to voice displeasure over the broader subject of digitally manipulated images. Should Monika have chosen to have her work submitted to the Constructive Critique section, she deserved comments about her image and technique. It surely wasn't helpful that she was told that her work was not a photograph.

The digital manipulations that are presented on this site are not created from stock photography. The photo must belong to the photographer. The commonality here is that we all use a camera and its lenses and settings to capture what is before us. Hopefully our result is the very best photograph that we are capable of producing. The basis of any photo manipulation is that photograph, where the same rules of composition, color and lighting apply. But it is at this point in the process that our creative thoughts diverge and a photographer may choose or not choose to employ methods to render that image. Those who employ artistic rendering techniques to their work get tired of hearing that there is something "wrong" with their image and therefore they hid their mistakes through manipulation. This comes across as an elitest attitude that views the rendering process like plastic surgery, whereas the photographer may view it as just one of many enhancement opportunties available to them in the pursuit of artistic expression. If you don't like to belong to a site that permits both styles, you have a choice. If you choose to remain a member of that site, then learn about the processes that these artists are using and offer truly constructive criticism or refrain from commenting on images that employ techniques unfamiliar to you. Respectfully yours. #927417

*****Patricia may call me ignorant, but as an editor of a high-distribution newspaper I must know all the rules and laws about manipulation, some set in stone for us news-media like it says in the Associated Press Stylebook (used by all in the field like our bible):

"The content of a photograph will NEVER be changed or manipulated in any way."***

And I reply, frankly my dear I don't give a .....

Who cares what the assosciated press bible says? I'm not planning on doing ANY photos for the associated press, and I'm not a journalist. Look through other magazines, such as Times, Vanity Fair, etc..etc... and you'll see a plethora of photoshop enhancement. It's a necessary skill if your plan on doing most types of photography other than photojournalism. This site is designed around that premise and says so in thier description. We all see where you're coming from, but your worries do not apply here in any way. So drop it. Monica did a wonderful job. Her picture was submitted in just the right area. I'd have a bigger problem if Bob or Rhina tried to enter an unaltered photo in the digital darkroom category!

Karma #927461

What is missing here?

Nothing actually.

In fact, I have read all of the messages and tried to stay away from this thread, but trust me: it is just too good to stay out of it.

Digital photography and digital manipulation are not the same, but to many people they seem to be linked. And that is a problem, a big problem since not even photographers can deal with it, how we expect the rest of the people to see them as separate entities.

Recently I showed a series to a gallery owner. He kindly reviewed the portfolio and told me: “this is a photojournalistic work…a good one, but it isn’t art”. That same series was shown to journalist people, and they told me: “This is art”.

I am not a photojournalist, and I don’t intent to call myself an “artist”, but it is just a series I enjoyed doing, and I wanted to show it since that is what photography is about: to show images.

Even worst, (yes…it can get worst) when a group of photographers saw that series in an exhibition, I heard one of them say “to capture this one, I’m sure he fired at least 20 exposures”. I smiled.

That is what photography is about nowadays. We love doing it, we love sharing our vision, but then we spend a lot of time trying to make people understand that it isn’t easier in the digital era. We photographers are tempted to do something to improve our images, and viewers try to do something go diminish the effort that it took for an image to be made.

I got plenty of stories about this subject, and I just don’t want to bore you with my problems, but here’s one that I love to tell.

I submitted four pictures for a contest. One of them was second place, other was somewhere around fifth or sixth, third one got honorific mention, and the one I liked the most got a low score.

At the final show I was standing behind a couple of photographers who where talking about one of my pictures. One of them was a judge of that show, and he told to the other “look here, this stream of water was made with the brush in photoshop, you see?”. The other one agreed. You can imagine how I felt, but I just told them “I don’t recall doing what you just said”. They tuned around and asked me if that was my image. I said yes. Then the asked me how I made that picture. And I said “it wasn’t MADE sir. I took it with my camera”.

Same happened with the other two pictures. Judges thought that I placed a trailer and made a sunburst in photoshop. On the other image they thought that I made a great blue background to fake a lake and placed a dock in it. And I said: I’m a photographer. Why in the world would I want to put something that wasn’t there if I can make a picture? #927913

(cont...)

Where am I going with all this?
It is simple: we photographers are not ready to deal with this digital photo or digital manipulation thing.

I rest my case.

Ouch….I almost forgot. Monika: congrats on your finalist. I also think that it is a good image, but I’m sure it looks better without the filters….in my opinion.

PSerna
www.pserna.com
#927914

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

You said, "Where am I going with all this?
It is simple: we photographers are not ready to deal with this digital photo or digital manipulation thing."

Photgraphers have been "dealing" with it for many years already. You'll find their work in galleries, popular magazines, posters, greeting cards, books, etc...etc...etc... Lots of photgraphers make good money dealing with it. I, for one, am dealing with it perfectly. :-) Some photographers are obviously not ready to deal with it. That's too bad really.

Have a good day!

Karma #927939

I mean: when judges are focusing on the techniques in stead of the idea of a picture (photo). #927988

I also agree with you Karma, in fact I agree with every post I have read in this thread. It is just relative to what kind of photography each one of us likes to do.

So far, I’m standing in the middle. I’m not sure which way to go, but currently I enjoy analog (film), digital, polaroids, wet darkroom, digital darkroom,…well…I enjoy photography.

I have done sandwiches before, and I like the effect. It is something each one of us should try….just like Monika did.

PSerna #928189

I have to say I hate it when someone's photo thread is taken over by this ranting discussions between "purists" and non-purists.

Take it to the Q&A board people! Leave Monika's photo thread alone!

And get with the times. Photoshop is here to stay. This photo is in the Digital Darkroom category where it belongs. If you can't stand the manipulation that is acceptable at BP then take yourself to a "purist" site. We are NOT doing photo-journalism here! Now get over it!
#938318