20 October 2009

Question ...

Home.

Getting back into my usual routine: avoiding all real work and playing on my computer.

Will eventually have to start being productive - but I am slowly working it in - in 5 minute chunks throughout the day ...

Charlie is acting like a two year old child who was left with strangers for 3 weeks. She is 'clingy' - as far as a dog can be. If she could grab on to my leg and just let me drag her around the house, I am pretty sure she would let me. She has to settle with sitting under my desk and laying her head in my lap looking up at me when I am sitting and following me everywhere I go when I am up. I am really hoping she gets over this soon or I am banishing her to the backyard!

So .... since I am not going through my 4 foot stack of mail, doing the laundry, catching up Quicken, buying airline tickets that need to be purchased or planning our New Zealand trip - guess what I am doing?

Yeah - Photoshop.

And I have a question - it has bothered me for a long time. I can change a photograph drastically with photoshop. Sometimes this feels like a 'fix' - probably something that some hobbyist could do in their dark room years ago - some not.

Like this photo from Stockholm, Sweden:

It was a dreary day and apparently I was drunk since it is horrendously crooked, thus:

I can't help that it was a hazy day and if I can pull the color out of the buildings - than so be it.

Then I create this beautiful panorama of Sydney, Australia and the foot path is bugging me - it pulls the eye away from the main focal points: downtown and the Opera House and Harbor Bridge:

So ...


My question - are they both still 'photographs'? I feel more comfortable saying that Stockholm is a 'photo' I took. I might mention that it is 'touched up' but in my photography books and Photoshop books, they mention that as they read in their photos, there are certain things that they automatically do to all their photos - and they don't mention that this would make them 'touched up'.


But the panorama? I would say it is a fake photograph - it doesn't exist - not unless some construction work was done to remove a footpath. Can I say it is my photo? Is it what I see often - a 'retouched' photo (the 're' probably the stuff mentioned above)? Is it fake? Is it garbage?



Just curious ...

2 comments:

Val and Marceil said...

Lori:
You may accept credit for any photos you have taken yourself. Most photographers can make setting changes within their cameras that produce the same or similar results that can be done with Photoshop. Photos are not judged merely upon their color and lighting, but upon composition and subject as well. As far as the wide angle multi-shot photos--the same thing can be produced from cropping a photo that includes the same features. How you get your pictures is not as important as how nice they look. The important thing is that you recognize a good picture in in its raw state and frame it with the camera so it results in a pleasing composition. You seem to be good at doing that.
Dad

Jennifer said...

I say TOTALLY real photos. Look at celebrity photographers! Do you know that they actually photoshopped Cindy Crawford's belly button out of a swimsuit photo b/c it didn't "work" with the shot? True story. I'm pretty sure.

It's a photo. It was taken with a camera. I think that the "retouching" part is artistic license seeing as how photography is indeed an art.

And you dad is one hundred percento right.