What to do with Sky

[Nathaniel]

Re: What to do with Sky

I take your point Columbrius and one must do whatever makes one happy. Photograhy is a subjective & personal thing, as far as I am concerned.
Having said that I am surprised to hear that it is very often dull and grey in Hampshire, as when I was working out of my Portmouth base, I found the sky blue,warm and very photogenic. I covered an area from Andover,Winchester,Southampton,Isle of Wight to Portsmouth from 1993-2000. I also enjoyed going over to France (Calais) to get some good,cheap,brew.

[colin C]

Re: What to do with Sky

IMHO I believe that a photograph should reproduce an image as seen, with minimum alterations.

A wonderful belief to have Nathaniel .... but is that how you saw it, or how the camera saw it?

A digital camera doesn't have the dynamic range to record what you see. Unless you take steps to the contrary with camera settings, left to its own accord the camera will tend to lighten skies and darken foregrounds. Is that acceptable? If not, and I suspect that your preference would be the scene as nature intended, would you advocate taking a perfect exposure of the foreground (with a washed out sky) and another shot of a perfect sky (with a badly under exposed foreground) and blending the two together to get the perfect shot as you saw it?

The old adage that the camera never lies is one of the great falsehoods and it has lied its head off since the first shutter was pressed. Thankfully, 99% of the population doesn't give a monkeys how the shot was obtained, what lens was used and whether you took the sky from an entirely different photo, as long as they like the shot and it was believable, that's all they care about.

[crunch]

Re: What to do with Sky

Well put Colin

I've been thinking about what photography is.
Are we capturing a moment in time or are we creating an artistic impression of what we see.
The camera has always created either with film and chemicals or digitally with pixels.
If we all painted a tree in a field would they all be exactly the same?
I don't mind alterations, if you want a blue sky then why not? It's not like there won't ever be blue sky there.
Why do women wear make-up? To make themselves more pleasing to the eye

[AndyA]

Re: What to do with Sky

Nat, I used to share your view too. But, as Colin so eloquently put it, our cameras just can't reproduce what our eyes are capable of seeing. Being a newcomer to photography, I was actually quite gutted to discover this.

[Columbarius]

Re: What to do with Sky

Replying to move it to the current queue.

[Tigger]

Re: What to do with Sky

excellent thread bookmarked ....cheers

[Nathaniel]

Re: What to do with Sky

Each one to his/her own. You should be happy with your photograph/picture. I will not alter the sky as I like to record what I see, warts and all. I might lift shadows a bit, sharpen an image a little but generally will not do much processing; also I am not an expert like many of the members here. The bottom line I use is "can I submit that photo for a competition in Jpeg bearing in mind the rules"! It is of course different if some one like say Ian who sends his pictures to calendars, and is paid for his work, one can manipulate the pictures to suit the client and the market.

[Tigger]

Re: What to do with Sky

I disagree Nat - if your at a location you will probably never return to that only offers a flat grey sky, then by swapping it you can offer an image your happy to show ofters.

[Nathaniel]

Re: What to do with Sky

As I said at the outset-" each one to him/herself.You should be happy with your picture". So if you wish to change the Sky, you should feel free to change it and show it to your friends and others and say that you changed the colour of the sky. Otherwise IMHO your will be giving your friends and others a "wrong" picture. I am not an expert and do not pretend to be one and do not have the skills in PP to change things but I know what I do and will continue to do. I also have a very good success rate with the local press which very often(almost every other week) publish my photos of events around St.Asaph, or the Cathedral or even my birds. I have been offered payment for some, which I channel to my personal charities.

[Tigger]

Re: What to do with Sky

As I said at the outset-" each one to him/herself.You should be happy with your picture". So if you wish to change the Sky, you should feel free to change it and show it to your friends and others and say that you changed the colour of the sky. Otherwise IMHO your will be giving your friends and others a "wrong" picture

I'm sorry Nat but we are going to have to agree to disagree on this point - theres nothing wrong about processing a photo the way you want to put that image across, whether thats swapping a sky or removing something from an image that spoils the photo like perhaps a car or people, or indeed within one of your interests bird photography where many here will remove a stick or branch..

Working on this idea I suppose converting an image to B&W is wrong ! Its not about offering the wrong image, its about putting your impression of that scene to others

I also have a very good success rate with the local press which very often(almost every other week)

indeed you do, but press tog photos are more about telling a story rather than the artistic content of a photo

[Nathaniel]

Re: What to do with Sky

I fully agree Ian that we should agree to differ on this matter. We have both given our different points of view and thats certainly "democracy" at it's best. I certainly enjoy seeing your pictures and will continue to do so.

[Stan]

Re: What to do with Sky

Agree with Ian - no problem in manipulating images, adding a new sky or whatever if it turns what is a "snap" into a photograph to be proud of. If someone just want to be a "happy snapper" then that is fine too

but press tog photos are more about telling a story rather than the artistic content of a photo

that would be my view as well and bearing in mind photographs are generally only reproduced on newsprint, the story they tell is paramount and sharpness, composition etc just fade into oblivion - in our local paper there is a daily readers picture published, usually some form of wildlife or landscape and most are absolute c**p, the only criteria seeming to be that the newspaper can come up with some sort of "funny" caption