Photography is deceptive and that’s what makes it so powerful.
I Heart Film complimented the image in yesterday’s post saying it
had nice color. He should know.
His blog shows a variety of pictures that make great use of
color and light.
Something that struck me was a quote from Duane Michals
displayed in the top right corner stating that photography is
about appearance, but, “nothing is what it appears to be.”
This is photography’s essence.
The Aurora Borealis
My image above of the Aurora Borealis reminds me constantly
that photography is not necessarily reality.
No, I didn’t fabricate or exaggerate this image in Adobe Photoshop.
The Aurora happened one November night in 2004 over Southern Indiana.
It was extremely rare.
When I look at the image though, I am reminded of two experiences.
The first, is how it appeared to my eyes, the tones in the sky more muted
and the sky looked like deep water from below, the light barely illuminating
it. The second experience is how it appeared in the digital image.
Color
The color in my image is more saturated than it appeared to my eyes>
Again, no I didn’t hammer the saturation slider in Photoshop as far
to the right as it go. I didn’t spend hours toning the picture to
get every last bit of red and green possible out of it.
Rather the image picked up more red than was visible to my eyes.
I think this had to do with the exposure being 11 seconds which
allowed the camera to pick up more color than what was visible.
Neither version of the event is the absolute truth. Both are
representations.
Photography and Truth
Truth in photography is still a controversial subject.
There are photographers like Lego guru Balakov who have
taken an interesting slant on it.
In Smile, a three month old post of mine I wrote about how I
thought Balakov’s images question the originals which they
immitate.
I can’t draw any definite conclusions on just how honest any
particular image is.
Like Michals admits, appearances can be deceiving.
Loved the post and the pic.
I appreciate you making time to read the blog. Pedro Meyer is another
photographer worth looking at if you’re interested in the relationship
between truth and photography.
Interesting thoughts, great photo : )
Thanks for reading the blog Elise. I’d love to see more
from your site but I’m getting some silly “forbidden” message
when I click the link.
I’ll check back.
Andrew:
I was able to view Elise’s blog at:
http://elisejensen.wordpress.com/
Perhaps emptying your browser’s cache might do the trick???
That’s the move that sometimes works for me…
I could see the blog fine.
Beautiful muted colors in some of the images.
The colors reminded me somewhat of Phil Borges.
I was thinking when I clicked on Elise Jensen Photography on the
right of the blog it would take me to her website.
That link is where I am getting the error message.
Would love to see more work.
.
Thank you, Andrew : ) and no problem, it’s great to stumble over something good once in a while.
Ah, sorry guys. My site is actually not there at the moment. I’ll make a post when the new one is up and running : )
Love this photo. I’ve always wanted to see the Aurora Borealis. Every picture makes it look more magical.
Thanks Karunya. Nature is magical. It’s troublesome that we often don’t see it’s magic.
Another photographer who has really inspired me by showing the magic of the natural
world is John Moran.
Moran is based in Florida. His images and some of the stories behind them as written
in Strobist tell you how passionately Moran feels about nature.