When shooting film, especially B&W, one purist school considered heavy contrast manipulation, and cropping when enlarging, as fakery.
Either you nailed the framing and exposure, or you didn’t keep the negative.
Going back to one-shot-and-done in the digital world with multitudes of exposures and hours of post-processing is a challenging exercise.
This is a box of dead-headed plant parts at Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens.
Specific Feedback Requested
Any comments are welcome, including on the one-and-done, are welcome.
The image was taken in manual mode, spot metering on what I felt was middle gray and camera standard—no post-processing except for making the file smaller to NPN standards.
The subject is also worthy of comment.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
31mm on a 16 -35 zoom, ISO 3200, 1/50 sec., f 8, hand-held.
Hopefully this becomes compost. It’s an interesting documentary-type image, but I don’t have a clear way into it because of its busy-ness. The exposure looks good. I forget about spot metering even though I used it a lot with my OM-3 back in the day.
Always makes me sad when I see conservatories or stores discarding a large amount of unsold or no longer displayed plants. The gardeners change designs for different seasonal displays. Longwood finally realized that after their orchid show they could hold a weekend sale for the orchids.
As for the photo, for me it is a record shot only. Not artistic or pleasing to view.
@Patricia_Brundage@Kris_Smith Thanks for your honest comments. My intent wasn’t necessarily to make a stunning image but to explore a technique used in the past - one shot, no manipulation. I probably should have picked another subject.
To the point of discarding flowers and plants, this tray is the clippings from deadheading spent flowers. The plants are still intact. It’s something the staff and volunteers do to keep the exhibition looking fresh.
The spring show features thousands of tulips, daffodils, and other bulbs. When finished, they are sold to the public. Many of the plants from other shows are held and sold at a special event in May. All the organic materials are collected and taken to a local composting facility.
And the best part is that plants moved from the exhibition rooms are put in the greenhouses where volunteers can take them to a good home. I like that!
OK, I get it a little more. For a little while I got obsessed with trying to make a digital camera approximate a film experience. It’s weird and can be sort of done. When I first started with digital photography I found myself overwhelmed by the processing aspect and did as little to my shots as possible. Over the years though, I’ve learned that post is just as important and is often necessary to extend the intent of the photo to its natural conclusion or desired effect. Not to say this isn’t a valid or important exercise, I think it is, otherwise I wouldn’t have put some blog posts together about it and my camera settings.
@Kris_Smith Digital is a different world, and in my opinion, a better world.
Post-processing is extremely important, as is merciless weeding. To avoid being overwhelmed, I in a constant cycle of deleting files unless they are absolutely something I think I can use. I usually look and ask if it’s something I would include in a portfolio for a customer, would print, frame, and put on a wall, or might have some use in an experimental work. Otherwise, off to the electronic graveyard.
Absolutely!! And why anyone feels processing or cropping is some sort of sin is beyond my understanding. As to cropping, is the aspect ratio of the capture medium more sacred than that of the scene itself? Way back when, there was a guy named Ansel Adams, who became rather famous for finding ways to going beyond a capture.
I think a lot of this snobbishness is from people who can’t manage a computer, much less software.
