To fog or not

[will_c]

There isn't any right or wrong to this "contest". Just seeing how different people would interpret this scene. My feeling is that most of us are addicted to "improving" our images and when we are confronted with an image such as this, which is naturally unsharp and unsaturated, we just can't leave it alone - me included (see my original image post).

There may not be any absolute right and wrong about this sort of thing, but just about everybody at least tacitly agrees that there is better and worse, otherwise this whole forum might as well be replaced with a photo album.

The original poster raises the significant question of whether it is better to be more true to the subject, or to make a nicer looking picture by post-processing. If being true to the subject is important, then the issue of how to treat an image is not all or even mostly a matter of taste and interpretation. Of course within a certain limited range there are inevitably some choices to be made and parameters to be set, but that doesn't mean that anything goes. On the other hand, if the intent is to make a pleasing image by any means available rather than to capture a moment or a scene and convey it to others, then the photography is just part of a lightweight form of visual art. Of course one can do either, but if you think about photographs that are great, or important either to the world in general or personally, does an emphasis on clever manipulation figure prominently? I don't think so.

I suppose that the vast majority of images are so inconsequential that it really doesn't matter if the sense is fundamentally changed and things moved around and so on. But if we don't as a general principle have respect for what is really there then we really might as well not bother with cameras at all and just have fun manipulating clip-art.

[RichMurphy]

There may not be any absolute right and wrong about this sort of thing, but just about everybody at least tacitly agrees that there is better and worse, otherwise this whole forum might as well be replaced with a photo album.

The original poster raises the significant question of whether it is better to be more true to the subject, or to make a nicer looking picture by post-processing. If being true to the subject is important, then the issue of how to treat an image is not all or even mostly a matter of taste and interpretation. Of course within a certain limited range there are inevitably some choices to be made and parameters to be set, but that doesn't mean that anything goes. On the other hand, if the intent is to make a pleasing image by any means available rather than to capture a moment or a scene and convey it to others, then the photography is just part of a lightweight form of visual art. Of course one can do either, but if you think about photographs that are great, or important either to the world in general or personally, does an emphasis on clever manipulation figure prominently? I don't think so.

I suppose that the vast majority of images are so inconsequential that it really doesn't matter if the sense is fundamentally changed and things moved around and so on. But if we don't as a general principle have respect for what is really there then we really might as well not bother with cameras at all and just have fun manipulating clip-art.

It would seem that will_c is addressing this topic in the manner of discussion that I was hoping to generate when I started this thread. His last sentence is a jewel.

[Henrik]

Hi ashwin,

There isn't any right or wrong to this "contest". Just seeing how different people would interpret this scene. My feeling is that most of us are addicted to "improving" our images and when we are confronted with an image such as this, which is naturally unsharp and unsaturated, we just can't leave it alone - me included (see my original image post).

*** By the way, I incorrectly gave a bad url address on my previous post to the large version of this image. I have gone back and edited the post to the correct url. Most sorry for goof.

Personally I like Ashwin's new, just slightly enhanced version. I still sense the original feeling about the scene. So much for the being true to the subject, and that might be the best way to do this photo.

But I'm no purist having seen extremely interesting "surrealistic" HDR-photos. So FOR ME it would be fun to see this photo done in a surrealistic HDR-way, if anyone possess the power to do so?

BTW: For the moment you do have some incorrect links in your posts. (Probably because you corrected one.)