[Leica] IMG: Along the American River

[leicaphong at gmail.com (Phong)]

Adam,

Please don't take my comment as a criticism of your technique.
I was being facetious, perhaps out of a context of a previous exchange
involving Sonny, Philippe and myself, and should have added a smiley
emoticon in my reply.
My apologies.

Black and white photography is an art serendipitously born out of a
deficiency in the technology of the day.
A century ago, before the advent of color photography, people went to great
extents to colorize their photos.
Ironically, a hundred years later,  in the age of digital photography, we
do the opposite, rendering the color original into black and white.
People often criticize excessive use of digital image processing techniques
for making photos look "unnatural".
Yet what can be more unnatural than removing colors from our vision ?

There are photography disciplines that thrive for color veracity.  Doug
Herr does a remarkable job with colors in his bird photography.
But any color scientist with tell you that absolute color fidelity is an
impossible goal, as each output media is limited in its color gamut.
On top of that, our brain post-processes the raw data captured by our eyes
to produce the final vision, adding an important subjective
aspect to it.  Slightly different shades of colors perceived slightly
differently by different people, will result in different emotional
responses.
We see not only with our eyes, but also with our brains, and more
importantly, also with our hearts.
At least I hope, and pray that it is, so.

Back to your image, I much prefer the B&W version, perhaps because I am
more in a B&W mood these days.
I brought your 2 images up side-by-side to compare and was surprised how
almost monochromatic your color original is.
It's as if Nature is in the middle of "colorizing"  the scene, and I do not
mean that in any pejorative way.

Best,

- Phong






On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:50 AM, Adam Bridge <abridge at mac.com> wrote:

> I'm not certain what you mean by "colorizing technique" Phong.
>
> Could you explain a little more? The image was originally color. When I
> made the HDR I shifted to monochrome because I liked how it looked a lot
> better.
>
> But I didn't colorize it - that is I didn't add color where there was none.
>
> Thanks for looking.
>
> On Apr 9, 2013, at 6:45 PM, Phong <leicaphong at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Remarkably similar colorizing techniques:
> >
> >
> http://adam-bridge.smugmug.com/gallery/27796461_bZQWXL#!i=2449317437&k=6rpmCQP
> >
> >      http://www.pbase.com/phong/image/149398556/medium
> >
> > Though I must admit yours is somewhat more subtle.
> > :-)
> >
> > - Phong
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 8:58 PM, <grduprey at mchsi.com> wrote:
> >
> >> like this one better.
> >>
> >> Gene
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Adam Bridge" <abridge at mac.com>
> >> To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>
> >> Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:29:56 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
> >> Subject: Re: [Leica] IMG: Along the American River
> >>
> >> Here's the color version, not HDR, from the base frame around which the
> >> others were exposed:
> >>
> >> <
> >>
> http://adam-bridge.smugmug.com/gallery/27796461_bZQWXL#!i=2449317437&k=6rpmCQP
> >>>
> >>
> >> This is somewhat tweeked in Lightroom but nothing extreme.
> >>
> >> Adam
> >>
> >> On 2013 Apr 8, at 3:26 PM, Steve Barbour <steve.barbour at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> The original is in color, Steve. Probably you're just on the wrong side
> >> of town.... ;-)
> >>>
> >>> Possibly so Adam, could you also post the color version to let us have
> a
> >> taste?
> >>>
> >>> Adam
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
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> >>
> >
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>
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