~calamity strange~

A message from the Director of Photography of National Geographic:

but first, my two cents:

below is some very common advice and is usually ‘required’ when dealing with photo editors in the most highly regarded photography related magazines and publications.  i mean seriously, isn’t national geographic kind of the top of the food chain when it comes to mainstream periodicals with an emphasis on photography?   the editors at bike magazine are so committed to this theory that they basically make you “prove” your photo by sending the file in a format that shows the history of any changes that have been made to it since it was shot!  i see so many photos on the internet- particularly facebook- that people have just run through photoshop, lightroom, aperture, i-photo, (insert any image-editing software here) filters, or have “auto-something’d” the image.  when i was studying at SFAI (yes, getting a degree in photography) cropping a photo after the fact was completely taboo!  the goal should be to learn how to properly take the photo to begin with.  yes, nice to be able to save yourself in the event of an error with technology, but let those be the small minority… not everything you do.

A message from the Director of Photography of National Geographic:

I encourage you to submit photographs that are real. The world is already full of visual artifice, and we don’t want to add to it. We want to see the world through your eyes, not the tools of Photoshop.

Please do not digitally enhance or alter your photographs (beyond the basics needed to achieve realistic color balance and sharpness). If you have digitally added or removed anything, please don’t submit the shot.  We look at every photo to see if it’s authentic, and if we find that yours is in any way deceptive, we won’t consider it.

DODGING AND BURNING: Dodging (to brighten shadows) or burning (to darken highlights) is OK, but it should be minimal. Do not overdo it. Your goal in using digital darkroom techniques should be only to adjust the dynamic tonal range of an image so that it more closely resembles what you saw. And don’t oversaturate the color.

SOLARIZATION, MEZZOTINT, DUOTONE, ETC.: No. If you use one of the myriad alteration “filters” available in your digital photo software, please stop.

BLACK-AND-WHITE IMAGES: OK.

HAND-TINTED IMAGES: OK, but only if you’re experienced in this art.

CROPPING: OK, if it makes the photo better.

STITCHED PANORAMAS: OK, but only if the segments were all made within the same time frame. We don’t want panoramas with sections made at significantly different times. Do not change focal length when you create a stitched image. Do not stretch the meaning of panorama to include elements that weren’t in the scene as you saw it. If your entry is a stitched image, please indicate this in the caption. (A stitched panorama is created from multiple images, each taking in a different angle of view from the same position, then combined using digital techniques. It results in a wider view than can be achieved with most wide-angle lenses.)

FISH-EYE LENSES: OK, but enter at your own risk - editors tend to dislike such optical gimmicks.

HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGES (HDRI): OK, but like panoramas, only if the combined parts are made at about the same time. We don’t want final images where the foreground was shot at noon and the sky at sunset. If your entry is an HDRI image, please indicate this in the caption. (An HDRI image is created from multiple images of exactly the same scene, made rapidly but at different exposures, then combined using digital darkroom techniques. The final image, when done successfully, allows one exposure for shadows to be combined with another for highlights to produce a final image that has a greater dynamic range than is possible with a single exposure.)

more photo tips from National Geographic

and ps:  no, i’m not taking the strange yellow thing with lights on it out of that photo, not only because it was there and IS in the shot, but because it actually ADDS interest to the image.  yes, it might look more like a postcard without it, but would it be a “better” photograph?  think about it.