That London - it's a hell hole

[Markymark]

Needs more pixies.

Here you go...

 

[swee'pea99]

Most of the pictures you see in the media and on the internet are edited, even if that means just cropped and the colour tweaked. It's one of the joys of digital photography. Even in the era of film most stuff was edited, black and white photos were "dodged" meaning varying exposure time given to different areas of the negative in printing so as to lighten dark bits and vice-versa.

Photography is inherently 'fake'. It purports to be 'reality', but reality only exists in the real world, not in pictures.

It's true too that photography has always involved intervention/manipulation. Even at the most basic level, if you print in B/W you have to choose how contrasty a paper you're going to use, which will contribute significantly to the 'reality' you end up with. But digital photography involves a whole new level of manipulation.

A friend has a google feed that puts a continually-evolving slideshow on his telly: one stunning landscape/animal shot/nature scene after another. And they are all stunning. Problem is, some are so clearly the result of artful alteration that you end up not trusting any of them. It's true that Kodachrome in at least some sense wasn't 'true'. It gave you 'those nice bright colours' that Paul Simon sang about. But you could kind of take that into account and still believe you were looking at 'what was really there'. Nowadays that seems to me to have completely gone. And to me at least that seems rather a sad loss, and nothing to be particularly joyful about.

Which is why, even tho' I quite like what my daughter did to my pic, I personally would only ever post the original. It's not 'real'; it's the colours of reality filtered through the software of the device I was using at the time. But it's as close as I can get, and that feels 'truer' to me than any photoshopped version, however pretty.

 

[Globalti]

Admirable honesty but cellphone cameras are crap compared with "proper" cameras so why not give your photo a fighting chance?

I have a coffee table picture book about Sudan that I bought in, er, Sudan. The photos are by an American who writes in his intro that this book would not have been possible before digital photography, such were the challenges of light, movement and colour. Digital has allowed us to see so much more of our world.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Here you go...

View attachment 149986

I wonder what she's doing with her left hand to make his eye go wonky like that?

 

[Tin Pot]

Photography is inherently 'fake'. It purports to be 'reality', but reality only exists in the real world, not in pictures.

It's true too that photography has always involved intervention/manipulation. Even at the most basic level, if you print in B/W you have to choose how contrasty a paper you're going to use, which will contribute significantly to the 'reality' you end up with. But digital photography involves a whole new level of manipulation.

A friend has a google feed that puts a continually-evolving slideshow on his telly: one stunning landscape/animal shot/nature scene after another. And they are all stunning. Problem is, some are so clearly the result of artful alteration that you end up not trusting any of them. It's true that Kodachrome in at least some sense wasn't 'true'. It gave you 'those nice bright colours' that Paul Simon sang about. But you could kind of take that into account and still believe you were looking at 'what was really there'. Nowadays that seems to me to have completely gone. And to me at least that seems rather a sad loss, and nothing to be particularly joyful about.

Which is why, even tho' I quite like what my daughter did to my pic, I personally would only ever post the original. It's not 'real'; it's the colours of reality filtered through the software of the device I was using at the time. But it's as close as I can get, and that feels 'truer' to me than any photoshopped version, however pretty.

I recommend you listen to this piece on authenticity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lsyrh

 

[Tin Pot]

Here you go...

View attachment 149986

Lest we forget:

 

[Markymark]

Lest we forget:

Some of my handiwork there you know.

 

[subaqua]

Photography is inherently 'fake'. It purports to be 'reality', but reality only exists in the real world, not in pictures.

It's true too that photography has always involved intervention/manipulation. Even at the most basic level, if you print in B/W you have to choose how contrasty a paper you're going to use, which will contribute significantly to the 'reality' you end up with. But digital photography involves a whole new level of manipulation.

A friend has a google feed that puts a continually-evolving slideshow on his telly: one stunning landscape/animal shot/nature scene after another. And they are all stunning. Problem is, some are so clearly the result of artful alteration that you end up not trusting any of them. It's true that Kodachrome in at least some sense wasn't 'true'. It gave you 'those nice bright colours' that Paul Simon sang about. But you could kind of take that into account and still believe you were looking at 'what was really there'. Nowadays that seems to me to have completely gone. And to me at least that seems rather a sad loss, and nothing to be particularly joyful about.

Which is why, even tho' I quite like what my daughter did to my pic, I personally would only ever post the original. It's not 'real'; it's the colours of reality filtered through the software of the device I was using at the time. But it's as close as I can get, and that feels 'truer' to me than any photoshopped version, however pretty.

RAW v JPEG

I prefer RAW files as they show the actual colours not the software decisions from a "experts group"

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Glad your daughter agrees; she obviously has good judgement. Now why not ask her to photoshop out the messy dead branch hanging down left of centre and the twiggy branches coming out of the tree trunk? I would also crop about 10% off the top of the shot to lose the messy tree detail and that clumsy bough and 5% off the right side to lose the distracting patches on sky down the edge. Bring back some more of that plant on the left foreground then brighten the colour a bit more.

On the contrary, that "dead branch" needs enhancement: a few changes, and it could be the hand of the Ent reaching down to tap someone on the shoulder.

 

[swee'pea99]

Admirable honesty but cellphone cameras are crap compared with "proper" cameras so why not give your photo a fighting chance?

I have a coffee table picture book about Sudan that I bought in, er, Sudan. The photos are by an American who writes in his intro that this book would not have been possible before digital photography, such were the challenges of light, movement and colour. Digital has allowed us to see so much more of our world.

It's not really about 'honesty'. I'm not claiming any kind of high moral ground. The point I was trying to make is probably best exemplified by this wee exchange from y'day, with the very daughter who did the work on my image, after I sent her a pic from this very forum:

Now, if someone had shown me a pic like that when I was her age, my instant, instinctive response would have been: 'Wow!'
When I show it to her, her instant, instinctive response is 'That can't be real'.

My point, in short, is that there was actually something, however flawed and limited, in the old saw 'the camera never lies'. For the upcoming generation, that idea has been completely lost, and can never be regained. I think that's a shame. That's all.

Oh, and as for cellphone cameras being crap, I don't think that's true. I think they're getting amazingly good. The original of the pic I started with, I think, exemplifies that:

Now, I never went out 'to take photos', I went out to walk the dog. And I wouldn't have taken a camera, because I wasn't anticipating anything like that. But thanks to technological advances, I was still able to take it. Which is one massively positive thing about 'the new age of photography'. Swings & roundabouts, swings & roundabouts...

(PS It doesn't exemplify it as well as it might, because somewhere along the line it's been compressed down to about a quarter of the original size. Still, even at just north of a Mb (as against the original 5.something) it's still quality enough to be a pretty long way from 'crap'.

 

[Tin Pot]

Fakery

1. A fraud or forgery; an act of doctoring, or the product of one.

 

[ufkacbln]

Glad your daughter agrees; she obviously has good judgement. Now why not ask her to photoshop out the messy dead branch hanging down left of centre and the twiggy branches coming out of the tree trunk? I would also crop about 10% off the top of the shot to lose the messy tree detail and that clumsy bough and 5% off the right side to lose the distracting patches on sky down the edge. Bring back some more of that plant on the left foreground then brighten the colour a bit more.

Getting rid of a local Branch..... Are you a bank?

 

[Brandane]

Then bulldoze the left half and put a nice country weekend pad. Maybe a bit of the right to park the 4x4

I've done some work of my own on it to show a more typical view of a London bike ride.....

 

[subaqua]

It's not really about 'honesty'. I'm not claiming any kind of high moral ground. The point I was trying to make is probably best exemplified by this wee exchange from y'day, with the very daughter who did the work on my image, after I sent her a pic from this very forum:

View attachment 150028

Now, if someone had shown me a pic like that when I was her age, my instant, instinctive response would have been: 'Wow!'
When I show it to her, her instant, instinctive response is 'That can't be real'.

My point, in short, is that there was actually something, however flawed and limited, in the old saw 'the camera never lies'. For the upcoming generation, that idea has been completely lost, and can never be regained. I think that's a shame. That's all.

Oh, and as for cellphone cameras being crap, I don't think that's true. I think they're getting amazingly good. The original of the pic I started with, I think, exemplifies that:

View attachment 150030
Now, I never went out 'to take photos', I went out to walk the dog. And I wouldn't have taken a camera, because I wasn't anticipating anything like that. But thanks to technological advances, I was still able to take it. Which is one massively positive thing about 'the new age of photography'. Swings & roundabouts, swings & roundabouts...

(PS It doesn't exemplify it as well as it might, because somewhere along the line it's been compressed down to about a quarter of the original size. Still, even at just north of a Mb (as against the original 5.something) it's still quality enough to be a pretty long way from 'crap'.

I was talking to renowned wildlife tog Simon King at longleat on Saturday. I apologised for having to take the pic of him and my family at the meet n greet on a Iphone 6s as my Oly had the long lens on . his response was that they are better than some point and shoot cameras from a few years ago.

if its good enough for a top tog its good enough for me

 

[marknotgeorge]

Don't do that, they will naturally assume you are some sort of subversive and immediately set aboot you.

Aboot? You sure you've got the right London, eh?