If I were going to time travel back to 1899 when your house was built, I would want to go through this process of overexposure. It would be a transformation in seeing. Congrats on the anniversary of your home!
Experimenting with exposure, overexposure, more light gets in, gives the photos a washed out look, as if the images have been hand-drawn by a mechanical pencil. When, in reality, it is all digital. The Human effort is less than the machine. So, why should it matter, you say?
It might or might not, depending on your views, your ideas on Art. The question in Art is whether it matters how the effect is made as long as the final result is there to see? To communicate a feeling, an emotion. Does the Method alter the final result? I do not have the final answer to those questions, but I do have an opinion, but not as a professional, only as a viewer.
Thanks for your comment Perry. I welcome you to express your opinions freely here.
I disagree with the premise that the effort from the machine outstrips human effort. Machines do things effortlessly, at least that is, if you disregard the energy drawn from the camera's internal battery. Energy consumption aside, it doesn't take any effort for the machine to do what it does. Mechanical cameras didn't even need that. They just worked. On the other hand, it takes a modicum of effort (getting out of the car, walking over to the edge of the pond, crouching down, standing up, moving around, looking for the best viewpoint and let us not diminish the act of pressing the shutter) plus a lifetime of experience (knowing where to stand, where to point, what to include and exclude, how to operate the controls and override the machine's preset operations) to produce results worth posting and talking about.
If you are comparing the effort of mechanical drawing to digital photography, then yes, far less effort in the latter than the draftsman with graphite in hand, but still more than the machine. That the machine is electronic and the results are digital and instantaneous does not matter if the goal is to produce a digital representation of the scene in front of the photographer. This is just the nature of the medium. Good luck getting a digital image from pencil and paper.
As for Art with a capital A, I doubt it is Art, but that is not for me to say in any case. Some may think it is. Many wouldn't. Popular opinion is not why I stand at the side of the road with cars speeding past. Creating Art is nowhere on my list of motivations. I am motivated by my craft, the craft of photography, by my desire to spend time in nature dong something I love, to follow my attention (my bliss if you will) to where it leads me, which is most often to the discovery and exaltation of beauty in nature. I wish only to spend time in this pursuit and to occasionally share my efforts, and believe me, they are effortful, with anyone and everyone who cares to give me their attention for a few seconds. Why do I do this? Because it's fun. Because it's engaging. Because making pictures has become to me like breathing. It's what I do. It's who I am.
There is no need to come up with an answer to your question, which I understand it correctly, I will paraphrase as, "Do the ends justify the means?" This question misses the point here. The ends are not nearly as important here as the methodology. The methodology here is digital photography. It is no better or worse than pencil drawing. They are two different forms of expression. You may be confused by the similarity of outcomes, but that is just illusion. They are entirely different.
To my way of thinking, photography (digital or otherwise) is the perfect blend of art and science. Of calculated and spontaneous. Of realistic and imaginative. Of thinking and feeling. There is infinite variety within these spectrums, allowing photographers to express themselves.
Rumi said, "Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
I was referring only to the use of the machine post-photo taking, not to the human effort and eye in preparing and taking the photo. The whole qurstion of what is art is not easy to answer, especially today, where more tech is present.
I'm not sure I understand this. My camera does nothing without me. I have old ones, my Brownie Bullet camera for instance, which have done nothing but sit on a shelf for years. And what is all this talk of Art? Why does this question always come up? What difference does it make if it is art or not? What is this preoccupation, this obsession with art? I don't get it.
Not an obsession. Just a comment, an observation on my part. I have a different way of seeing the world, this much is clear, and will not comment further. Take care, John.🕊🦜
Love these black and white images John, especially the last one which is my favourite. The use of overexposure has worked really well and you have created some lovely sketchbook type images which I think resemble pencil drawings. They certainly show up all the textures to good effect.
Thank you Gill, and thank you for picking the last image as your favourite. That's the one I like best too, mostly because I like the composition and the post processing on that one is pretty good, but not quite as good as it could be. When it comes down to it, the technique isn't as important as the subject matter. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. Now that I understand the technique a little better, I hope to apply it again in the future to suitable subject matter. Another bow in my photographic quiver.
1) Congrats on the house! Summer solstice seems like the perfect day to embark upon a 38-year-and-counting journey together.
2) I love your second photo the most (the one that is in portrait orientation as opposed to landscape) It’s beautifully ethereal. T
I’d say the result of your experimenting turned out quite well.
3) I used to have so many overexposed photos when I first started taking an interest in photography. But it wasn’t on purpose. It was because I was shooting automatically, as I did not yet understand how to shoot manually. When I finally learned, I still sometimes had overexposed pictures, but eventually, when I did, it was intended. Perhaps this weekend, inspired by your shots, I will experiment a little myself with the exposure setting on my Nikon.
Thank You Tania. It did seem to be a portent of things to come. A full moon too. Just ike now.
I love that you picked that one. It is the least processed of the bunch and the one closest to the view in the camera. It was difficult to pick examples from all of the shots I made. I got quite excited doing this and shot many images in a very short space of time. I was somewhat overwhelmed going through the results. I'm glad you like it.
I had the advantage of starting photography before there was such a thing as auto exposure or autofocus. As amazing as these technical advances were, they didn't make anyone a better photographer. Quite the opposite. They made us lazy. It is only going back to manual methods that we gain true understanding of what we are doing or at least what our camera is doing.
In searching on YouTube for a music video to accompany this post I came across a great video by James Ppsys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH9VBrx3rnY discussing the myth of overexposure. It's a good reminder that we need to be aware of what our camera's exposure choices are doing and how we might want to deviate from those norms. I look forward to your next overexposure.
Cool idea here - I used to chronically underexpose, for years, and always boosted things in post because I liked things to be contrasty, and I wasn't too far out from studying art history so I was always looking to tease out chiaroscuro in my compositions. I also think I didn't know then the "correct" way a histogram should look and maybe my art was purer then by not knowing.
I sometimes wonder if our knowledge doesn't get in our way. It's like I have to forget everything I know in order to free myself of all of my self imposed constraints. I suppose learning anything is a circular process. We learn something and then apply it and then we get better at doing that thing through practice but then we get into a habit of doing it that way and our work stagnates. Then after some time passes, we come back around and break the rule and we progress to the next level with a little more understanding. Knowledge and understanding. Not the same thing. We are like birds catching updrafts slowly rising and circling around our craft, learning, forgetting, learning anew. How high we will go is unknown. But if we can enjoy the process, the journey will always be worthwhile.
This approach applies across all fields of learning - analogies from art are brilliant at illuminating the path of authentic learning - so refreshing in a world that regularly trades the search for truth for $$
I delete all overexposed photos without thinking once. This is a great idea, John.
Have camera, will experiment. Cheers from Brazil.
A new vista opens in the land of overexposure.
If I were going to time travel back to 1899 when your house was built, I would want to go through this process of overexposure. It would be a transformation in seeing. Congrats on the anniversary of your home!
Time travel combined with pencil sketch vision? What a mind blast!
Experimenting with exposure, overexposure, more light gets in, gives the photos a washed out look, as if the images have been hand-drawn by a mechanical pencil. When, in reality, it is all digital. The Human effort is less than the machine. So, why should it matter, you say?
It might or might not, depending on your views, your ideas on Art. The question in Art is whether it matters how the effect is made as long as the final result is there to see? To communicate a feeling, an emotion. Does the Method alter the final result? I do not have the final answer to those questions, but I do have an opinion, but not as a professional, only as a viewer.
Thanks for your comment Perry. I welcome you to express your opinions freely here.
I disagree with the premise that the effort from the machine outstrips human effort. Machines do things effortlessly, at least that is, if you disregard the energy drawn from the camera's internal battery. Energy consumption aside, it doesn't take any effort for the machine to do what it does. Mechanical cameras didn't even need that. They just worked. On the other hand, it takes a modicum of effort (getting out of the car, walking over to the edge of the pond, crouching down, standing up, moving around, looking for the best viewpoint and let us not diminish the act of pressing the shutter) plus a lifetime of experience (knowing where to stand, where to point, what to include and exclude, how to operate the controls and override the machine's preset operations) to produce results worth posting and talking about.
If you are comparing the effort of mechanical drawing to digital photography, then yes, far less effort in the latter than the draftsman with graphite in hand, but still more than the machine. That the machine is electronic and the results are digital and instantaneous does not matter if the goal is to produce a digital representation of the scene in front of the photographer. This is just the nature of the medium. Good luck getting a digital image from pencil and paper.
As for Art with a capital A, I doubt it is Art, but that is not for me to say in any case. Some may think it is. Many wouldn't. Popular opinion is not why I stand at the side of the road with cars speeding past. Creating Art is nowhere on my list of motivations. I am motivated by my craft, the craft of photography, by my desire to spend time in nature dong something I love, to follow my attention (my bliss if you will) to where it leads me, which is most often to the discovery and exaltation of beauty in nature. I wish only to spend time in this pursuit and to occasionally share my efforts, and believe me, they are effortful, with anyone and everyone who cares to give me their attention for a few seconds. Why do I do this? Because it's fun. Because it's engaging. Because making pictures has become to me like breathing. It's what I do. It's who I am.
There is no need to come up with an answer to your question, which I understand it correctly, I will paraphrase as, "Do the ends justify the means?" This question misses the point here. The ends are not nearly as important here as the methodology. The methodology here is digital photography. It is no better or worse than pencil drawing. They are two different forms of expression. You may be confused by the similarity of outcomes, but that is just illusion. They are entirely different.
To my way of thinking, photography (digital or otherwise) is the perfect blend of art and science. Of calculated and spontaneous. Of realistic and imaginative. Of thinking and feeling. There is infinite variety within these spectrums, allowing photographers to express themselves.
Rumi said, "Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
Photography is how I kneel and kiss the ground.
I was referring only to the use of the machine post-photo taking, not to the human effort and eye in preparing and taking the photo. The whole qurstion of what is art is not easy to answer, especially today, where more tech is present.
I'm not sure I understand this. My camera does nothing without me. I have old ones, my Brownie Bullet camera for instance, which have done nothing but sit on a shelf for years. And what is all this talk of Art? Why does this question always come up? What difference does it make if it is art or not? What is this preoccupation, this obsession with art? I don't get it.
Not an obsession. Just a comment, an observation on my part. I have a different way of seeing the world, this much is clear, and will not comment further. Take care, John.🕊🦜
Love these black and white images John, especially the last one which is my favourite. The use of overexposure has worked really well and you have created some lovely sketchbook type images which I think resemble pencil drawings. They certainly show up all the textures to good effect.
Thank you Gill, and thank you for picking the last image as your favourite. That's the one I like best too, mostly because I like the composition and the post processing on that one is pretty good, but not quite as good as it could be. When it comes down to it, the technique isn't as important as the subject matter. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. Now that I understand the technique a little better, I hope to apply it again in the future to suitable subject matter. Another bow in my photographic quiver.
1) Congrats on the house! Summer solstice seems like the perfect day to embark upon a 38-year-and-counting journey together.
2) I love your second photo the most (the one that is in portrait orientation as opposed to landscape) It’s beautifully ethereal. T
I’d say the result of your experimenting turned out quite well.
3) I used to have so many overexposed photos when I first started taking an interest in photography. But it wasn’t on purpose. It was because I was shooting automatically, as I did not yet understand how to shoot manually. When I finally learned, I still sometimes had overexposed pictures, but eventually, when I did, it was intended. Perhaps this weekend, inspired by your shots, I will experiment a little myself with the exposure setting on my Nikon.
Thank You Tania. It did seem to be a portent of things to come. A full moon too. Just ike now.
I love that you picked that one. It is the least processed of the bunch and the one closest to the view in the camera. It was difficult to pick examples from all of the shots I made. I got quite excited doing this and shot many images in a very short space of time. I was somewhat overwhelmed going through the results. I'm glad you like it.
I had the advantage of starting photography before there was such a thing as auto exposure or autofocus. As amazing as these technical advances were, they didn't make anyone a better photographer. Quite the opposite. They made us lazy. It is only going back to manual methods that we gain true understanding of what we are doing or at least what our camera is doing.
In searching on YouTube for a music video to accompany this post I came across a great video by James Ppsys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH9VBrx3rnY discussing the myth of overexposure. It's a good reminder that we need to be aware of what our camera's exposure choices are doing and how we might want to deviate from those norms. I look forward to your next overexposure.
Thank you for the link… very interesting and helpful with inspiration on making other choices in how I edit my photos. Great video!
Cool idea here - I used to chronically underexpose, for years, and always boosted things in post because I liked things to be contrasty, and I wasn't too far out from studying art history so I was always looking to tease out chiaroscuro in my compositions. I also think I didn't know then the "correct" way a histogram should look and maybe my art was purer then by not knowing.
I sometimes wonder if our knowledge doesn't get in our way. It's like I have to forget everything I know in order to free myself of all of my self imposed constraints. I suppose learning anything is a circular process. We learn something and then apply it and then we get better at doing that thing through practice but then we get into a habit of doing it that way and our work stagnates. Then after some time passes, we come back around and break the rule and we progress to the next level with a little more understanding. Knowledge and understanding. Not the same thing. We are like birds catching updrafts slowly rising and circling around our craft, learning, forgetting, learning anew. How high we will go is unknown. But if we can enjoy the process, the journey will always be worthwhile.
This approach applies across all fields of learning - analogies from art are brilliant at illuminating the path of authentic learning - so refreshing in a world that regularly trades the search for truth for $$
Very cool! It does look like a graphite drawing.