How much is too much? (Or: I feel like a fraud)

abdoujaparov

abdoujaparov

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Keith
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Here's an image I took a while back. This is the un-mucked-about RAW from Lightroom.


P1050357-4 by Arfonfab, on Flickr

Nice composition, I think, and understandably flat and lifeless.

Here's my original B&W processing


P1050357 by Arfonfab, on Flickr

Nice enough, and it had some positive feedback here and elsewhere. I was very pleased with it.

Then last night I watched a Serge Ramelli tutorial on Youtube, where he basically layered on Clarity, and came up with some interesting results. I gave it a go, and here's the result.


P1050357-2 by Arfonfab, on Flickr

I have to admit, I like it. It's way overdone, somewhat inexpert - the halos are pretty horrible if you zoom in - but I like it. So did the people on 500px - it's my most commented/rated/favourited image (30 votes, 11 favs).

But, but . . . it IS overdone, and not at all representative of what I saw that day. The comments of "nice light" are making me feel like a fraud - the light was pretty unmemorable, but all that Clarity makes it look pretty moody.

Am I over-reacting? Am I underestimating the amount of processing that goes into all those stunning images I see every day? Should I just accept that the final image isn't meant to be a faithful representation of what I saw (I'm not a journalist) and that if I like it, it's all good?
 
Photography is art... Allegedly.
 
The light sky under the pier really sticks out compared to the sky, so doesn't look at all natural to me.
 
Yeah, it doesn't look natural at all (the white under the pier is basically one big halo from the struts.)

I was avoiding the word "art", but I guess that's what the issue is. We don't expect paintings to be photo-realistic any more, so there's no reason why a photo should be.
 
symmetricalOCD said:
I'd say you have gone too far with the clarity, the worst part is the halo around the cast iron beams and how unnaturally sharp the sea looks under the pier.
Click to expand...

Yup, and I said as much in the original post. But people apparently love it. I like it. I just feel a bit dirty for liking it. :D
 
Keith what I like is the way you are pushing to go 'your' way with the end result. To me photography is about being creative & not just picking the right amount, on the sliders in LR, to slightly hone. I say whack them about & find what is you. However I also take on board the comments & feel you could get something even better with a bit more fiddling & taking on board the tips so good luck to you.
 
That's a really good point. Thank you. You're right, I could have a result that's just as dramatic, but actually better executed. Time to practise!
 
Doesn't look realistic, and doesn't have to. Unless you're doing a documentary, what's the purpose creating images (and photography is just one way of creating images)? The purpose is to show or create moods, emotions, impressions of the scene you're making or taking a picture of. Your image does that, and it doesn't matter whether the place looked like this or not. Every black and white picture nowadays is an unrealistic representation of reality, and yet loads of people consider them to be art - and a lot of photographers think if they make an image black and white it becomes art, both of them are wrong IMHO. But that's another story.

Your image looks interesting, the colours are interesting, you created a mood and a piece of visual artwork. Congrats on that, it's a nice picture.

Whether it is good art or not, I don't know :-) but you used your creativity to create an image, and I like it, so for me, what you did was good - unless you wanted to create a documentary ;-)
 
I'm in the 'like it' camp. Really lovely tone of yellow in the cabin and nice warm sky. The haloing doesn't really bother me and I think overall it's a massive improvement on the flat image. I also think the second version could be improved by increasing the clarity and structure. Also, as you've probably noticed, people aren't ignoring it but they're commenting, which is a good thing, right?
JohnyT

Edit: Just to add, personally, I would 'lose' the yacht as it doesn't seem to be from the same 'time' if you know what I mean.
 
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