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Archive 2013 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

ckcarr
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p.6 #1 · p.6 #1 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

I think so. We definitely have different light, different coloring of the landscape too. Particularly the Colorado Plateau.

Not to say a barn at sunset is not beautiful in Illinois or upstate New York, but it's different.

The Photoshopped comment is the other side of the coin. Is it live or is it Memorex?

Jul 09, 2013 at 10:58 AM

Ben Horne
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p.6 #2 · p.6 #2 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

Here's another thing I was thinking about. It's not that technology has "ruined" landscape photography -- more so that it has lowered the bar for entry. Let's face it, we all sucked when we first started out, but that's not what we thought at the time. With landscape photography, it takes a lot of practice to get in your own zone, find your niche, and learn what it takes to capture effective images. Getting up before sunrise use to seem strange, but now it's the norm for me. Going on a solo trip seemed really odd, but now that too is routine. I learned the process in baby steps. It took time to learn when the good light was, and how best to capture it.

When I was starting out with a digital camera in hand, I didn't have all this knowledge about landscape photography, so I would go out and take some shots that were less than ideal -- then try to force them to be "epic" in processing. It didn't take long for me to realize that post processing was no substitute for good light.

In the days of film, there was a large learning curve for landscape photography, so there were far fewer photographers out there. Also, we didn't have forums like this or social media where people are compelled to share their photos almost immediately after capture. In the days of film, you would take a shot, then sit on it a while and maybe present it to a local club. By the time it made it to the wall, you might develop second thoughts and fall out of love. Instead of people sharing their truly best work, many people these days are compelled to share *everything*

Jul 09, 2013 at 11:07 AM

andyjaggy82
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p.6 #3 · p.6 #3 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

Yes, a few years ago I thought getting up at 4:00 am was nuts, now it's no big deal. Hiking alone in the dark..... that used to be pretty scary, now I am slowly starting to actually enjoy it, though I still prefer to have some company.

Jul 09, 2013 at 11:13 AM

Camperjim
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p.6 #4 · p.6 #4 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

I think there is another factor which is often overlooked. A high percentage of photographers seem to be males. A relatively high percentage of males have color vision impairment. The most common deficiency is a fairly severe red-green impairment with a frequency of about 8% in males and close to 0 in females. Lesser impairments are more common and may alter the way males process images.

Personally I don't see the correlation between laziness and overprocessing. I think many of the photographers who use lots of processing also get up early and stay up late and try to find the best possible locations and conditions.

Jul 09, 2013 at 11:38 AM

Phrasikleia
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p.6 #5 · p.6 #5 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

Ben Horne wrote:
Instead of people sharing their truly best work, many people these days are compelled to share *everything*

So true. Not necessarily because they resorted to desperate processing, though. I'm sure we all know people who catch a great sunset in a great location and then feel compelled to share what it looked like as a horizontal, as a vertical, from a few steps back, from 10 feet to the left, etc… And we've all seen plenty of examples of "I got skunked but I'm sharing it anyway because I drove a long way for this."

Camperjim wrote:
Personally I don't see the correlation between laziness and overprocessing. I think many of the photographers who use lots of processing also get up early and stay up late and try to find the best possible locations and conditions.

Yes, a lot of people who opt for really emphatic processing are just gilding the lily (as opposed to trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear). We keep hearing in this thread the rather myopic idea that "processing = correction": correcting shortcomings of either the photographer or the camera. It can do either, but above all it is a layer in the creative process, and like anything else, it can add to or detract from the final result.

Jul 09, 2013 at 12:45 PM

Dustin Gent
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p.6 #6 · p.6 #6 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

Ben Horne wrote:
Here's another thing I was thinking about. It's not that technology has "ruined" landscape photography -- more so that it has lowered the bar for entry. Let's face it, we all sucked when we first started out, but that's not what we thought at the time. With landscape photography, it takes a lot of practice to get in your own zone, find your niche, and learn what it takes to capture effective images. Getting up before sunrise use to seem strange, but now it's the norm for me. Going on a solo trip seemed really odd, but now that...Show more →

I totally agree.

I actually sold off my digital stuff last year and shot with film for 6 months. I gained even more appreciation for nature and soaked in my surroundings, because a lot of times I waited around for sometimes up to 50 minutes between frames, due to less than ideal conditions. Biggest reason I wanted to shoot film was to see if I could still get good results without the aid of an LCD screen or whatnot.... Whoa.. getting off topic lol

To me, post processing is just as important as the image. Yes, I try to do the best I can with comp, lighting, shutter, etc etc in camera, but every image needs some sort of work.

Here is a shot taken with an F5 and Reala 100 film. To be honest, this is probably the least amount of PP I have done on an image. Helps when it is scanned on a good scanner (Nikon 9000).

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ZBF1o_1a0bU/UKGtjaXVlrI/AAAAAAAAHR0/8Cg5N3xfp6o/s800/Lewis-Grass.jpg

Jul 09, 2013 at 01:37 PM

JustinSmith
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p.6 #7 · p.6 #7 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

andyjaggy82 wrote:
Maybe we just have more dramatic light here in the West...? High mountains, desserts, etc... I think we just have more opportunities for those types of dramatic scenes that people tend to think are over Photoshopped. Just a thought, no idea if that is true or not.
You know, I was thinking about this once... Here on the east coast, just about everything outside of the cities is heavily wooded. So in many places, you can't really see the sunset. Our coasts face east so it's much harder to see a sunset over the water, and people are much more likely to be awake for sunset than sunrise. The mountains here top out in the 6000 ft range, and for those which have exposed summits there is only one in that range and most others in the 4000-5000 ft range. The shade of sunset color that hits those summits therefore is going to be a paler orange glow than the intense reds that hit the higher summits out west. The exposed sandstones of the southwest also reflect a lot more color around a scene than anything here in the east coast.

All of these are possible reasons why people on the east coast may not be as familiar with those dramatic sunsets as people on the west coast. We do have them, though. You just have to be in the right place to see them.

Jul 09, 2013 at 02:14 PM

gdanmitchell
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p.6 #8 · p.6 #8 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

ckcarr wrote:
I'm starting to wonder if processing is still somewhat regional. It seems that photographs I see of east coast scenes by easterners are more traditional than those out west.

Nah. Totally depends upon which "west cost photographer" (or east coast photographer, etc.) you are looking at.

To Ben: Your observation about the sheer number of people doing and sharing photography is accurate. Many of the people sharing photographs in places where they may be seen by thousands (or more) of other viewers today would have done drug store prints and shared them with their families in the past.

I recall a friend who is a very well-known landscape photographer once mentioning to me somewhat wistfully after we had spent some time working up some beautiful inkjet prints that "it just seems too easy today." (He had done much of his earlier printing work using the distinctly not at all easy dye transfer process, but now virtually always uses inkjet media.)

This not only increases the number of formerly-drugstore-print folks whose work is seen more widely, but it also creates a situation where some arguably decent photographers who are arguably great marketers have managed to become known as much by their strength of personality as by the strength of their work. (Someone referred to them as "internet photography celebrities" or "internet celebrity photographers.")

It is complicated. There are some brilliant photographers who barely register on the "internet awareness scale," some distinctly mediocre folks (some of whom pursue the over-saturated mantra, along with what some of us might think is the over-hyping of the HDR approach, etc) with very visible presence... and some folks who tell a compelling story and make wonderful photographs.

It is complicated. ;-)

Dan

Edited on Jul 10, 2013 at 09:53 AM · View previous versions

Jul 10, 2013 at 02:37 AM

Phrasikleia
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p.6 #9 · p.6 #9 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

There are some interesting theories collecting in this thread about what could explain the great divide among photographers regarding post-processing. Geographical biases, color blindness, and educational backgrounds have all been suggested as possible factors.

Another factor could be the unusual culture of competition in photography. I can't think of any other medium that has so many juried competitions, rating websites, voting forums, etc. When people feel as though they're competing with others (even if they're not actually entering a competition), then of course they want a level playing field, and they may subconsciously see post-processing skills as an unfair advantage.

The core reason for so much disagreement, though, is probably that photography is such a young medium. Without a long history of evolution and revolution to look back on, some photographers see the first era of maturity as having established how photographs ought to look, and they therefore reject anything that looks different as deviant and impure. Conversely, painting and sculpture, which have been practiced since the stone age, have seen countless periods, movements, and technological upheavals that have caused expectations for those art forms to become extremely broad. I think it's an exciting time to be a photographer, in an early period when we're seeing stylistic and technological changes that are big enough to be disturbing to some people.

Jul 10, 2013 at 07:18 AM

Fo Tollery
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p.6 #10 · p.6 #10 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

Cam-puters don't kill landscsape photography.
People kill landscape photography.

Jul 10, 2013 at 05:41 PM

Fo Tollery
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p.6 #11 · p.6 #11 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

Greg Campbell wrote:
When I join local clubs and meetup groups on outings, I'm almost always amazed at how little effort many people put into the images. The fact that digital images are 'free' only encourages people to spray and pray. They point the camera in the general direction, close their eyes, and and fire off a burst of exposures,....

I witnessed a text book example of that on Clingman's Dome in Great Smoky Mountain Nat'l Park last year.

It was coming up on sunset and "Photographer's Row" was loaded with shooters. Not shoulder to shoulder, but there probably wasn't much more than a foot between tripod feet for the length of the parking lot.

And while we all had set up and were awaiting the sun to go down, here comes a guy with a DSLR doing exactly as you describe. He'd find *just enough* space between a couple stationary setups to fire off a burst of 6/8/whoKnows how many shots. And then he'd walk down 8-10 ft, find another gap, and fire off another machine gun like burst. And he covered the entire length of the parking lot doing exactly the same thing.

At first I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt thinking that maybe he was bracketing exposures, but after the 3rd or 4th burst that sounded like he was firing off as many as 10 shots with each burst, I kinda tossed that notion out the window.

So, I kinda chuckled to myself in the moment and had a 'Really?!?' or 2 pass through what passes for my mind. But as I was driving back to the hotel that evening, I happened to think...'Who knows, maybe he got THE shot of the evening from up there. Maybe he's the one chuckling all the way to a hundred print sales.'

Jul 10, 2013 at 06:26 PM

JustinSmith
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p.6 #12 · p.6 #12 · Is technology ruining landscape photography?

Fo Tollery wrote:
I witnessed a text book example of that on Clingman's Dome in Great Smoky Mountain Nat'l Park last year.

It was coming up on sunset and "Photographer's Row" was loaded with shooters. Not shoulder to shoulder, but there probably wasn't much more than a foot between tripod feet for the length of the parking lot.

And while we all had set up and were awaiting the sun to go down, here comes a guy with a DSLR doing exactly as you describe. He'd find *just enough* space between a couple stationary setups to fire off a burst of 6/8/whoKnows how many...Show more →
I ran into a guy at a very popular spot in NH during foliage season a couple years ago doing exactly that. He had come all the way from Texas and had an $8000 Nikon D3X. He was clearly putting very little thought into what he was doing and probably could have gotten the same images with a $150 point and shoot.

Jul 11, 2013 at 03:30 PM

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