This thread represents a limited and narrow niche for pictures of natural landscapes that have been produced with minimal and relatively unnoticable postprocessing.

The general thread for all sorts of scenic and landscape pictures is located here:

Scenics and 'Scapes - PentaxForums.com

The idea of this thread is to reveal a truthful depiction of the natural world which can evoke feelings of reverence for nature, excluding documentary snapshots and "artfully" processed images that may well show the skill of the artist, but which do not represent the way the world actually presents itself.

Please submit a single landscape image that accurately reflects the scene as experienced at time of exposure subject to the following conditions:

Maintain the integrity of the original subject as perceived at the time of the exposure. The viewer should be able to appreciate the subject of the image, without thinking about the image as an image or the techniques used to produce it. The effects of postprocessing must not distract from the subject matter.

Don't add or remove elements other than to amend the condition of the image (it's ok to crop, stitch, remove dust spots and so forth).

Don't distort existing elements. However, correction of lens distortion and perspective may be used subject to the original premise of truthful representation.

Don't combine multiple images taken at different focal lengths or times. Focus-stacking and exposure bracketing for enhanced dynamic range are allowed.

Incidental manifestations and artifacts of human habitation, appearances of wildlife or domestic animals, etc., that are merely incidental to the otherwise natural subject matter, are allowed.

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Last edited by dlhawes; 01-29-2022 at 06:00 AM.

[tuco]

Sea Stacks, Cannon Beach, OR by tuco, on Flickr

Pentax 67, 67 55mm

[aaacb]

Wondering if you saw this recent photo contest (closed now) Rules on Adjustments Natural Landscape Photography Awards
Similar topic and rules, great panel of judges in my opinion.

A recent image, btw I don't think I've ever learned enough digital manipulation to break those rules


k1ii and fa 43

[mek42]

Wondering if you saw this recent photo contest (closed now) Rules on Adjustments Natural Landscape Photography Awards
Similar topic and rules, great panel of judges in my opinion.

A recent image, btw I don't this I've ever learned enough digital manipulation to break those rules


k1ii and fa 43

I really like this image. It engages me. Thank you for seeing it as worth shooting and then sharing it here.

[Davep]

This was shot last Friday. It's full image uncropped with no processing adjustments. The jpeg was created from the raw file in post however. K-3 + DA 17-70.

It's not a particularly sharp image, and some post processing adjustments might create something more interesting, but for this thread, I think it works well just the same.

[Davep]

Since I can't really zoom in to see pixels, I wouldn't have known it wasn't sharp if you hadn't said so. It's a beautiful picture - looks like you're a few weeks ahead of us here in the humid subtropical latitudes.

I wonder if you happen to go there again, whether you might experiment with a couple of things (or perhaps you have already and rejected the alternatives); one would be to raise the level of the camera, which would eliminate some of your foreground, but which might provide better definition of the edges of the leaf-covered track - I'm thinking it might channel the viewer's perception more directly to the little opening there in the center and making it look more inviting - it looks like a sort of magical doorway, and I'm thinking to emphasize it more, particularly since it's got to be smack-dab in the center (framed as it is by the forest on either side). The second thing is that it looks like you're capturing the track as well as you can, as well as the magical doorway, but I'm thinking I'd try giving up on that idea and move somewhat to the left to get a more head-on shot of the doorway gap.

Some time ago, I came up with a phrase that I liked to describe what sells on the drugstore's bookshelf: I call it the "single thought theory". The theory holds that the average person (including above-average persons) really can only handle one thought or subject at a time, so the paperbacks that sell best are those that contain exactly one idea. Similarly, there are Youtube personalities who say you should have exactly one subject in your photograph. I've kind of violated that "rule", myself in the initial post, since the rocks on the left and the trees on the right could be thought of as separate subjects.

What I'm thinking you could try is to give up on making the track itself so prominent and emphasize the magical doorway gap more, so as to have a more definite subject that people can relate to. It's a terrific picture as it is, I'm just thinking of some experimentation you could try with the same scene if you get a chance. Though I'm thinking you might be able to achieve the same effect that I'm suggesting by cropping a bit.

I've been hiking those trails every second or third day for the last month. (Might as well enjoy the weather while I can. ) I'll have a look to see if there are others from that spot. Mind you, the reason I chose that shot was that it was very recent, plus with the emphasis on the foreground, it was more unique than my usual "looking down the trail" cliché shots. (Sometimes my shots suffer originality. )

[7.62lew]

Wondering if you saw this recent photo contest (closed now) Rules on Adjustments Natural Landscape Photography Awards
Similar topic and rules, great panel of judges in my opinion.

A recent image, btw I don't think I've ever learned enough digital manipulation to break those rules


k1ii and fa 43

Nice!

[normhead]

I really like this image. It engages me. Thank you for seeing it as worth shooting and then sharing it here.

A good set of rules, but almost anything I could post would follow those rules.

[7.62lew]

One from a recent trip...

[arnold]

[IMG][/IMG]
Pentax MX, Kodachrome

[tuco]

Wetland by tuco, on Flickr

Pentax 67, 67 55mm, Provia 100F, Tentenal E-6 Development Kit

[tuco]

Beautiful! I love the contrast and the fact that you didn't turn the surface of the water into fuzz with long-exposure/ND filter stuff. I must have spent fifteen or twenty minutes staring at that picture, and all the various points of interest. Makes me wish I were there with my rod and reel.

Thanks. One inherent factor for a short exposure is I don't know what the reciprocity correction would be for Provia 100F with a long exposure or if it would shift the color of that film. And with only 10 frames per roll, I wasn't going to waste shots to find out.

[normhead]

Washing out the colour you saw is worse than over-saturating in my mind. Shooting in poor light ditto.

One evening at the Whitney dam, backlit, evening sun.


The next morning. Just after the sun rose above the trees.


Only the second image captures what I actually saw. My eye compensated for the bad lighting and what I experienced in the first shot was closer to the second shot. IN a way, the limitations of the capture technology diminished what I experienced. I just couldn't make it happen with the camera.

Minimalist processing doesn't get you out of trying to recreate the values you saw in the original scene. If the reds really stood out, you have to make the reds really stand out. There is no inherent value to flat uninspiring images and lack of PP is no better than too much PP.


In this particular shot I got excellent image lighting effects naturally from natural cloud cover. Notice the cloud shadow in the beach in front of the chairs. Sometimes you get lucky.
But there is software with "Lighting effects" filters that could create the same, how would you even know which was which? A day the clouds co-operated or a digital "Lighting effects" filter?

It seems to me the thread should maybe be about times we got lucky and didn't need much PP to bring the photograph to life. However, I doubt it's supposed to be about unintentionally flat photography that results from poor PP skills or exposure skills or the inability to turn up when the light is good. There's also the "Magical Light " thread for that type of image. So, I guess I'm still struggling with the concept.

What the camera captures is not always what I saw. PP is what gets you from what you captured to what you saw. But since we all see differently, one person's not enough PP is another's too much PP. And low contrast unsaturated images are just as un-natural as over-processed images. Unsaturated just doesn't happen much in nature. I see the opposite way too much. I see a super saturated shot with brilliant colours and a rich earthy feel, and I get home and just can't reproduce from my image what I saw.

I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept of "minimally processed." The big question being, if it's minimally processed to the point of being flat so much that the contrast and colour palette don't look natural....is it still a good image? Is minimally processed code for "under-processed."


I'm always reminded of the scene from Amadeus where the Emperor, says Mozart's composition has "Too many notes." And Mozart replies "I has just the right amount of notes, no more , no less." The same kinds of comments can be made about almost anyone's processing. In that context, what does "minimalist" even mean? It would seem to relate only to not adding feature or cloning out features by the definitions, as if an over-saturated too heavily processed image would be OK, because we didn't change anything in the scene, like adding clouds, or elements that weren't there. But 99.9% of the forum only post images that don't do that. SO at least for me, the definition of minimalist doesn't really say anything.

So anyway, what are we actually going for here guys?


---------- Post added 10-18-21 at 09:48 AM ----------

Beautiful! I love the contrast and the fact that you didn't turn the surface of the water into fuzz with long-exposure/ND filter stuff. I must have spent fifteen or twenty minutes staring at that picture, and all the various points of interest. Makes me wish I were there with my rod and reel.

One of my clients when taking images of still water was taught by a landscape pro on a photography tour, to throw a rock in the water to create ripples. That's not entirely natural... but again, how would you know the difference?

[tuco]

Leaves on a light box I use to look at negatives.


Fall Leaves by tuco, on Flickr

[normhead]

Leaves on a light box I use to look at negatives.


Fall Leaves by tuco, on Flickr

Very cool.