Sunday, February 22, 2015

A Tail Of Two Images

Roger Gauthier of www.artphotokebek.blogspot.com took this shot (he owns the copyright btw) this past year, I believe, but just recently posted it to his Blog, I liked it, so I decided, like I do, to see if I could destroy, or lacking that, completely change, the tone of the image. I think I have succeeded in that respect.

As Roger and I, and all really acceptable photographers will tell you, (over and over till you get sick of hearing it) that light (without which there would be no image) makes the photograph, painting, whatever succeed or fail. I could easily make an argument for light being the end all and be all for ANY KIND OF ART. So I will.

Take a nice beautiful 7 carrot blue-white diamond, put that diamond in really bad light and what do you have? A rock, or worse yet just some well cut glass. The point being that everything we perceive with our eyes needs light reflecting off of a surface for us to see it; change the light, change what you see. Now the game has changed, Now that we have invented the “transparency,” we have radically changed how we can see, perceive, and interpret color and shape. We have taken the need for “being there,” at the moment of occurrence, to being able see or witness something at a later date.

We no longer need light hitting an object and bouncing off of it to “see” something; we can put a light source behind some kind of transparent medium, that has variations of color or of grey that light can travel through and there you have it. You now have a representation of something—it is not the Thing though. Once you leave behind the object that light is actually bouncing from to your eyes, and move on to this other method/mode of perception, you rely on someone else’s IDEA/conception of what this object was, or felt like to the person who created the IMAGE of the object, at that moment in time! This is very important. Once you are not looking at the object yourself, you are looking at someone else’s interpretation of that object!

So, enter Photoshop, and its lessers, and the ability to, for lack of a better word, lie. Well, isn’t that one of the big complaints? Especially by those who have noted some of the deleterious effects of its use in much of advertising, and I DO agree with them in this, Photoshop has been used to make people appear more perfect than is attainable without endangering a person’s life. But, I am not here to talk about that, that is a different subject, and one I have hit on multiple times already.

The reason for Photoshop to even exist is because of that backlit transparency development. We, I, change what was, to what “may have been/could be” by moving light and color, Photoshop allows us to do this; not only does it allow us to do this but it lets us do this with such precision that 99.9% of the people who see an image of mine will never know (without the metadata to look at) what is “real” and what is not. What do I mean by “real?” Simply, what my camera recorded, with minor adjustment for color, sharpness, lens distortion correction, all attempts on my part to make the image more like what (MY) eyes saw, at the moment I hit the shutter button. A recording of a moment in time, nothing more.

Now we come to the two images that this post is ostensibly about: Roger Gauthier’s Image, his on the left, my version obviously the other. The Pixel count is the same, CMYK (if you work in that space) the same base colors, but greyed or burned, other than that they are the same color. So it IS the same image. Well no it was. Now It should at lease Feel Different, I hope very different. I did hold back somewhat, or not hold back but backtracked in my history to the point that you see, because I had gotten to the point of adding things that did NOT belong in an image I had chosen to just modify. I had gotten to the point of creating a whole new image, and that was not my intent.

Emotional content/feel, those are what Roger and I created. To me his image is light and positive, lighter colors with some intense reds in places, not a hot red but a living red as in a rose. This is a place of color and life. At this moment, there are not many people around, but I can see that at times there would be, and they would enjoy the area, light and bright, with implications for social interaction. In short, a place to “enjoy” the process of moving through.

My version on the other hand, is not currently a place of joy. Maybe it was, maybe it will be again, but not now, not at this moment. This is a place to move through, to pick up the pace, not to linger, not to stop and have a conversation. Echoes are more muffled, by the high shadows, sounds don’t carry as far, they are absorbed in the darker reaches. Even the destination is somewhat in question it is a deeper red, an angry red. To me this space says move on, go, get where you want to be, just not here. GO!

Color: it’s a lot of fun to mess with, and an easy way to mess with peoples emotions.

James Longster, © 2015

A Tail Of Two Images.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

In the Mountains of New York

My indulgent wife and I were returning from Quebec QC, and we decided to take the extra time it would take to drive right on through the middle of the Adirondacks of NY. It was beautiful, there was enough blue in the sky to make it not a total bust. So we did it, and took the extra 2 hours in stride.

This is Whiteface Mt. as seen from its Western side, we are probable about 7-10 miles from it, and maybe about 2 hours from Aplineglow at this point (too bad I missed that,) I could only get the shot from this very busy little clear spot, while dodging cars I shot like a mad man. I got this one and it is so-so, no tripod (the bane of this trip “photographically”,) But I worked on it in Raw, and then played with it in Tonemapping. Till I got this shot.

P.S. Note to self: When going to visit with a good Pro-Photographer don’t forget the “shoe” for your tripod, kinda takes the “Pro” out of Professional Photographer.

James Longster, © 2014

Whiteface Mt. Adirondacks

Friday, January 23, 2015

Door into The Past

Door into the Past is an image I took in 2005 with my Canon 20D. This particular shot was done as part of a video I did, that was part of my ongoing Photo Documentary on the death of the American Family farm.

This was a beautiful home of probably 20 rooms, and two stories. I guess here at the number of rooms, because the building was way too unstable to trust my life, or those of the models I had with me to its condition. We did go into the first floor, through the main entrance (after I had checked the floors and walls for structural integrity,) but we still were In-and-out as fast as possible. I will be revisiting this once beautiful home to see if it too has succumbed to time and the corporate march.

In America, where the dollar is king, the families that once dotted the countryside of rural America with their small beautiful farmhouses with children running about and playing, have all but disappeared. The statistics say that Indiana alone has lost 600,000 family farms since the 1950s, where did they go? They went to the big corporate farms, Prudential is one of the big players in this “rape of American history and life.” After they “buy” your farm they knock down the House, the Barns, The Chicken coups, they cut down the trees, in truth they erase all signs that humans lived here and made a life. The saddest part is the family history that just disappears, it is likely, that until it was purchased by whatever corporation, there may have been 4-5 generations of this family living there. But once again the corporations have won, and “we the People” have lost to the Dollar, again.

This just depresses me, and it always will. Jim

James Longster, © 2014

Door Into The Past

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Man of Saguenay

My friend, and Photography partner Roger Gauthier, is from a land that can be at the same time extremely Harsh, and just as extremely Beautiful. He grew up in the Rivière Saguenay region of Quebec. It breeds people of strong will, patriots, and people able to survive. Beautiful in summer, devastatingly dangerous in winter with a different beauty and the need for respect. In short, NOT INDIANA.

Roger and I both talk about the color versus Black and White question. It is only a question/argument (not between us at all) because both have their points. Some color images just HAVE to be color, some color images SHOULD be B&W instead. Why is that, well quite simply: EMOTION. I have never seen a really good B&W that could maybe have been better in color. Black and white conveys emotion more than imagery in my opinion. B&W does it with a strength that color just cannot convey, I don’t know why, maybe it is the distraction of competing colors. I think maybe B&W, is One-Layer-Deeper into the Truth.

That is the case in this image, I will leave it up to you to decide what his eyes are saying, because now he is saying it to YOU. My work on this image was only to bring out, and maybe intensify the emotion in these eyes, and what posture is evident. Is he looking at you, or through you, or into you?

Your Turn. Jim

James Longster, © 2014

Man of Saguenay

Monday, January 19, 2015

Point to make

Photographers have fun. That is what we do, we have fun with you, we have fun with ourselves. We do this because we like the “Image”, I mean we like the formate, the two dimensional capturing of light. Sometimes we are motivated by more than just the love of the “image” sometimes we have fun, in an all-out Warish kinda way. This is a return salvo from Indiana, to Quebec, heavily modified in all manner of ways, done In reply to Roger Gauthier of: http://artphotokebek.blogspot.com I hope my first shot is good, it’s a long way up there, we shall see.

James Longster, © 2014

Man with a Point to make.