Somewhere near Seattle
Steve Weeks has a very interesting post, Perceptions Real or Imagined, on his. He talks about the differences in post processing between people. This thought has occurred to me before, but not quite in the way that he talks about it. He talks about two people, he and a friend, doing post processing on the same image. He has the images posted on his blog. The differences are quite intriguing. They are both lovely in their own right, but I certainly lean more towards one than the other. I won’t say which so as not to pollute your own judgment. You can probably guess which one that I like better because it is more in alignment with my own style.
His post got me to thinking about a couple of things that I have heard through the years. The first about a photographer, whose name escapes me, that moved from somewhere in the northeast, New Jersey I believe, to San Diego, California and how it greatly affected his photography as well as the way that he saw things. The second, from Colin Jago, a Scottish photographer, who once remarked that someone told him that he should increase the contrast on his photos to make them ‘better’. He replied that he worked hard to make his photos just the way that he perceived them. That his area of the world had pretty flat lighting and was overcast a lot of the time. Therefore, his photography reflected his environment.
I began to think about how our own environment that we live in from day to day has an effect on how we might post process pictures. I have lived in the south all of my adult life, first Texas, then North Carolina, now South Carolina. They all have one thing in common, lots of sunshine. Therefore, mostly everything that I see has a nice, crisp edge to it. I like contrast. There is very little gradually transitioning light and soft shadows, save for the edges of the day. Therefore, most of the images that I post process are going to be pretty snappy. I have no problem with the contrast slider, as that is just the way that I see things.
On my trips to California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Same things. Lots of light. Lots of contrast. So, it was like not leaving home at all. In December, I had to go to Seattle, Washington for a business trip. It was my first time to the cloudy, rainy, low contrast northwestern part of the U.S. I was able to take a few pictures, but when I started to post process, the ‘snap’ wasn’t there. I did play with the sliders, but felt, based on what I had seen while walking around, that that particular contrast just didn’t exist there.
I’ve since gone back and looked at some of those photos and am challenged on how to post process them through eyes that were raised on sunshine. The photos, though some are interesting, seem to lack life. I guess that I just don’t have an appreciation for that type of environment. Although, to be fair, I did go in the dead of winter. The natives tell me that it is quite amazing around July. Then, the sun actually comes out!
I’m certain that it has nothing to do with the area, just my view of how things ‘should’ look based on where I have lived for most of my life.
Have you ever had any such experiences?
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10 Responses to “Post processing and where you live. A connection?”
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The one that always gets me is going to Australia. The light is just ‘different’ there in a way that I can’t quite describe. Maybe because it is so much further away from the equator and the angle is different, maybe because of the lack of ozone. Maybe it is the increased UV.
I can see it almost immediately in shots from there – from my self and other people, but I still can’t quite put my finger on what it really is that changes.
Almost since my infancy in photography (and that was quite recent), I have noticed that difference in what people will accept as looking “natural”. Like you, having by far most of my life in the southwest (Texas and southern California), I live in a reality that is bathed in vivid colors and strong contrasts. I was once in London for a couple of weeks (before I owned a camera) and it never looked quite real to my eyes. My trips to the northeastern U.S. have always produced a profound sense of disorientation—partly because of the differences in light.
What amuses me is that there are others who insist upon imposing their “reality” (especially in terms of light) upon others. And, some of those people are well-traveled! That’s what I find most puzzling.
Some people carry their reality with them. Others adapt to the reality that they find.
For me, seeing new places helps to keep having new eyes.
And after living here for almost 20 months, I still marvel at how stunning our light and our skies are here in the Pacific Northwest.
Thanks for the mention and followup thoughts in this post. You brought up ideas that I haven’t explored, but will now.
In case it isn’t clear to some, my friend Pete lives and made the picture in Portland, OR and I live in Las Vegas, NV. Most of the time you couldn’t find two more diverse areas for photography. He made the picture on one of their rare sunny days that we here in the sunbelt take for granted.
My photography experience has been mainly sun bathed areas that have the same qualities you describe from your areas. We did however spend a week last year in Pacific Grove, CA (think Monterey) and it was socked in fog the whole time. It did throw me off a bit, but man you do get detail in everything, no fear of holding shadow detail, because there aren’t any shadows.
Steve
[...] up from yesterday’s post about real and imagined perceptions when post processing an image.  Paul Lester brought up a fine point about your base location influencing how you perceive the image should go [...]
I remember when I moved to LA from NYC how different the light was. The combination of the angle and the intensity, I guess. I’ve often wanted to compare Winogrand’s work in NYC to his work in Austin and LA and see if I could tell the difference just by looking.
The flat light that is a little unique to the NW has trained me to see in B&W at times. I also tend toward high contrast and darker photos I think it is more about how some thing makes me feel not a record of what I saw. If the light isn’t there for what I want to say I bring my own and make the statement. However I do agree with you that the place and light you see everyday will influence how you see things. The real challenge is to look with new eyes and make your environment add to the story not limit it. To much of anything is boring be it sunshine or rain.
Thanks for posting this. Enjoyed both yours and Mr. Week’s points of view on this, as well as the rest of your blogging.
The same goes with skin tones, which for instance here in Scandinavia tends to be rendered lighter and less saturated than in for instance southern Europe. I can imagine that Scandinavian images look like depicting ghosts to a viewer from the southern Europe. Or from the southern parts of the US, for that sake. Transparent skin, creepy…
It’s like we have different filters in front of our eyes and that these seem to be interchangeable if you relocate, but not if you just travelling through.
I would take it a step further. It’s not only postprocessing, and the light at a given place. The whole picture language (is that the right word?) seems often to be very dependent on the cultural background of the photographer – there’s usually a huge difference between different countries. I dare to say that it’s actually quite easy to distinguish between say a Scottish, a Swedish and a US landscape shot. Even when the general motiv is as similar as the geographic location (latitude)…