Since I got my first digital camera I stopped taking photos to print shops (it was so expensive!). Now, looking back, it was almost 20 years ago. “Time flies like an arrow”, we are used to say.
Yesterday I entered a print shop (wearing a FFP2 mask, because I was ashamed like I was entering a red-light cinema) and ordered 60 printed photos from digital files. Last night I wasn’t able to sleep, my dreams were all about those 60 chosen photos and the print shop.
I got my photos developed today and after dinner I showed them to my family. My wife is super-enthusiastic (I trust her, but I suppose it’s mainly the fascination of printed paper, I suppose). But what I wanted even more of my wife’s opinion was a point of view from a younger generation: my oldest son. He went rapidly through all the 60 photos pack saying nothing. At one point he paused when looking at this photo and I asked him what he thought about it.
The sky is white.
He said.
The sky is white because it was white in that hazy, cold and cloudy day. Is that a bad thing?
I asked.
No, absolutely. Usually, you photographers [my son knows very well that I’m not a photographer, but in that moment he was categorizing, in some abstract way] try to fake the reality, while we try to mimic it [he is a 3D environment modeler].
If you are interested I can lend you a book about the history of photography.
He added.
Thank you, I’d love to read it.
I don’t want to re-open a flame about faking reality with photo editing software or about artificial intelligence. It would be another boring discussion. And, sometimes I also love to play at Play Raw and make blue, dramatic, skies. My son words made me think…
Play with this image while keeping the original white sky, or - if you can’t resist - draw your own over saturated and dramatically expressive interpretation. Just, have fun.
I have a new book to read in the meanwhile, and I’m sure I’ll love it.
I love prints… I only have a very cheap Canon printer, but it still maks a very nice print on good glossy paper. Just being able to handle it is something different to looking at a screen.
I didn’t mean that as criticism; I think the crop simply changes the focus. With the tighter crop, as you and @lightlover demonstrated, the people (how they stand, how they check out the goods) and the colourful goods themselves get more emphasis; with the original one, the contrast between the elegant buildings and the mundane world of the market is underlined. I think both are valid interpretations, depending on where you want to lead the eyes of the audience.
everything fine, i didnt take it as a critism. And you were right, i was focussed on a solution for the sky and neclected the beautiful buildings by that.
P1010153.jpg.out.pp3 (29.9 KB)
Dehazed the tile flooring, emphasized colors in buildings, grad-vignette and spot to tame the overcasty (what sky?). Also, no direct sunlight clues.
The sky has always been a problem for photographers. Speaking for myself, I usually consider it more of a light source than part of the scene or place that I’m interested in. I have my own rules about how to deal with the sky-light-source when it’s time to process the image. I’ll darken a sky that’s too bright. There’s nothing fake about that. If I were to add clouds from another photo, that would be a type of deception. I can only think of one time that I created an exception to my own rule. I had a nice image of trees lit by sunrise (below). A brightly-colored candy wrapper was in the grass. It was distracting, so I cloned some nearby grass and concealed the wrapper. Not the end of the world.