Originally posted by Hattifnatt Lately I have been visiting Ireland quite a lot - I love the quiet and tranquil landscape vistas. Weather is always a problem (Pentax may be weather resistant but I'm not), nevertheless light can be amazing before and after the rain.
Those pictures were shot handheld with the Pentax K-1 and the DFA 24-70mm, somewhere along the Castlebar river on the trail from Castlebar to the National Museum of Ireland Country Life.
A very nice set, I haven't been up that way in a long time, reminds me of walking down by the banks of the Maine River near Castlemaine (where Austrailia's Wild Colonial boy and my late very much loved Mother in Law originated).
Oculus would need to visit this part of the world to know that the lighting can be very surprising and you really don't need to do much pp.
I note from your profile that you are a Geophysicist may I suggest that you look up the works of George Victor Du Noyer 1817 - 1869, although an artist he worked for the Geographical Survey of Ireland, his sketches of the Geography of the time are really beautiful, there was an exhibition of his work in the National Gallery of Ireland back in 1995 and you could probably still find some of his works there, a paperback catalogue was published at the time and you never know the odd copy might still be available.
---------- Post added 03-23-2018 at 11:37 AM ----------
Originally posted by oculus Beautiful country. As I view these images of beautiful land at a beautiful time of day I find myself wondering what the landscape's actual impression on the mind really was because, to be sure, it was not this.
I simply mean that these are not good photographs for the reason that they do not evoke any sense of light as it presented itself then and there.
I should also say I do not advocate photography absent of artifice. The entire photographic pursuit is to some degree artifice. A finely worked landscape photograph may not be "representative" of a scene. Think of black and white landscapes. They are not representative in a most sincere way, which is their lack of color. Photography is a fiction, but good photography is a finely crafted fiction striking the seer as true. If the work of the photographer were merely an act of transmission of the visual data of a point in time then journalists would count as artists; but journalists are not artists. The virtue of journalism is the absence of artifice. Our photographs should give the appearance of truth. They should make sense to the mind. They should fabricate a reality. In photography this is first and foremost a true representation of light.
Well judging by the time of year the the shots were taken the minds impression was probably that your boots were not as good as you thought they were and that the damp cold of the Irish winter was eating into your bones like nothing else can.
Our light is quite different to any place else, possibly due to being on the edge of the Atlantic.
I might be reading it wrong but I think your second paragraph is going round in ever decreasing circles.