Street market (Padua, Italy, 2022)

This file is licensed CC0.

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.

P1010153.RW2 (18.8 MB)

P1010153.RW2.xmp (8.4 KB)

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I gave it a shot with dt 4.2.1. I couldn’t decide what to try with the sky; I think it must have been overcast.


P1010153.RW2.xmp (8.4 KB)

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Has he read his own book?

:+1: :+1: :+1:
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.

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Am I imagining it or do I see a hint of blue in my edit. Well at least the sky is not white.

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Yes he did, and he liked it otherwise he wouldn’t have lent it to me.

Indeed the sky wasn’t completely white (except in my edit :wink: )

hmmm… is the sky really important for this pic?

P1010153.RW2.jpg.out.pp3 (14,4 KB)
RT 5.9 dev

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My version…

P1010153.RW2.xmp (17.5 KB)

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Warm tones and a better crop. Thank you.

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Thanks for posting
darktable 4.2.1


P1010153_03.RW2.xmp (41.9 KB)

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Hello,

Here is my version, I tried to put some colour in it while keeping the mood of a gloomy weather. I’m not sure about the result…


DT 4.3 & Sigmoid
P1010153.RW2.xmp (18.3 KB)
Greetings from Brussels,
Christian

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P1010153.RW2.xmp (12.6 KB)

My version with DT 4.2.1

And an alternative crop.

P1010153.RW2.xmp (12.6 KB)

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I think the sky is not important – but the buildings are a nice contrast to the street market, and they are more visible with the original crop.

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after checking again, i totally agree.

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.

It’s a PlayRaw. :slight_smile:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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It’s never the end of the world. It’s just photo-editing, nothing more. Thanks for sharing.

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