its back to the days of early photography

[noisycheese]

for those of you who did not notice the flaws, visit this link below and you can look at the larger size of this image. when you're there look at the shadows, look at the sky, look at the transition between the shadows and mids and then highlights.

http://www.dpreview.com/challenges/...widget&utm_medium=image&ref=challenges-widget

if you still don't see any flaws then disregard the flaws part of my question and focus on the rest.

The only thing I really don't like about the image in question is the religious adherence to the rule of thirds; it makes the image predictably safe and leaves the image looking somewhat static.

However...

Is this image a cliche? Yes. It or one very similar t it has been made a million times before and will be made a million times after.

So freaking what??

It may be a visual cliche, but IMHO it is a nice image nonetheless. True, it is not razor sharp, does not have strident contrast and is not an HDR image.

Again, so freaking what??

Not every image has to be so relentlessly sharp and contrasty that it makes your eyes hurt. To be honest, I am sick to hell and back of seeing those type images that were made with 850 billion pixel digital cameras and photoshopped to death.

Same for HDR images. When I look around, I see SHADOWS, BRIGHTLY LIT PLACES and even - saints preserve us - DARK PLACES where I can't see anything, depending on the time of day or night it happens to be.

That's the way the real world looks. It has dark, shadows, brightly lit places and places where you can't see jack due to either darkness or intense light. Nothing wrong with that IMHO.

Hyper-sharp, hyper-contrasty scenes that have been photoshopped to death or had the exposure b@$t@rdized by HDR techniques are not what is present in the natural world. Images of these types are manipulated, twisted and unnatural. But it is what alot of people have come to regard as natural, thanks to digital photography and the heavy handed use of photoshop.

If others think that look is natural or even beautiful, that's their opinion. I find it twisted, contrived unnatural and just plain old ugly.

YMMV.

 

[Griffin]

I wish I had made it!

 

[Margu]

here is a noisy cellphone shot:

after one minute in photoshop (saturate - duplicate layer - blur - overlay blending mode):

had it been five minutes in photoshop, i promise this shot would have looked a lot better. and here is the b&w version:

 

[DominikDUK]

Margu it seems that you're missing the point the image is sharp the unsharpness comes from the fog that is there, something your images are lacking. The composition is also better and yes the original image has some light noise but not extreme noise. Your image are also missing the emotional component a couple walking together in the fog. Some of the greatest images in photography are not sharp and would fail all technical test but they work. eg Capa landing on the beach in the normandy, Latigue's Car picture etc... Technical perfection is one of the least important things in photography as I've said emotion beats technical perfection 99% of the time.

 

[Margu]

Margu it seems that you're missing the point the image is sharp the unsharpness comes from the fog that is there, something your images are lacking.

if you want me to add fog in the image i posted that would take three more minutes in photoshop.



i guess the point could be that since i know how this image was cooked that makes me wonder why people like this image.

 

[Godfrey]

here is a noisy cellphone shot:

after one minute in photoshop (saturate - duplicate layer - blur - overlay blending mode):

had it been five minutes in photoshop, i promise this shot would have looked a lot better. and here is the b&w version:

And your point in showing this is ... ?

...
i guess the point could be that since i know how this image was cooked that makes me wonder why people like this image.

Why does understanding how an image is created affect your ability to appreciate what it looks like? Do you dislike a painting because you understand how the craft of painting works? Do you dislike chess because you understand the rules of the game?

G

 

[DominikDUK]

Margu shut off your technical brain and look with your heart and not with your brain.

Also the image was cooked to a much lesser extent than your stuff.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

?..But dpreview is a gearhead site - hardly on the front line of artistic merit or aesthetic sensibilities. That image tells a few things about the dpreview crowd but not much about the state of photography in general.

I have same opinion. Exactly the same.

 

[daveleo]

. . . . . Why does understanding how an image is created affect your ability to appreciate what it looks like? Do you dislike a painting because you understand how the craft of painting works? Do you dislike chess because you understand the rules of the game?

G

I like Godfrey because he often saves me a lot of typing . . . 😀

 

[NeeZee]

Give me technical flaws in a photograph anytime (didn't notice them in this case either) but this is just a rather boring picture imo. Doesn't tell me anything and i feel like i've seen it a hundred times before always evoking the same emotions in me - none. But that's a matter of taste after all...

 

[Steve Bellayr]

I was polite with my first comment. Seriously?...sentimental? Maudlin may be the correct description. What we see is a man and woman walking down a country roadway. The rain has ceased and it is foggy. A photograph like this could have been made 100 years ago will be made 100 years hence. For me, and I know many will differ with me, it is a first year student's photo. Later they will discover that photography did not end in 1915. As yourself have you ever gone to a scenic overlook or an historic site and when there that everyone gathers in the same spot to take the same photograph. This reminds me of that situation. It is a very easy photograph to take. Everyone takes some of these when they start out and then they move on.

 

[KoNickon]

Look -- some of us may sneer at the picture being "maudlin" or "cliched" but in point of fact this is precisely the sort of picture that people like (maybe not the jaded sophisticates on this forum 🙂) and that people have bought over the years. Clearly there is something appealing about it, technical flaws -- which I'm still waiting to have explained to me -- and all.

 

[danielsterno]

not my style of imagery- looks like a hallmark card BUT its what I would think the majority of people would like and for many good reasons…..

 

[Steve Bellayr]

I am not sneering. The photograph posted or one like it would much sooner be found hanging on the average person's wall than a Diane Arbus photograph. For me the image constitutes a pleasing image not a challenging one. Was it not Stieglitz who challenged the Pictorialists in 1907 with his photograph, "The Steerage?"

 

[goamules]

Sounds like a lot of jealousy from techno-geek pixel peepers and critics. On a scale of 1-5, the picture gives me an exact middle reaction. I look at it because of the vertical shaft of lighting and the pretty colors. I would not vote for it in a contest. A friend hosts a photo competition on http://antiquecameras.net/ once and a while. Know what kind of shots get the most votes? Cat pictures. There's no accounting for taste.

The answer of why people like it is the same answer to why people like blockbuster action movies, Iphones, Skank-slut pop stars, etc....they don't know any better and they go with their gut instincts.

 

[daveleo]

. . . . There's no accounting for taste.

The answer of why people like it is the same answer to why people like blockbuster action movies, Iphones, Skank-slut pop stars, etc....they don't know any better and they go with their gut instincts.

Actually, a lot of us do "know better" and we like a wide range of pictures (paintings, photographs, drawings, movies, etc etc) for an equally wide range of reasons and also for that good old "gut feeling" we get sometimes. 😉

 

[zuiko85]

In your fall path image's the first one is the most pleasing to me. It looks more accurate than the second image with the wild colors. A bit over the top I think. But you see, that's my personal preference. I guess each person gets to decide what they like and don't like and nothing wrong with that. What a dull world if we all liked the same things.

 

[zauhar]

Margu, do you think the image is artificially processed to an extreme degree (e.g. the fog was added manually?) To me it does not look so unnatural that I would suspect it was doctored to that extent.

What you have is a photo that is interesting in terms of color and texture. It makes no statement, and would be comfortable on a hotel wall.

In contrast, an Anders Petersen image makes an incredibly strong statement, and will not be found on a hotel wall (unfortunately).

Fill in photographer of your choice for Anders Petersen....

Randy

 

[Scrambler]

Look -- some of us may sneer at the picture being "maudlin" or "cliched" but in point of fact this is precisely the sort of picture that people like (maybe not the jaded sophisticates on this forum 🙂) and that people have bought over the years. Clearly there is something appealing about it, technical flaws -- which I'm still waiting to have explained to me -- and all.

Checking the histogram, there is clipping at both ends. The move to white in the lit fog is appropriate imho, though less stark may have been slightly better. Whether clipping in the shadows is justified I couldn't say. Certainly there is no clipping at the dark end in the subject area. I don't think the fog has been added - but perhaps I'm just naive. I think it would be hard to achieve the even lighting and lack of shadows without having fog or at the least thin low cloud.

 

[Pioneer]

I'm not sure there is a clear answer to your question. People like it for the same reason that Normal Rockwell was so popular. It provides a romanticized view of the world that allows one to escape the day to day troubles that we actually face. It can be hung on the living room wall because it is not controversial. Instead it provides a peaceful interlude while sitting on the couch waiting for that cup of coffee. It is the type of beautiful, but non-offensive, image that sells calendars and greeting cards.

It uses many of the composition cues that many of us have learned. Rule of thirds, leading lines, etc. The colors are beautiful even if they are probably a bit over saturated. Kodak has spent years teaching us this is how colors look like on film. While it has almost certainly been "cooked" it still retains enough realism that it isn't jarring to the senses.

This image also works quite well on a computer monitor, and this is likely how most people viewed it when voting. The glow in the background, the fog, the colors, all come across very well when backlit on a monitor. I am not sure it would look quite as nice when printed. Likewise, the size is almost perfect for the average monitor. I think when it becomes large it will begin to lose some of the "mystery" introduced by the fog.