Winston,
This is unusually interesting! Great colors and amazing almost flat card cutout rocks that look so unreal and that's the great thing! I like the scene. It's almost eerie. You were there with your camera and obviously your were impressed and moved. What were you thinking and feeling when you took the picture did these reactions reappear when you looked at your completed image? This really interests me as to how we make our photographs.
thanks for the kind words.
Asher, the main thing I was thinking when I shot that image was to catch it before the light went away! I’d been standing on the beach with my tripod for half an hour waiting for the sun to reach the horizon; that sliver of clear sky was very small, and I had just a brief time - probably less than a minute - from the point when the sun lit up the beach and sky like this to the time it disappeared. Frankly, I was so busy concentrating on the shot, and the composition, that I didn't really get much chance to see what I’d gotten till I got back to my hotel and pulled it up on my laptop. I took several frames, but this was by far the best. I added a bit of contrast, tweaked the saturation a little, and this was the result. I was really very pleased, and a bit amazed at the surrealistic, almost alien image... it really does look like another world, and I think that's the real appeal of it... a sense of strangeness, yet vague familiarity. and of course, with not a soul in the image, the sense of "otherwhereness" is even more pronounced... like this was taken through a window into a place where mankind never existed...
Priceless comment to go along with a priceless picture. Simplicity of honesty in communication, and simplicity of patience and skills in photography. Bravo, Winston.
-Greg
Greg, you recognize such an important part of Winston's stance in this. There's no conceit. That honesty tells a lot about you Winston. That in itself is a sign of character.
More than that, it tells us something about the creative process in photography.
This is not Ansel Adams spending months to get one picture, having enough time and thought to have entire art in mind he is going to devise out of the scene he has photographed. Even with him, I doubt that occurred. It was, almost by definition a repeated iterative process of work!
Here, Winston, you recognize that in this fast moving scene there must be amazing magic but you can’t stop the scene changing enough to really grasp the depth and dimensions of this beauty.
The inability to stop the sun is overcome by the camera. I believe we, that is you, I, everyone else and yes, Ansel Adams merely sample the light. A guy with great experience will be able to predict and design what he or she is going to record
only when one is sure of the light. For most of us, we can merely sample the light and then discover the possible representations of that image when we see it in the darkroom and in our times on the computer monitor.
I have argued before that intent should be considered iterative.
As we proceed in making a picture, the current form of the image speaks to us and this gives us new ideas. We make changes and then come up with more possible nuances to bring out any number of possible versions. This should not be considered manipulation, although I admit people seem to freely use thw M word! Manipulation has some dishonest taint to it. I prefer to think that we
extract image possibilities from a sampling of the light from a subject or a scene, nothing more, nothing less. The
making of the image is the job of the photographer and this is made easier in a studio with controlled lighting. Indeed, with experience the image obtained may require little alteration but that is an artificial setup and the sun does not light the way a studio set up does so most natural light work needs work.
I have discussed this before with Nicolas who aims to compose, frame and expose pretty well what he has planned for his prints. I believe that even he re-commences the creative process at the time of seeing the image for the first time in all it's brilliance, stationary, without danger of hanging from a helicopter, without the light changing to see that moment he sampled the day before.
The thrill of seeing this wonderful sunset in its glory for the first time was an important stage in the creative process and this makes me feel more certain of de-noveau intent with modern digital photography.
We now move so fast that this reminds me of the raspy British surgeon who would shoot at anything that came over the horizon, This is called hunting! You send the dogs out to stir up the bushes and bark at everything. The animals flee, birds fly into the air. Then "BANG!" The old guy turns to his man and asks, "Hey Basil, go see what the hell I got!"
Still we don't kill things, just sample the light!
Winston, kudos to you!
Asher
