Exercise: Enhancement

This exercise involves making changes that many would say go beyond reality.

I had to photograph a close up head and shoulders portrait in natural lighting for this exercise.

The first selection is basic dodging where I have to draw attention to the face by adjusting the brightness and contrast.

The second selection and adjustment is of the eyes - by exaggerating the colour of the iris by increasing saturation and brightness.

And then by using the hue.

This is the original picture.

Original 

With brightness and contrast increased.  This brings out more definition in the face but the difference is subtle. 

The difference between the original and the image that has been adjusted is very subtle and can be seen close up.  I think that the difference would be less subtle if the subject was more in the shade.

Here is an example of the subject shot in deeper shade.

Original

With the brightness and contrast adjusted. 

The second image shows the effects of the adjustment more.  I think both look natural and the adjustments enhance the image.  

In this image the colour of the iris has been exaggerated using brightness and saturation.  Personally I think this looks fake.  The eyes stand out and look slightly odd.  

The colour of the eyes here have been changed using hue.  Again they don't look natural to me.  

I feel that simple dodging and burning techniques produce natural results therefore I would see them as acceptable.  However, when you start changing the colour of the eyes the image starts to look tampered with.  

In saying that there are instances where I would consider adjusting the colour of the eyes.  If you are looking for a creative effect with a high key black and white image colour in the eyes however unnatural looking would be interesting.  The very fact that the image is black and white makes it unnatural as it is not the way our eyes see what is in front of us.  

Burtynsky's OIL

Last week I was able to visit Burtynsky’s OIL exhibition at the Photographer’s Gallery in London.  After reading the reviews, I was keen to see this body of work and see for myself what all the excitement was about. 

When I thought about the word oil and what this exhibition could possibly be about I conjured up images of money, wealth, deserts, cars, greed and I suppose lastly the effect the oil industry has on our planet.

 

However, I did some preliminary research and found the themes of the exhibition included:

• ·         The industrialisation of land
• ·         Photography as a medium for environmental issues
• ·         The visual language of scale, perspective and detail

For over 12 years Edward Burtynsky has travelled the world documenting oil extraction, refinement and its effects.  The exhibition OIL shows a selection of work from these travels including:

• ·         Extraction and Refinement
• ·         Transportation and Motor Culture
• ·         The End of Oil

“In 1997, it occurred to me that all the vast man-altered landscapes I had perused for over 20 years had been made possible by the discovery of oil and the progress occasioned by the internal combustion engine.  Over the next 12 years I researched and photographed the largest oil fields I could find.  I went on to make images of refineries, freeways interchanges, automobile plants and the scrap industry resulting from the recycling of cars.  I began to look at motor culture, where vast tribes come together with vehicles as the main attraction”.  Edward Burtynsky

As part of the research I listened to his talk (link below) where he describes himself as a fine art photographer who struggled to get away from the trap of the ‘calendar art’ type landscape images.  It was by accident after taking a wrong turn and getting lost that he came upon an open coal mine which was a landscape “totally surreal, transformed by man.”  It was then that he discovered that the two could work together – the landscape and man’s transformation and industrialisation of the landscape and this could be his lifetimes work.    

http://www.ted.com/talks/edward_burtynsky_on_manufactured_landscapes.html

Extraction and Refinement and The End of Oil contain images of places that are often remote and not known to us.  They are vast landscapes that are scarred by the extraction of oil: oil fields, refineries and the urban sprawl invading our natural landscapes.    

Although his images show the horror of man's influence or invasion of his natural landscape there is also a beauty in his imagery.  They are attractive and repulsive in almost equal measure. The use of a large format camera brings out the detail in his images and works well with his use of scale.  

The beauty and the horror also works to highlight the contradiction of man wanting all the trappings of the good life despite the consequences of that on our landscape.  In his images we see first hand what we are usually shielded from - the processes required to give us the materialism we crave.  We can see first hand the destruction of our landscape which ensures we have oil for our cars.

Transportation and Motor Culture is a series of work that sets out to depict man's dependence on motor vehicles not just for work but also for recreational purposes.  As someone who is not that interested in cars I found this particularly stimulating.  The land speed trials starting line in Utah, Talladega Speedway and the rows of Harleys at the Kiss concert are a sad reminder of man's obsession with the motor vehicle and also are dependence on oil.  

Burtynsky draws attention to the coming end of oil as we face its rising cost which is having a huge impact on us now but also the dwindling supplies and availability.  

From a photographic point of view, Burtynsky uses large format cameras to capture every detail in his images.  This can be seen in his work on the interiors of oil refineries and also the vast landscapes.  

His large scale prints add impact to the themes in OIL with some work presented as diptychs to highlight the vastness of the landscapes.  

As someone who is interested in landscape photography and also industrialisation of the landscape I found the birds-eye view Burtynsky's images very appealing.  However, I'm not sure when the day will come where I'll be able to utilise helicopters and cranes in my work!

Exercise: Improvement or interpretation?

For this exercise I had to look at creating the old darkroom techniques of dodging and burning digitally.  Although there are a few ways in which you can do this, I chose to use the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom as I felt it gave me personally more accurate selections and control over the image.  I think the results were more realistic looking too compared to what I would achieve in Photoshop.  This probably has more of a bearing on my Photoshop skills than the software itself.

The before image.  

And after dodging and burning

I felt that the bookshelf in the background was rather distracting and took away from the subject in this picture.  I adjusted the exposure to darken the image and then used the Adjustment brush to make local exposure adjustments to the subject.  In addition I added a blur effect to the background to give a lens blur effect.   

The enhancements of this image are realistic in the sense that it is just the lighting effect that has been altered. This draws the viewer's attention to the subject as he stands out more from the background.

I feel that there are limits with this type of enhancement which would be reached once the lighting effect looked odd and not in any way realistic.  The additional blur effect affects the depth of field naturally.  Had I used a wider aperture when I shot the image I would have achieved that result.

Perhaps the limit is reached when you know that the alterations/enhancements you have made could not be achieved in camera at the time of shooting.

Exercise: Correction

For this exercise I decided to use the sample images provided in the OCA student website.  The images I had with flare dominated the entire image so I wanted to use one with a little lens flare.

I also chose the dust image as my images only have a little dust specks and the editing wouldn't be as noticeable.

This is the original image with the dust specks.

I started editing in Lightroom but then imported the picture into CS5 so I could use the clone stamp tool and make more precise removal of the dust specks. I must admit I found it hard to determine which was dust on the sensor and which specks weren't.  This was made equally harder seeing as I was not the person who shot the image.

Original

Corrected version

As you can see from the second image I removed a lot of dust specks and blemishes from the image.  Using the spot healing brush is not as good as the clone stamp tool for the edges or where the spot is near to detail but it is very easy to use in free open space.  It would probably be useful for general spots in a sky.  

The clone stamp tool is a little harder to use as it is difficult to work in closely to the fine details of the edges of the objects using a mouse.  Your mouse tends to jump too far or not go far enough which is frustrating.  I think I made great use of the Edit Undo feature for this exercise. 

Flare

Original

Corrected

Correcting the lens flare was a lot more difficult to do than remove the spots.  I think if it was my image I may have been inclined to leave the flare in the shot as it adds to it and it is not regarded as so much a distraction these days.  

Again the clone stamp tool was very difficult to use.  I don't know if I'll ever get the hang of it.  I suppose practice makes perfect.  

Digital photography and truth

It can be said that in the age of digital photography the photographer has more control than ever over the image from capture to finished image.  Unlike film, digital photographs can always be adjusted even after the finished image.  There is also the opening for many interpretations of a single image from a black and white rendering to a colour version.  With access to every pixel in the image the photographer can make changes and alterations that were not possible with film.

This presents us with a new issue - meaning and content in an image.  Images are now open to manipulation and the 'truth' of a photograph is questioned.  The most common perception of this is the airbrushed images of the rich and famous and models in magazines.  I think most anger is about image manipulation is directed at that industry because of the effects it has on people.  However an image where the sky has been replaced or the landscape altered seem to draw less attention.

The reality of digital photography means that there are no longer any clear lines between what it acceptable and what is not.  It is not purely down to ethics.  There is a series of image adjustments from the basic preparation of a digital file to produces a fake image.

Raw files need to be processed.  This can be viewed as a technical matter and are considered normal when shooting digitally.  We look at

• Brightness 
• Contrast
• Black and white points
• White balance

The raw file can be seen as a digital negative not unlike a film negative in an intermediate stage between capture and display.

Departing from the standard normal adjustments or processing of a digital file we have to look at interpretation.  In the previous section of the course we looked at enhancing the image and monochrome conversions.  

I suppose the real departure from what we may refer to as standard and a basic level of interpretation comes about when we look at correcting an image.  

Removing dust marks from the sensor which appear in your image could be considered natural or a necessary part of image processing but what about removing unwanted artefacts?  Or people?  

I'm not 100% sure about where I stand ethically on image manipulation.  I do feel that heavily manipulated images have a tendency towards the fake.  However I haven't quite made up my mind if this is necessarily good or bad.  It would be bad if the photographer produced an imaged to deliberately mislead his/her audience. But would it be wrong to produce an image of a landscape that was enhanced to show the mood the photographer wanted to capture.  

Assignment 3 - Monochrome

Here are the images that I submitted for my third assignment.

Flower photography

I focused on the theme of flowers for my third assignment of this course.

A flower is a flower.  How do you shoot a flower?  How do you shoot an interesting picture of a flower? 

As part of my research I looked at the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and Imogen Cunningham.

Robert Mapplethorpe

I first came across Mapplethorpe in Graham Clarke's book The Photograph.  The book discusses the portraits of  Mapplethorpe and his exploration of portraiture from a homosexual perspective.  His self portrait series looks at themes like self-identity, sexuality and the public and private self. 

Having this as my first introduction to the artist, I was surprised to see his flowers series.  However, I must say that his delicate treatment of flowers was a refreshing change to the habitual macro shots you tend to see everywhere from flickr to discount print stores.  

I particularly liked the freshness of his work with flowers, the way in which his simple arrangements tends to give a greater air of importance to his subject.  His use of light is very effective and breathes life into the flowers.  

http://www.mapplethorpe.org/portfolios/flowers/

Imogen Cunningham

As my assignment was based on the creative effects of monochrome I found Cunningham's work highly relevant.  Her interest in botanical photography including her in depth study of the magnolia flower are very inspiring.  

The black and white medium definitely highlights the graphical qualities of shape, form and texture.  Her images are clutter free and with the use of light she brings out the textural characteristics of her subjects.  

http://www.photoliaison.com/imogen_cunningham/Imogen_Cunningham.htm

http://www.imogencunningham.com/