The essence of photography

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Staxxx said:
Very nice photos Ajay. What post processing did you use? Some of the colours are very saturated and really add pop to the photographs. Thanks.
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simla #12: Lens correction, noise reduction (ISO 800). Skyline was originally white. Changed it to pale orange by changing the color temp in iPhotos.

simla #7-11: Lens correction, noise reduction, conversion to b&w.

simla #6: Lens correction, noise reduction. Changed sky line to pale blue by changing color temp in iPhotos.

simla #1-5: Lens correction, noise reduction. Boosted sharpness and saturation. I feel I messed up these pics by over processing (sharpening and saturating) them.

Most of the pics were shot in low light on Monday evening and Tuesday morning. I had to take a conscious decision about boosting the ISO or shooting at slower shutter speeds/wider apertures. With a wide angle lens I normally shoot in the f/8-f/11 focal range. Even with a wide angle lens and a monopod, I prefer to shoot at shutter speeds faster than 1/100. In retrospect I regret boosting the ISO. The ISO 800 shots could have been managed at 400. The ISO 400 shots could have been managed at 200. On Monday evening I did not realize that active D-Lighting was set to Normal (from an earlier session in Chandigarh). Considering the conditions in Simla I should have remembered to switch off the D-Lighting.
 
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More about the Simla photo sessions.

I have been having niggling doubts ever since I viewed the Simla pics on my computer screen. I could not pinpoint it but I felt something was wrong somewhere. I was reasonably confident that technically I had done a good job. Yet the final exposures seemed to be darker or lighter than I had intended them to be. Some of the pics had blown out highlights. Others had areas of dark shadows which should not have been there. My initial reaction was that the pics were unsatisfactory because

they were shot at ISO 400/800
I had forgotten to switch off the active D-lighting
the light of the late evening and early morning was not very conducive to photography

All these factors did have a bearing on the final results, but they could not have caused the inexplicable over and under exposures. The actual reason (fairly obvious) finally dawned on me when I took a look at the EXIF data. I always fix the exposure and other settings manually before taking a pic. Most of the time the EV reading is 0 or one stop +/-. Yet the Simla pics showed erratic EV ratings varying from -2.7 to +2 EV!

Yesterday I shot several pics with -0.3 and +0.3 settings on all the P,S,A,M modes. When I viewed the exif data I found that my D700 had incorrectly exposed most of the pics at very different EV settings. I was relieved that I had solved the mystery. And distressed that there was something wrong with the camera. Today morning I reset the camera to its original factory settings (on D700 press the EV and Qual buttons together, both of which are identified by green spots) and went out to shoot some pics. Fortunately the problem was solved and all the pics which I shot reflected the same EV values as the ones I had selected. None of the pics required even the slightest post processing, except for lens correction :)
 
Good that it was fixed. I rather liked the unusual look of those picture, hence the initial question :) but of course, you must have perfect control over your equipment !
 
Staxxx said:
Good that it was fixed. I rather liked the unusual look of those picture, hence the initial question :) but of course, you must have perfect control over your equipment !
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Perfect control and understanding of your camera and lens is essential. Most of the time I prefer not to process or crop the photo at all. I believe that your initial exposure should be perfect and should not require any doctoring, except for lens correction, which is required for certain lenses in order to control varying degrees of barrel distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting. There is nothing wrong with playing around with Photoshop tools once in a while. But one should not start depending on post processing to cover up the flaws of the actual exposure. In any case the flaws CANNOT be covered up. Processing only makes them more obvious to a viewer who is able to separate the natural from the unnatural. It is interesting to surf through the work been done by the top pros in India. Check out their websites. Some of the work is top notch. But a lot of it is over processed garbage.
 
jls001 said:
Simla is one place still on my must-go-to list. Nice pic, btw. Early morning, I guess?
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Yes. I left my hotel on the Mall at 5 in the morning. The walk towards Scandal Point and Ridge was choc-a-block full of memories. This was the road leading from my school to my home which I walked twice a day from 1967-1977!

By 6 am the light was good enough to begin shooting pics of Simla's famous landmarks. Landmarks which have probably been captured by hundreds of thousands of cameras in the past! My ambition: To shoot better pics of the Mall and the Ridge than any I have ever seen before. Needless to say I failed! Because my camera software had got s...... up at some point of time and it was giving wrong exposures. Because I forgot to switch off the active D-lighting function. Because the lens I was using was capable of doing a good job, but not a great job. But most of all because I was still a rookie with so much more to learn.

I know that I will learn. On my own. I will borrow the title of my favorite Van Morrison album to explain what I want to do: No guru's, no method, no teacher :)

Before I leave for Goa I would like to go back for a couple of days and take pics of all the places in Simla which hold precious memories of my childhood. But for that I need a AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED. Nothing else will suffice!
 
In recent times I have been looking at a lot of photos by amateurs, pros and old masters. Once in a while I come across something which I really like. Today morning I discovered the Flickr photo stream of a 23 year old Russian girl. I believe that she is an amazing photographer. Not just a photographer but also a good artist. Her technique, composition and processing skills are outstanding. But beyond these qualities (which can be acquired through hard work and dedication) there is a passionate, individualistic and creative streak which one rarely finds in the present day world. Least of all in a 23 year old girl or boy.

Vallery Reshetnikova in WEB
 
One thing that most of the photographers miss is creating photographs. Everyone gets in the mad race of clicking photographs.

In my opinion, everyone seriously interested in photography should do these-
Use a view camera and appreciate the compositions on the upside down ground glass. It's gives a fresh perspective of seeing things.
Try to understand the various components in a photograph. There's a book titled 'Drawing on the right side of the brain' by Betty Edwards. It's a book about sketchy but it is very useful for photographers too.
Browse the essays on the Luminous Landscapes website.

For those really keen in 'creating' photographs, I'll post some more information after sometime.
 
Indeed Shimla is a great hill station. The best time to visit is January because one can hopefully get to see a lot of snowfall and needless to say climate is too good.

If someone wants to visit Shimla right away then i can arrange a free basic stay.

V.

jls001 said:
Simla is one place still on my must-go-to list.
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Education may or may not teach us anything else but it does teach us how to lie. To dissemble. To hide our real nature behind a mask. The good folks who have not had the 'benefit' of a school or college education are clueless about the wiles and guiles of the educated city folks. They can't hide their thoughts and emotions behind a bland and benevolent mask as we can. A bland and benevolent mask which often hides the persona of Mac The Knife. As the song goes - Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear/And he shows them pearly white/Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear/And he keeps it out of sight.

Celebrities and politicians prefer to hide behind their designer dark glasses in public. Because a perceptive photographer would be able to slice through their mask and reveal their interior lives.The young and the poor have nothing to hide. They don't wear dark glasses and their eyes reflect all their dreams, hopes and private terrors. Which is why it is a joy to photograph them. An experienced hunter empties his mind of all superfluous thoughts before he pulls the trigger. An experienced photographer should be capable of freezing time and space into a single, never to be repeated, moment before he presses the shutter.
 
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Dziga Vertov's "Man With A Movie Camera" is one of the best (perhaps the best) film of the twentieth century. It was made in 1929. Hardly any film which came later can compare with the sheer exhilaration, excitement and sense of adventure of Vertov's 'experimentation'.

"The film Man with a Movie Camera represents
AN EXPERIMENTATION IN THE CINEMATIC COMMUNICATION
Of visual phenomena
WITHOUT THE USE OF INTERTITLES
(a film without intertitles)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF A SCENARIO
(a film without a scenario)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF THEATRE
(a film without actors, without sets, etc.)
This new experimentation work by Kino-Eye is directed towards the creation of an authentically international absolute language of cinema ABSOLUTE KINOGRAPHY on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature."
-Dziga Vertov

Man With A Movie Camera was a silent film. Many musicians and orchestras have been inspired to create music for the striking imagery of this film.

The man with the Movie Camera - YouTube
 
The whole film is riveting and is much longer of course. It is Kino Pravda - truth cinema. Many persons, young and old, are not aware how much the Russian Contructivists (of a little earlier period) and the Bauhaus has shaped our current perception of design. And there is no question that today our lives are surrounded by design.
Another film which is worth seeing for its imagery is Vampyr (1932).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8rSE-VzSts&feature=related
 
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ajay124 said:
In recent times I have been looking at a lot of photos by amateurs, pros and old masters. Once in a while I come across something which I really like. Today morning I discovered the Flickr photo stream of a 23 year old Russian girl. I believe that she is an amazing photographer. Not just a photographer but also a good artist. Her technique, composition and processing skills are outstanding. But beyond these qualities (which can be acquired through hard work and dedication) there is a passionate, individualistic and creative streak which one rarely finds in the present day world. Least of all in a 23 year old girl or boy.

Vallery Reshetnikova in WEB
Click to expand...
ajay, thanks for sharing the link. Thats some really good work there. I wonder if there's post processing involved.
 
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