Just a couple other thoughts about this remarkable composition... I think that Mark is being quite modest in calling this "As Found" (and of course, attempting to derail any thoughts that he might have arranged anything). Frankly, I wouldn't care if he had: Photography is often in seeing the possibilities and presenting things (like people at a wedding, for example) at their best. <derail>Anyone who has photographed people professionally knows that if you do it passively - photojournalist style - you aren't going to get the best results. Small things like the amount and direction a head is tilted, or providing something better to do with the clasped hands (fig leafs) that people often automatically assume when a camera is pointed at them, these things are "directorial" with the goal of presenting a better (and, counter-intuitively, often a more natural-looking photograph). Most still life images painted the masters was probably not "as found" and I doubt that we care or give them bonus points for never touching or adjusting anything within the composition.
Secondly, a composition on the ground, like this one, still did not automatically create a good image. The photographer still had choices to make. Even if one chooses to say that the "directly overhead" point of view was a "no-brainer" there were choices that the photographer had to make on how much of the scene to include or crop out. He also has the choice of making it a horizontal or vertical composition (or square, even). And he has the freedom to orient the camera in any one of 360 degrees while pointing down. It would be an interesting experiment to take a group of photographers and (without them seeing the others had done) assign them to photograph this same patch of ground. I doubt that any two of them are going to come away with the exact same image of the scene. Thirdly, after Tim Bray's comments I went back and looked at the image again. I can see that the saturation might have been bumped a little but I don't see this as a problem. It does not look unnatural to me, although I realize that this is subjective and different photographers may draw the line in different places. I normally look at the "white" areas in an image to judge if the color cast is off in any direction and the whites do not appear to have any sort of greenish cast to my eyes. In short, I really, really like everything about this image and I'm quite glad that Mark's eyes were open to the possibility when it presented itself. On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 7:41 AM, Ann Sanfedele <[email protected]> wrote: > fortunately it wasnt -exactly- under your feet :-) > > That's one of those little scenes that no one is going to believe > you didn't create by moving the leaf into just the right place.. > "... not that there's anything wrong with that.." > > ann > > > On 10/13/2014 19:20, Mark C wrote: >> >> http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/index.php/as-found >> >> You never know what is going to be right under your feet. >> >> Mark >> >> --- >> This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus >> protection is active. >> http://www.avast.com >> >> > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- Photographers must learn not to be ashamed to have their photographs look like photographs. ~ Alfred Stieglitz -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
