DP1M Natural Colour Unedited

[Rob MacKillop]

I'm in a mini turmoil (too strong a word) about colour these days. I'd love to do colour well, but I just don't know what to do. These look OK to me. I've done nothing to them. Maybe that's the answer?











I increased the contrast for these buds:




Any attempt to increase saturation, or boost individual tones just looked wrong. I love my Merrills, but prefer Fuji colours - unless I learn the subtle art of colour enhancement.

DP1M

 

[Pete Askew]

Or use a Fuji simulation plugin in LR.

These look fine and natural to me too, Rob. I guess it all depends on whether you want to use colour editing to manipulate meaning etc in the same way that you do with B&W.

 

[Brian Moore]

I agree with Pete, Rob. These look like natural colors. Do they look like what you remember seeing? Is that what you want to portray?

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Cheers, lads. Good questions, Brian. They are exactly what I remember seeing, so that means the colouring is accurate, to my eyes at least. But is it what I want to portray? Pete alludes to this too. I pretty much always know what I want to do with black and white, but whatever I do in colour, even subtly, seems over the top. So I'm left with doing nothing, but with a feeling that something is missing. Although the camera is accurate in reproducing what I was seeing, the images in no way portray what I was feeling. And there's the rub, or the art - how to reinterpret the image to give a greater sense of the experience. I'm finding it hard to do that in colour.
I'm tired now, after four hours of teaching, but will return to the editing screen later this weekend to see if I can make some headway.
It's not just digital photography. With film you choose an emulsion that "speaks" to you, and work with that to create an image, maybe dodging and burning, etc. But digital editing can do a lot of harm more easily than you can in the developing room.

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

Rob the idea of finding a medium and within that medium finding it's capabilities to say what you wish to, is what as you know what image making artists have always struggled with. It has even drove some nuts, so you are not alone. I personally stay well clear of even wishing to come close to say a landscape as I stood there, how it smelt, the wind and more. So many things are left at the place that a photograph was taken that will never be represented in the final outcome. Colour being one. It is what interests me about the 20th century painters and Cezanne in particular, who in the previous century really started to put into practice many of the things that you mention, about having something to say. Then of course throughout the 20th century many followed suit. It is only for each of them to say whether they found complete satisfaction or not I suspect very few.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Sure, Julian. I met Cezanne in a pub, and urged him to stop being so representational, and to express his feelings more. So, I'm afraid it's all my fault, all this "me, me" stuff. Maybe we should get back to representational art: This is how it is, whether I'm there or not. It's easier that way. I apologise for sending humanity down the wrong track

 

[Ivar Dahl-Larsen]

To me the colours look natural and not too muted. I personally think that it's whether you want to document it as it was or as some painters did, enhance certain areas by a little more heavy hand in certain parts. It all boils down to your own feelings about the image and what you accept. What viewers shall feel or think, should be of no concern of yours since you cannot control that. Some like the mother, some like the daughter, some like them both

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Of course, Ivar. Thanks.