Tuesday, November 12, 2013

P-Shop

From one of our usual sources...


I have no ideer about how many photos o' sunsets I've taken in my life but I'm certain they number in the hundreds, if not more.  There have been times when folks have asked me if one of my sunset pics was absolutely original or if it had been P-Shopped.  I hardly ever modify a pic but there are times when I will... like the stuff that comes out of the mePhone.  But if I DO massage a photo I'll always mention that I have done so.  We're weird like that.

Here's one such unmodified sunset from back in 2010...


We DO have great skies here on The High Plains o' New Mexico.

In other news... I think we'll break the seal on the furnace today.  It's but 39 degrees outside and the indoor temp is hovering around 67 degrees, which isn't bad.  But we're gonna dip down into the high 20s or the low, low 30s tonight after a high of only 48.  Yup... time to turn on the heat.

11 comments:

  1. I try to be a purist when it comes to my photography; it should come off the camera the way you want it to look. That said, I do make use of PS and its cousin, LightRoom, for cropping and lighting changes when I just couldn't get it right due to circumstances beyond me at the time. Yeah...I am a pedant about my art.

    Furnace...turned ours on about 2 weeks ago. In typical New England fashion...it's been off, on, off, on ... ever since. And it snowed here this morning and our temps will be in the 30s for the next couple then...close to 60 by the weekend.

    Gotta love New England.

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    1. I crop and re-size just about every image I post here on EIP. I don't consider that to be manipulation, although it really is.

      As for the furnace... still a virgin. I never did turn it on yesterday; the indoor temperature never dropped below 67.

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  2. Heh, what Kris said as regards the furnace and the weather here in New England.

    As to photographs, I use them to remind me what my mind captured. Sometimes (rarely) the two match. And I will say this, Kris has "the gift" when it comes to photos.

    That being said, you've had some pretty good stuff here from time to time Buck. I can "feel" your sunset in that pic. If'n you get my drift.

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  3. Speaking of photographs, I a envious of your extensive photo collection, Buck. You took A LOT of pixs and did a great job of documenting your experiences throughout your life. The most amazing thing of all is that you managed to get yourself in so many photos! I have quite a few photos of my wife, children and other family members, but I am in very few of them. I didn't really notice this oversight until decades had gone by and it was too late to do anything about it.

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    1. Thanks, Ron. I only WISH I had the archives I used to have before the Great Cataclysm. Somehow or other I lost at least half, if not more, of the photos I used to have... including most of my shots from my first two tours in Japan and nearly all of the European pics I took in the '80s. But you're right: a lot of photos still survived. I should be more grateful for what I have, rather than mourn what was lost.

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  4. When I started in photography (B&W with smelly chemicals) the teacher emphasized that the art is in capturing the image. Crap can never be improved on. But a real photographer must translate the image onto the paper, and of course we did a lot of "dodge and burn" to get the translation right. When we moved to transparencies, you really needed to have all your "stuff" in one bag.

    Ansel Adams system of photography depends a lot on manipulation. His raw images were translated to paper. They were not perfect out of the camera, and that kind of goal is futile. Anyway, photoshop is the modern word for "darkroom". Without which, art is suppressed. I do a lot of "bracketing" photos, where the print is a combination of three overlayed images. It is really neat to see the huge dynamic range. Something you couldn't do easily before digital.

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    1. Interesting points, Christiane, and said points are well-taken. I spent a lot of time in darkrooms as well, back in the day... including the year I spent up on the Black Sea coast in Turkey in 1970 - 71. One great thing about the military is/was the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) facilities we had... and the one I used most that year was our photo lab. All I had to do was buy my film and paper, the Army (I was on an Army base for that year) provided the physical space, all the chemicals, the enlargers, trays, etc. I learned a LOT that year.

      I also hear you about the wonders o' digital. I'd NEVER go back to shooting film, mainly for the sheer convenience and instant gratification aspects of digital. I shoot probably 20 to 50 or maybe even 100 times more images with the digital SLR than I ever did with the film camera. That fact alone is prolly why I strive for something akin to perfection right out of the camera. I also know I delete many more images than I save. The weird thing? I very rarely print any of my images, and I have a pretty good printer that does a very credible job on those I DO print.

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  5. I wouldn't wait to till it drops below freezing to fire up and test the furnace. It sucks to find out it's glitched when you're freezing.
    I agree with everybody on the quality of the photos you take. They are darned good. I've tried for the last few years and it's not a knack that came naturally to me. I was born for PS but don't have it and hate to manipulate images so the most I usually do is crop a picture and reduce the size both literally and digitally.
    I got the same problem, almost all of the pictures with me and my girl went west.

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    1. In re: the furnace. This place is new enough that I have full faith and confidence in the infrastructure. Which may or may not be misplaced. ;-)

      Thanks for the kind words about my photos, Curtis. I try... and that's all we can do, eh? As for Photoshop... I use PS Elements 5.0 (an old version), which came bundled with my camera at no charge. It really is a great tool and I might be persuaded to buy it if I didn't have the "free" version.

      I feel your pain about losing the archives. That simply sucks, no two ways about it.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask.