Thank you and yes it is a scan of the picture not the negative.Originally Posted by mdm
Thank you and yes it is a scan of the picture not the negative.
Wet meadow oaks
Linnebjär
I know from experience that I see and feel very different things to most people when I look at this image. The differences are partly the the inevitable ones between personal and public, but also the those that differentiate myth from reality. Bridging the gap is the main goal of my present photography.
Trees dancing to the light.
Nice, Struan. "What a tangled web we weave". They look a lot like the swamp white oaks of New England wetlands.
Nate Potter, Austin TX.
According to Wikipedia 'In mathematics and computer science a tuple represents the notion of an ordered list of elements'.
My feelings are definately not a tuple. Can not be defined by a tuple. Are not a tuple. Even when I think I am rational, retrospect always shows them to be completely illogical.
Are you a conversational computer program?
David
I practice experiential landscape photography. By my own definition, experiential landscape photography is a tuple consisting of what I saw and what I felt at the moment I found the composition. The tuple experience becomes my vision that governs the production of the final expressive image.
What I saw is represented as a manifestation of the optical reality of the lens. Under no circumstances do I alter this reality because oherwise it would not be a true experience that really did happen. I do not paint in skies, add rainbows, or make changes that would alter any element in the original scene because when you do so, then the only place the image exists is on your computer, and it is no longer experiential in nature, but rather fictional in nature.
What I felt is expressed in how I portray the mood of the land. I will make significant changes to the original state of the land to create an emotional feeling in the final print that depicts the mood that resided within me at the time I discovered the composition. The mood of the land becomes a depiction of my emotional state of being. This is done in three ways. First, I alter the reality of the land by constructing a composition that includes or excludes elements in the original scene by changing perspective, lenses or formats such as a 4x10 or 5x7. Secondly, I will revisit the scene repeatably over many years, if required, to get the appropriate atmospheric conditions and lighting conditions I need to reenforce my initial vision. And finally in the darkroom, I will alter the light contrast and color contrast of the original scene. I do try to restrict these types of darkroom changes to no more than four stops. To do more can lead to the beautification of the image and diminish the expressive and experiential characteristics of the final print.
To measure the type of emotional reactions and the magnitude of the those reactions my viewers experience is very difficult to do. What people say and what they really feel can be two different things. For the time being, I have resorted to commercial sales of my prints as a reasonable tool for measuring the reactions viewers have about my work. If the emotional reaction is strong enough, then a sale will occur, otherwise, it will not.
Very nice, Struan.
Thanks,
Kirk
at age 73:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep"
I was under the impression that tuple defaults to 2-tuple, and I had no idea that it be ordered, but I am not a computer scientist. Sorry for the confusion.
mdm, Nathan, Kirk - thanks.
This wasn't a test :-)
But I am currently struggling with how to convey specialist knowledge to a generalist audience. In my scientific work I am used to beating people around the head (rhetorically) until they wake up to the novelty and significance of what I'm showing them, but with my photography I don't want to get too preachy.
This photo is a favourite, from a favourite place, so it's already made the cut. The trouble is that most people see only a gothick wildewood, which is partly my fault for conforming to accepted picture styles, but also the fault of the overwhelming dominance of romantic presentations of and reactions to landscape.
Wildwood oaks don't grow like this (at least, not here), and in any place damp enough to promote this much moss oak is out-competed by alder or ash - unless man intervenes. These are young trees (150-200 years 'young') growing in an open meadow. 'Meadow' in the true technical sense of an area protected from grazing and cut for winter fodder, in this particular case for at least a thousand years. These trees' inheritance from the much older surrounding landscape is written in their shape and colour, but you have to be willing to look, and with an informed seeing.
I don't want to force people to look at my photos in over-determined ways, but I do want to communicate some of the thrill that I get from the interplay of intellect and emotion. Feeling alone fades fast.
Last edited by Struan Gray; 26-May-2010 at 02:51.
Could you explain how one goes about making a photograph that doesn't alter reality?
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
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