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Bruce Sawle quoted "master photographer Peter Lik," who wrote about his image:
This shot has eluded me my entire photographic career. I have spent years trying to perfect this image, there are so many variables you don't even think about. It's a really touchy image, but when it all lines up, the result is out of this world… literally. I have drawers full of transparencies that I have shot over decades that just didn't cut it. I tried all the variables--different lenses, exposures, compositions, times, then much to my frustration the results back from the lab were always disappointing.
The remoteness of Kodachrome Basin in Utah was an obvious choice to finally nail this elusive image; remote, clean air, and a selection of cliff tops to shoot from. I had been watching the phase of the moon and tonight the moon was close to full. I had a specific composition in my mind and I searched for days to line up this classic tree with the moon. Tonight I hope it all comes together. It was a long night but I knew at some point my perseverance would be rewarded.
I was white-knuckled as I set up the mammoth lens, filling the viewfinder with this balanced scene, the tree framed amongst the rocks and the low lying clouds added to the tension… this had to work. The desert silence was stunning, my pulse raced, I could hear the blood running through my veins. Then, I saw the horizon starting to glow. The golden sphere slowly rose in front of me. I was totally stunned. I couldn't believe it. So connected to this lunar giant that I was trembling. Such an impact on my life. I pressed the shutter, a feeling I'll never forget. The moon, tree, and earth.
I hope to share with you this amazing connection I had on this special evening with the moon, that affects our lives. It certainly affected mine.
Peter Lik
Master Photographer – AIPP, PPA; FBIPP, FRPS
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In astronomical terms, it is, uh, a "challenge" to get front light from the sun to shine on the moon when the sunrise or sunset is behind the moon. As we all know from the well-known Ansel story about shooting the "Moonrise..." image or from our own attempts to photograph it at night, the moon at night is very bright subject. An exposure that retains some light in the night sky will result in a completely blown out moon, and an exposure that retains vivid detail in the moon itself will render the rest of a night scene essentially nearly or completely black. Feel free to test this yourself by shooting a nicely exposed photograph of the full moon that also includes pinpoint stars... and has no noise. I've also found that it is, ahem, tremendously difficult to get the moon to be in front of the clouds! ;-)
If anyone has figured out how to defy these realities in single exposures of the full moon, yours is a workshop that I'll pay for!
Just sayin' ;-)
What follows is not a comment on the image shown here, but on a more general issue that it brings up.
I'm fascinated and somewhat disturbed when photographers who produce images that are compelling and that affect viewers feel the need to answer untruthfully about their methods when asked, or who feel the need to claim as truth things that cannot possibly be truth about their work and their working methods. It is especially ironic that this, to be blunt, lie is often offered to strengthen their claim to honesty in their work!
Photographers who produce excellent work know without a shadow of a doubt that excellent photography virtually always involves skillful and expressive work in post, whether that post is film-based or digital or some combination of the two. (It also involves a lot of "processing" at the time of exposure, but that is a topic I'll leave alone for now.)
I was recently at a talk where a photographer presented some images and spoke about them (Lik was not the photographer in this story.) A few that I felt were most compelling and interesting obviously made use of certain standard post-processing techniques that I immediately recognized, including adjustments to curves, saturation, color balance, the burning down of some extraneous elements, and so forth. This was all done to very good effect and I felt that it was entirely appropriate for the specific photographs and that it was done with aesthetic sensitivity and technical skill. To put it simply, I liked the photographs.
At the end of the talk a person in the audience asked the photographer about the role post-processing techniques played in the creation of the work. It was not a hostile question at all, and the person asking clearly liked the photographs and the photographer. I was stunned when the photographer replied that the vast majority of the photographs (I believe the figure claimed was either 90% or 95%) were presented "just as they came from the camera" without any significant work in post because (to closely paraphrase) "I like to get it right in the camera" and "I'd rather make photographs than work at my computer."
Given that virtually all of us and virtually all significant photographers of the past century and a half do rely or have relied on what must be considered "manipulation" of images of the subject, I don't think we do ourselves or photography (or other photographers) any favors by continuing to persist in the tall tale of "no manipulation."
When asked whether you "manipulate" or post process images (as opposed to just "capturing and presenting them"), I believe that the photographer has essentially three choices:
1. Refuse to discuss it - Stand on (what might appear to be) principle and say something like, "It doesn't matter how I create my photographs. What matters is what they look like and how they affect you - in other words, their effectiveness as compelling visual objects." This is a fair reply I think, though it wouldn't be mine. It also could seem to be a bit evasive...
2. Be honest - My answer might be something like this. "Yes. No photograph is a 'capture' of objective reality. The camera does not see the way that we do. A photograph can convey the subjective reality that the photographer experienced. In some of my photographs I do little post-processing and in others I do quite a bit. For example..." Here is a good place to quote Ansel regarding the negative (raw file?) being the score and the print being the performance.
3. Lie - "My photographs are accurate and objective "captures" of reality exactly as it was and you would have seen exactly this if you had been there with me."
Imagining that producing a great photograph is actually just a matter of "capturing" the right subject and then presenting it "unaltered" is no less of a lie than imaging that a great chef simply picks stuff up at the best grocery store and presents it unaltered. "My dishes are pure and unaltered from what nature provided. All you must do is search out the perfect ingredients and assemble them together with the consummate skill that only I possess."
Right...
Remember, this is not about Lik. It is about photography as a genre.
Dan
Edited on Jan 29, 2012 at 03:41 PM · View previous versions
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