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«acid drops II»
It has been bugging me for a while, that there has to be much more than blurring in the lens. While I have liked the results with Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, and other applications of such a technique, it also opened up for something to continue. Frank Gehry's recent buildings are perhaps the easiest to learn how to tame the "blurred in the lens" approach that does not involve a consistent "focused at twice infinity" concept for emphasizing the form, as pursued by Hiroshi Sugimoto.
The blurring to obtain the lines is the first step in this approach I take. The second one is to dodge and burn (locally) to enhance the shapes. In a way, it is un-blurring some detail but still in the form of a shape. This may be best exemplified with the photos of the Flat Iron building, where I burned and dodged to bring out the silhouettes from the windows.
Aside from this emphasis, there was something else that the technique could bring, especially in the Frank Gehry case. The smoothness of the segments was crying out for some texture, but noise was too much of cliché, and not really apt. The gradients in light caused by his non-flat surfaces (and photographed late in the day), would serve another purpose. The Flat Iron building still gives a sense of scale, but the Gehry photos do not: this is when it struck me that an overlay of another image would be something to try.
At first, it was a way to enhance the Gehry image with some subtle detail from another scale, as in a close or macro image, rich in detail and texture. As I worked on the image above, I realized that it was forcing me to look at it more as a symbiosis. That is, the Gehry abstract gained from the texture offered by the rusty-iron abstract, and the rusty-iron abstract gained from the light gradients to be painted differently than the natural rusty red. Furthermore, the light shapes from the Gehry image made brings a sense of mutual harmony to both.
An appeal of this technique, in having practiced with an entirely different image, «Paris and Rome» that has both images with much detail, is that it is not a script: each image must be processed individually, with an abstract/imaginative idea guiding what it is done. In any exploration, I am worried of coming to a technique that involves some (clever) button being pushed, as it almost feels with blurring in the lens.
![Westfriedhof (I) : Lamps in Isolation (by fernando [pixelstains])](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uIf8TsimSGk6jdiagJVpClnBUucSKhnGAOryf7d65TdFgtP8S-MkA1n7veJmwIpoAj6jH5o62aOS7nTmDQ_QWzk0Y4m3dGys0DSsh8PjNPuOoyImar_Q=s0-d "Westfriedhof (I) : Lamps in Isolation (by fernando [pixelstains])")
«lamps in isolation» (Westfriedhof Ubahn)
In a few profiles at flickr, and at other places, I read about people that want to take a photo and not do anything to it. That is, the best representation of reality is to leave the photo alone once out of the camera. Like other "hobbies" there are people who take this to a religious level and dismiss any post-processing, whether film or digital, not to say anything of dismissing digital all together -- we have been there before with CD vs. LP discussions.
However, this kind of "purity" did make me think of a simple conjecture, at least for entertainment purposes. Consider the following scenario: a camera is set up on a tripod at a location at a certain time of day, and photographers can come in and set up the shot. If compositional rules are to be obeyed, and the lighting is the same for all photographers, then the same photo will be taken. This of course, is an exaggeration to make a point. That is, if the pure purpose of photography is to master the proper set up of a camera, and follow certain compositional rules, then a number of photographers in that art will have to take the same photo. There is only one answer to the confluence of all that is taught about camera and composition: rules of thirds, a certain DoF, etc. Since the lighting conditions are the same for all photoraphers, and no post-processing is allowed, the images have to be the same, unless there is some foul up in the talents on how to set up the camera properly.
This scenario is intriguing to me, because, yet again, like other equipment-centric hobbies, the person is enslaved to the machine. That the photo is a piece of art, or very pleasing to the eye is not the issue at hand -- I have seen many of such photographs. I also understand that certain kind of photography demands this discipline and knowledge of an equipment, and architectural photography comes to mind.
Now, to inflict more "art," or subjectiveness, into the process, people can opt for filters, quirky lenses (e.g., lomo, holga, lensbaby), and even being out of focus. Actually, even camera motion can be included. These are "pre-processing," however, I find them just as restrictive. If I can figure out a way to mimic/replicate the pre-processing in post-processing, then there is no way to tell the difference, and pre- becomes a post-processing in disguise. Perhaps worse, the photographer still relinquishes all control to the camera. Not that photographers that do post-processing are liberated: many people can rely on "photoshop actions" to achieve a result, and be just as the pre-processing crowd to lose control. I think HDR can easily fall into this trap. Again, there are many pre-processing images that are wonderful, so it does not invalidate the outcome.
It seems to me that to liberate oneself into the realm of imagination, that post-processing is the only alternative that we have at the moment, provided that all currently available pre-processing can be implemented in post-processing, though I am not sure that polarized filtering can be achieved in post-processing, at least not readily or with today's camera range.
Further to the notion that a photo should not be untouched, is the fact that the camera itself is not a true representation of reality, no matter how accurate it is these days. So, to think that it should not be untouched to present reality as it is seems like an chimerical notion. The camera/lens distortions are such that I find it more fascinating to work with those distortions than to work around them, we can call that judo-distortion photography.
The photo above is my experience with no post-processing. (OK, some colour correction and cropping.) It was a fun photograph to take, it was a great place to visit, but it also made me think that there is little to take the photo into the realm of imagination.
To adhere the purity of photography to a camera, also means a lot of photos not being taken because it is the wrong time of day, and correcting with dodge and burn is not allowed. Very much a wasted opportunity, one that I cannot accept, nor have I.
«dust at dusk»
I think everyone has come to the annoying situation in trying to take a photo of a landmark (or a subject of interest), and there are signs in the way, . One idea I had in the past was to make the painted sign the main feature, with the object of desire as a prop (equal or lesser to the sign), or just compose with the road sign in it.
Something similar here. I got rid of the room's reflection in the window, and could do the same with the dust outside. However, the time of day was near sunset and the dust in the window was actually "sparkly." It was not a matter of capturing the dust's hue, but just thinking of it as "grain" -- very sparse at that.
I had already experimented with "blurred in the lens" architecture photography, but here it was rather monolithtic, and not of great form. However, it seemed to work when considering the sky's cloud formation, and of course, the dust being lit up.
There were various focal points that would blur the dust on the window, as was done in the sunset image from the same view point. Instead, this image makes the dust the principal protagonist, when you look up close. Reflections from the sunlight made the dust bright and so came the idea to photograph the dust, and just pick a background. In this case, the Bank of America building/monolith in the Financial District in San Francisco.
One aspect of the exporure to so many photographs in flickr is that, even when they are excellent in all aspects, one can see similarities between so many images. For instance, if it was raining, then this image would be one of so many -- 1086 images on flickr with the {water, window, drops} tags -- and the benefit would be (1) a different scene and (2) an emotional familiarity that is associated with these kind of images.
Now, how many people will have an emotional attachment to a dirty window? The implication to this image is that, while not part of that set of raindrops-on-the-window motif, the person seeing the image may have to work harder, and the blurred background's importance is important. I think it offers a way for the individual's imagination to settle into what they feel a lot faster and perhaps even engage the photo, rather than providing a infinite depth-of-field that tells the whole story and there is a nice "wow" moment if they like it. This is not too different to the sunset image linked above. Notice how a search with {window, dust} does not turn up the same type of images that are prevalent in the first search: the first search has the same image over and over again, with the differing blurred background, but in the case of dust, it is about taking a step back and showing how dirty the window is, or that it has dust in it, but the dust is not the only thing in focus. Just peruse through a few pages.
