Pictures and a Decision.

I am struggling with what type of Camera to use for taking pictures. I am a firm believer in the 35mm format and have a Nikon F2, but these days it seems most if not all the Great ones are using Digital.

I can manipulate a scene using the Nikon by means of filters and some Ingenuity, but that can sometimes mean an entire roll of film being used up just to get that one Perfect shot. Expensive to say the least.

Now I also struggle with the idea that a Picture taken with a digital, then manipulated in Photoshop and corrected in Photoshop, is great Photography. I mean if one is to be great at an Art, then one should be able to get that look or emotion by their skill, not the skill of a computer program. It then becomes a moral or ethical debate and not something I really want to get into.

I can offer only my opinion on this. An Artist of Oils and Water color, does not have the Luxury of using Photoshop, yet they do make great art. What you see is what you get. Their works are Great because they have the skill to translate what they see or feel onto a canvas. Some of these Artists appeal to everyone, while others have a certain following. When they make a mistake or don't like what they see, they must correct it by hand and possibly start all over again. This is great art and human skill, not a computer program.

Now I must say that all my digital photos up to this point have never been corrected or manipulated in Photoshop, so I think I am pretty good at using the camera and getting the picture I want. I don't have a full version of Photoshop to be able to compete with some of the Photo's you see out there, and that brings me to my next concern.

How can a Raw Image Photographer, compete with some of these Digitally enhanced,
corrected Photoshopped pictures that everyone Oooooo's and Ahhhhh's over?

Well so far the only possible fix for that is educating the public on what is photographer skill and what has been fixed or beautified by a machine.

See the thing that bugs me the most about this, is that I and others will sit and move and fiddle and faddle with a shot for perhaps HOURS to get what we want. We will change lenses, add filters, climb trees, crouch down, bend ourselves into painful positions all for the perfect artistic look we desire. While someone else will snap off a picture without much thought, then take it home plug it in and fix its lighting, sharpness, even color, add layers, stitch in other photos to enhance the boringness and even yes, even change the position of objects or erase them altogether. I am not sure what to call that, but it's not Photographer Skill, I know that for sure.

I have ALWAYS believed and still do, that what makes a Great Photographer is an Eye for beauty, composition, color, angle, effect, affect and working to get that awe inspiring Photo that makes everyone say, how the hell did he/she do that?

WITHOUT the use of a computer or computer program.

So with that, I leave you with this. Not photoshopped, raw image pictures I have taken with a manual Nikon F2 Camera.











Tomorrow I will post some of my Digital Pictures and tell you just what I did to them using a small version of Photoshop, if anything. Some I will be fixing, some I will be leaving Raw.

Thanks for reading and looking.

Have a good one!

Diana