Blogg

February 2009

The digital era:
More and more the question is being asked,’ Where do we as photographers draw the line with today's technology? ’
Digital photography is making the processing of photo’s much easier for photographers. We have more control over our images and do not have to spent years in a darkroom learning the darkroom techniques before we can master the art of photography. Nor do we have to leave our beloved photo’s in the hands of someone else for developing, we are hands-on in all the processes, from the actual releasing of the shutter to the printing of the photo.
We have gained a lot with the arrival of the digital camera, but also lost a lot…. Now, when people view your photos, they will much rather ask ‘ Did you do that with Photoshop?’, than comment on your talent.
(Or maybe, the best one of all: ‘ You must have a very good camera!’)
There is a lot of myth in the public’s mind as to how much a photo can be enhanced with today’s digital technology. Very few people realize that the software we used to process a photo, is mostly copying the same techniques that darkroom- technicians have used for many, many years already.
I have never seen a photo, which have not been correctly taken in-camera, processed to a stage where it looks acceptable, much less good. It is just not possible.
Sometimes, the camera capture images and colors not possible for the human eye to see. Colors that seems muted to us just after sunset, can show up spectacular on a photo if the shutter was allowed sufficient time to record it. A good example of which is this photo at top left, where the shutter was opened for 30 seconds, recording this beautiful purple and rich, blue colors I could not see at the time.

The essence of a landscape photo:
I see myself as someone who capture those fleeting moments in nature when the true beauty of nature is portrayed.
People often comment that they have never known the landscape can be so beautiful until they saw my photos. The simple truth is it can and it does look like that, only it is a fleeting moment and quickly forgotten, until I capture it.

I was shooting next to the Steenbras Dam two nights ago, a lovely windless night with birds settling in for the night and a baboon’s cry coming from the forest from time to time. I was on the edge of the water, almost in it. Ever so often I would see and hear the fish in the dam surfacing, sometime only a meter away from me. I longed to see them…. I knew they were there...but I just got glimpses of them. They surfaced and I was only quick enough to see the rings form on the water.
It got me thinking that this is almost like being a landscape photographer. You know the landscape is there, you know it can be a beautiful scene, but those moments is fleeting and if you are not quick and relentless in capturing it, it is lost forever……. until the next time, when it shows you a different view of the same scene.
Could that be why people think I go to exotic places to photograph or do a lot of processing of the images, when in reality I work in their backyards, but capture moments in time which they do not look out for any more, do not appreciate any more? The only difference is that mine is between four borders.