NikonGear'23
Images => Nature, Flora, Fauna & Landscapes => Topic started by: RBSinTo on June 12, 2019, 20:35:14
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Last October, my wife and I flew to Phoenix Arizona to attend the wedding of a life-long (we met in first grade in 1953) friend's son, but first spent a few days in Sedona.
The day before we arrived there were severe rainstorms with serious flash-flooding and for our first two days there, the skies were cloudy and the temperature relatively cold.
One morning while on our way to the Grand canyon, when our tour stopped to pick up passengers, I had a few minutes to grab a photo of a nearby landscape scene shrouded in early morning fog and cloudy skies. As taken the scene has homes and various bits of civilization in the foreground which I feel detracts and so I produced a version with all traces of civilization removed, which I prefer. As I literally never do photography of this type, I wondered what the feeling is among those who do, of manipulation of this sort. I would never enter this in any nature-type competition as I understand the rules about manipulation are quite strict, but I wondered if this sort of thing is frowned upon. Your thoughts and comments would be appreciated.
For the sake of clarity, I am posting both shots.
Nikon D3
zoom-Nikkor 24-70 2.8 auto focus
exposure probably f8 @ 1/60th
(https://cdn.nikoncafe.com/attachments/sedona-az-5-1920-jpg.1640141/)
(https://cdn.nikoncafe.com/attachments/sedona-az-5-second-version-1920-jpg.1640142/)
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I actually prefer the version with the houses in the foreground ...
Removing remnant of civilisation to make Nature appear "unspoiled" is not a practice I would recommend. Consider the houses etc. as elements within your frame of view and work them into the overall composition.
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Birna,
Thanks for commenting. Your opinion seems to be the opinion of virtually everyone who has commented.
Robert
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In the end, your own decision is what matters.
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It is your decision. Both images are good. The most important thing is not to allow people to think that §2 represents reality.
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The straight shot is a document, the changed shot is, effectively, a fantasy scene.
Like Birna, I prefer the document. Landscape views are often made more interesting by the inclusion of human works. I think this is the case here.
Because the manipulated version is not done in the overcooked-in-post style that is currently popular, it actually carries more credibility, and I would have been fooled if you hadn't informed us or shown the original next to it.
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Anthony, Keith,
Thanks for your comments.
Keith,
As virtually all of my work is candid street photography, my Photoshop skills are of the bare-bones variety and I wouldn't know how to "over-cook" an image even if I wanted to.
However I do have a Ph.D in Cloning Tool and can clone with the best of them, which is why it's not evident that the second shot had a fair bit of work done to eliminate the evidence of "civilization".
Robert