This is one of the images that I worked on this evening. It is a stream that flows through a ravine not to far from where I live.
It isn't anywhere near the quality of Peter's work, but then I'm no Ansel Adams either. Speaking of noteworthy photographers, I've been reading Annie Leibovitz's recent book named 'Annie Leibovitz At Work'. It showed up in the post the other day. I had completely forgotten that I had ordered it. Anyway I found it to be very an interesting and easy read. Anne writes in a very matter of fact manner which I found myself liking.
There is nothing earth shattering or overly profound in it, but there are a few lines that stuck out for me. It is the last paragraph of a short chapter titled The Road West. "When I'm asked about my work, I try to explain that there is no mystery involved. It is work. But things happen all the time that are unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical. The work prepares you for that moment. Suddenly the clouds roll in and the soft light you longed for appears.'
Of all the words that inhabit this book, these words more than any other resonate with me. For I am just now beginning to find that all the hours spent with my camera and the studying of the work of other photographers has prepared me to glimpse at those unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable magical moments. I just need to remember to press the shutter.
By the way in case anyone thinks that this is a finished photograph ... it isn't. After printing I saw so many issues with it that I will likely have to begin again.
Second attempt ....
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4 comments:
Ah yes, pressing the shutter at that critical moment. I tend to use the machine gun approach and delete later. :)
This is superb, James. Lovely composition and tones. It is harder to produce great B&W, I think. Saturated colours can overwhelm yet B&W brings it down to compo, light, tone; that magical luminescence that some achieve, seemingly effortlessly. Although, reading Ansel Adams, he would spend hours on a print, I think far more than we spend in PS.
Anyway, that plug-in is LR/Enfuse at www.timothyarmes.com in his section 'From Me To You.' I'll paste the link, it may work.
http://timothyarmes.com/lrenfuse.php?PHPSESSID=95b61368fa7792416a8833090ec097fa
Thanks Peter. I think we have an advantage over old Ansel in as much as we don't need to spend much time dodging and burning and then developing the print to see what we got. But I have seen some of his early work before he perfected his techniques. It gives me hope to know that even Ansel had his crap days.
Thanks too for the link. I should be getting my copy of LR 2 anyday now.
My Aussie girlfriend gave me a wonderful Ansel Adams book that included some of his early work, indeed pretty basic, but you could tell he had an eye even back then.
I can relate to Annie's quote though, this last summer when I stopped at Devils Tower in Wyoming, I spent well over an hour in the late afternoon sun walking around the base of it, taking some interesting, but not overly impressive shots. One or two may have some potential. But I left just before sunset because some clouds had taken the light. Then as I drove away, I came around a bend, the sun come back out, and without even having to get out of my car, I took one of my best photos of the entire five week trip around the US...
I've heard that printing photos can be a challenge, I looked hard here, but didn't see much of a difference between the two photos James, what did you do with the second one to make it print better?
Hi John ... I think it was Louis Pasteur who is quoted as having said "Chance opportunity favours the prepared mind". I think this is nowhere truer than in photography. All those years spent looking and trying to see prepares the photographer to recognise and act upon those chance moments when one can take their best photo after looking and looking for five weeks :-)
You'll notice the principle difference in the lower left hand quarter of the image. Their are some artefacts present and the blacks are blocking up. In the second version I changed my processing to fix that and I adjusted the overall tonality of the image ... just a bit.
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