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Seascape
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Right then, it’s about time I posted an image here, so here’s my first one. Thouhgt I might as well start with one that’s been quite controversial for me. This is the image that ultimately convinced me it was time to leave East Cork Camera Group, of which I had been a member of for about two years and won their Photographer of the Year competition in my second year there.
This image was specifically shot for one of the clubs monthly themed competitions, and the theme that month was “Seascape”. At the time, the club also held a calendar competition and digital manipulation was forbidden for any entries into the calendar competition but not for entries into the other monthly competition like the “Seascape” one. I figured that in order to win this it had to be a very different image – not one of waves crashing over rocks or the sun setting over the horizon – there would be lots of those anyway. So I decided to try something different. I was going to go for a simple abstract type image. A few weeks before this I had just acquired a 10D camera, so decided to shoot this digitally (after all, there was nothing in the rules that said I couldn’t). So, off I went and took about 60 or so shots looking out to sea.
I came home and reviewed the images looking for one which I felt had a suitable mix of wave and cloud in it, brought it into PS, cropped the top and bottom, bumped up the saturation a bit and added motion blur to it. The motion blur was the most important element for me – initially, I had planned to shoot this on slide, adding the motion blur by panning the camera. Anyway, this is the image I came up with and duly entered in the competition:
To cut a long story short, the judge awarded it first place, saying it jumped out at him as soon as he saw it, giving him goosebumps and that it was a clear winner right from the start! As with the third and second placed images, he asked me how I had taken it. I started to explain that this could have been done using film by panning or digitally and adding the blur afterwards. I hadn’t even finished what I was saying when he interjected and said that if it was done digitally, then he was binning it!!! He asked me again how I had taken it. Given what he had just said, I refused to tell him. A standoff ensued with him demanding that I tell him how it was taken. When I persisted in refusing to tell him, he dumped it anyway and moved the third and second placed images into second and first, in spite of the fact that both of these had also been digitally altered and there was nothing in the rules forbidding alteration.
The following week I received a letter from the committee asking me to apologise to the judge, the committee and the members for my behaviour! When I didn’t comply, my membership was suspended. Needless to say, I didn’t renew my membership at the end of that year!
– Thorsten.
Ahhhh, this is the famous shot. I was shocked when i heard that story a while back Thorsten. What an amazing shot. Wouldn’t look out of place
in a Gallery. Love it.FWIW, I also think that’s a nice image, and one that would obviously stand out given the propensity of most others to take the ‘predictable’ shots you mentioned given such a topic.
Fair play to you! Everyone sees things differently, but it’d be a bit silly banning a photo (modified or not) just because it was taken by someone with different eyes, a different camera, with light projected onto different light-sensitive surfaces etc!
I can look at that for longer than most ‘cliche’ seascape pics anyway!
SteveD wrote:
IMO this level of manipulation makes the image lose the status of a ‘photograph,’ and becomes ‘digital art.’ Therefore I can understand the judges decision.
But the judge’s issue was how the image was shot originally, no? Just because it wasn’t shot on film, like the others, which were then modified digitally anyway, he binned it. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Anyway, if you could’ve shot the same original image, panning or not, on film… then who cares? How much digital tom-foolery is too much? Why does there have to be a line between ‘photography’ and ‘digital art’ anyway? Isn’t it all just about creating and/or capturing a moment? :-) Some of the best ‘photographs’ I’ve seen have been played with for hours in post-production. Others have come straight out of a digital camera. Still others have been shot on grainy throw-away single-use film cameras in the middle of the night at a U2 gig ;-)
Sorry folks, let’s not start a flame war on my first night!
[chandler]can open, worms everywhere![/chandler] :lol:
I think it’s a terrific shot, Thorsten, really memorable.
To hell with the fuddie duddies and fair play for sticking to your guns.Mick451 wrote:
I think it’s a terrific shot, Thorsten, really memorable.
To hell with the fuddie duddies and fair play for sticking to your guns.I would say it is a nice manipulation, but an average shot.
I’ll stay out of the ethitical debate on this one.. shot wise I really like it. Great colours and lines. I could easily imagine this printed out big on stretch canvas and hung on a wall.
Thorsten I think it is a cracking shot! I don’t understand the judge’s attitude because I thought you said manipulation was allowed for the seascape competition?
It’s a very stylish picture and I fully agree with others who said they could imagine it printed big and hanging in a gallery. Love the way it breaks sky, sea and sand down into such basic – but still intstantly recognisable – abstract forms. The clouds and the bright area where the wave is breaking work really well and make the picture far more effective than having unbroken horzintal lines all the way across.
To be kind to the judge, I’d be even more impressed if this had been shot on film or achieved without digital manipulation. For me, a distinguishable line does exist between “photographs” and “manips”. In one sense one could argue that the finished picture is all important – how an average viewer reacts to an image regardless of how it was created being the key factor in its success or otherwise. I can buy into that argument to some extent, but the fact that the camera club members take pictures themselves means they are not average viewers. As photographers, they are far more likely understand and appreciate the degree of skill/time/patience (and luck?) required to capture some shots “in camera” and opposed to “in photoshop” or “in illustrator” or whatever where nearly anything is possible and the only limit is your imagination. There are plenty of amazing fantasy art pictures created without using a camera at all – made entirely within programs such as photoshop or illustrator. Maybe even more amazing than the usual “warrior princess” type fantasy pictures are the computer programs that can generate, from scratch, very realistic landscapes with lakes, mountains, skies etc.
In part, I suspect my own bias comes from always trying to get what I want at the picture-taking stage. I hate it when I hear people say: “Oh, there’s a telephone pole in the way, but don’t worry I’ll photoshop it out later.” I’ll always walk around so the post is no longer in the way before taking the shot. For me there is far more personal satisfaction involved when I do manage to get the exposure, lighting, colour balance, composition etc as I wanted, and as amateur this matters far more to me than what other viewers might think. Apart from anything else, I’m often bowled over by the incredible quality that digital cameras are capable of turning out when shots are properly exposed (and how quickly quality goes south when poorly exposed).
All that said, I think the judge was very unfair to you in this case. To award your picture first place, only to subseqently reverse this decision on the basis of how you created it, especially when the other pictures were also digitally altered, is clearly unacceptable.
I really like the image though it is not particularly original. I can’t remember where but I have seen similar stuff before. I’m a bit confused as to how I feel about the manipulation. My gut feeling is that it oversteps what I would do if I was entering a “photographic” competition. I have no problems with it per say but in the context of the competition it seems to me to just go against the spirit of the thing whatever about the rules.
Like some others I would love to see how your result if it was done in camera. I doubt it would look like this. PS’s motion blur has always been one of my least favoured and “false” filters.
I do agree that the judges and the committee didn’t handle it very well. As someone who has directed and acted in many plays on the festival circuit I have long gone past caring what an individual judge thinks. It is only one person’s opinion. I have been on both sides of the winning and losing ladder and neither makes me feel particularly different about my work. The only photographic competitions that mean anything to me is if they have a prize like a 5D or an L lens. The rest have too much of an ego massageing element for my liking ;-)
Nice and interesting abstract picture. I like it.
It will be maybe nicer if you try the same with sunset colours….
(We have abstract section).Some fascinating feedback here, I really appreciate it. It’s interesting to see the different viewpoints. I think att his stage some comments of my own are warranted – not to defend the image or my actions but more as observations and my reflections on some of the comments made.
Let me say first that I was quite prepared to come last in that particular competition. I showed the image to someone before the competition and siad to them that I would either get zero marks or come first! I don’t normally do that level of manipulation to my images, as people who know me will testify. However, on this occassion I deliberately set out to push the boundaries a little to see where it got me. The question has been asked why I didn’t just pan the iamge and create it in the camera and it’s a very valid question. The simple answer is that the exposure time would have been far too short for the level of blur I wanted and I do not possess any neutral density filters to enable me to lengthen the exposure time appreciably (the polariser on it’s own was not enough). I do have a tripod head which is capable of being panned at a steady speed in one axis only, so that wasn’t a problem. But, supposing the final result would have been the same, would it have mattered that it was created in camera or in post-processing? And if so, why? Is it not the final image that counts, not how you created it? I thouroughly agree with the distinction between a photograph and an illustration – much of todays digital images are essentially illustrations derived from photographs. But at what point does one cross the line from photograph to illustration? Is it when you’ve created something that couldn’t possibly have been created in the camera or darkroom or is it before that?
I really like SteveD’s images – they have a lot of impact and I’d be more than happy to have one or two of them hanging on my wall at home. But are his images not “digital art” (to use his term) instead of photographs because the finished effect was not created in camera?
And SteveD says he can understand the judges decision! I have no problem with a judge disqualifying and image at any point during a competition (even after awarding an image first place) provided he’s acting in accordance with the rules and regulations laid down for the competition – it’s his right to do so. However, to dismiss an image on the basis that it was a digital image seems to be somewhat unprofessional to me. On this occassion the judge didn’t know how it was taken because he had to ask me. He was clearly unable to distinguis a digital image from a film image. When he inquired what film was used to take the second placed image I was astonished as it was a digital original (poorly) converted to monochrome (complete with JPEG artifacts!).
And I didn’t leave the club because of the judges decision but because I had been suspended and because I could see there was no future for me in the club anyway – constant debates about manipulation -v- enhancement and what was allowed and wasn’t and just a general unwillingness on the part of the committee to be progressive in any way.
I’m going to post another image in the abstract section which I would like contributors to this thread to have a look at and comment on. When I have a few comments I’ll provide some more background information myself, but for the moment I don’t want to influence the possible comments I may get.
– Thorsten.
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