Smokies Light

On all of my previous blog incarnations I've avoided discussing the "internals" behind the imagery I post, both in terms of camera exposure settings and Photoshop post-processing, reasoning that all that techie talk distracts and detracts from the imagery itself and whatever "it" is that I'm attempting to convey to the viewer. I've always viewed my work as art and not photography, and to me whatever "it" is that makes people go to art galleries, gawk a few moments at paintings, and come away perhaps a little bit uplifted and enlightened..well that has been the goal with my work also.

But, since the viewership now is extremely small, and because this stuff is more interesting than doing what I should be doing at work, this week I'll be posting a few pics but also describe in more detail what goes on behind the scenes, both in the field and back at the desk with Photoshop. So if you're reading this post, consider yourself enrolled in the Smokies Light School of Art, and you didn't even have to send me a drawing to see if you qualify for admission.

The image above was taken standing on a boulder in the middle of the river in the Greenbrier section of the Park last Saturday, mid-morning well after the sun was up and very hot. In most cases I apply some kind of artistic filter in Photoshop to the "normal" image out of the camera. The image above has the watercolor filter applied. The normal image is taken in RAW mode, a digital negative, then processed in Photoshop. Processed means setting the white-balance in the raw-image converter, then usually toning down the bright areas a little with the shadow/highlight tool, then sharpening. Usually this is all I do to get the normal image, but if I do miss the exposure in the camera, I'm not beyond adjusting it with levels in Photoshop, but this is somewhat rare. Usually I miss the exposure if I'm in a hurry trying to capture a scene that will disappear quickly such as with shooting wildlife. I'll post an example of this later. The problem with the normal image, at least for me, is that I find them extremely boring. If it weren't for the artistic interpretation allowed by Photoshop I probably wouldn't even take pictures. Here is the same image above with just the normal processing applied. Boooring. I have been accused of attempting to hide photography mistakes with artistic filters. While that's rarely the case, I see nothing wrong with it. It's not hiding; it just making an otherwise flawed image visually interesting. For me the camera is just a tool to record data which can later be manipulated to something that pleases me artistically. Sometimes it requires no manipulation to please me, so then I guess that would be photography rather than art. Well, that's enough for the first day of class. Below is the same image with a set of filters applied to create a dry brush oil painting on canvas. I find both the one above and below to be more visually appealing than the normal one, but maybe that's just me.