abstract photos of tree trunks in the forest - would appreciate some insightful feedback

T'was May of 2007 that I got hooked into photography...a year later I captured my first series of GBH's in flight, 10 in-focus birds.
Someone suggested that I use PS to blend them into one long panel...took me about a week to get it right.

It is not an easy program and learning curve is obscene...you gotta be anal retentive to accomplish your goals...one step at a time.
None of the images on my 1x site are a single image and all took a minimum of 8-10 hrs of PS time...changing/tweaki​ng/whatnot.

I do it because of my age...at 73, I don't go traipsing around the woods like in times past and am far from satisfied with documentary images.
I can live with being a sub-par photographer, but am satisfied with my results. Am not patient in the field...am patient with the computer.

I misspoke when I said that didn't understand, for I realize that we are all different. This is merely how I work.

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That's a great explanation, Chauncey.

It is evident that you enjoy using PhotoShop; that the process itself is something that you can "get into" and thereby use it effectively as a means of artistic expression. That's how I feel whilst I am afield with the camera.
You're right - we are all different, and that is a very good thing!

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This has always been my favorite forum. It is great that you can communicate with "friends" with some huge "holes" in your knowledge of who they are. It is often nice when you discover things about these slightly obscure friends. Having read many of your (chauncy) posts I surprised by your age. I intend this as a compliment to you
Apologies Tom for going a bit off this intersting topic FWIW I have mixed feelings about PS. Sometimes it leads me to alter the way I take photos - good or bad I don't know.

chauncey wrote in post #18069517
I keep reading the camera movement suggestions that you guys refer to...they can all be accomplished in PS.
I gotta be honest, when your goal is "ART"...why the aversion to PS?

I read this as, "Hey, Wofgang! Why bother with the piano? The flute is much easier to carry." or "Yo, Michaelangelo! Nobody looks at the ceiling."

The analogies leave something to be desired.
Was gonna say more, but I busy watching the Republican Convention from Cleveland....

chauncey wrote in post #18069517
I keep reading the camera movement suggestions that you guys refer to...they can all be accomplished in PS.
I gotta be honest, when your goal is "ART"...why the aversion to PS?

I've been thinking about this statement quite a bit.
While PS can take the photo you feed it and simulate camera movement, it really can't make the resultant image the same as if you had actually moved the camera when taking the photo.

Why? Well, the main reason that comes to mind is that PS is limited to the content you have in the photo you feed it. If I actually move the camera as I trigger the shutter, the exposure is able to capture what is quite literally a sweep of the scene before me. At the relatively narrow angle of view that I get when shooting at 100mm focal length on a 1.3 sensor camera I am able to capture the blue sky, the tree trunks, and the forest floor! If I look thru the viewfinder while holding the camera still, at that focal length and at the close distance I am to the trees, I will only see a small portion of the scene that I am capturing. Yet my exposure has blue at the top from the sky, whitish or brown tree trunks in the middle, and green at the bottom. If I just took one frame with the camera still, at that focal length, then there would not be all three elements (colors) present because the angle of view does not allow anything more than one of these elements to fit into the frame. So, if I am only capturing tree trunks, how in the world can PS know what would have been in the picture if I had been moving the camera?

Sure, I could shoot the whole scene wide to capture a lot more of the scene before me, and then feed that to Photoshop and let PS do it's motion blur thing.......but there is no way that is going to give me the exact look that I would have achieved if I had shot it at 100mm and moved the camera. There are so many things involved that would be changed, such as DOF, degree to which each portion of the scene is defocused, arrangement of the individual tree trunks in the frame, etc. There is just no way that PS is going to give you the same exact image that you would capture at 100mm.

PS can do a heck of a lot of things. It doesn't do all of them well. Why? Because most art has to be felt when it is being created. Felt, not programmed.

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I want to say thanks for the inspiration. I've been looking for new ways to capture things and I'm always so focused on focus (aren't we all?).

I photograph a drumline and maybe it is time to do some extreme motion!

Thanks!

planet5D wrote in post #18071661
I want to say thanks for the inspiration. I've been looking for new ways to capture things and I'm always so focused on focus (aren't we all?).

Hey, you reminded me of something important when you brought up "focus" - something that I should have made clear right in the very first post:

These images have all been intentionally de-focused. The tree trunks were between 80 and 150 feet away, yet before shooting these images I would focus my lens on the ground about 20 or 30 feet in front of me. I did that because I wanted the tree trunks to show no detail, and to just be blurry vertical streaks. This is sometimes hard to do if the trees are in focus, so I thought that by making sure that they were out of focus, and then combining that out-of-focusness with fast camera movement, those two things would work together to keep any details or small branches from showing up.

By the way, I do like taking photos - all kinds of photos - where nothing is in focus at all, and all of the elements are blurry. Total Bokeh!

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I like the second one because of the contrast in colors.
Tom, like you, I have taken an interest in this genre of photography, in the past few weeks. It is sometimes called ICM, or Intentional Camera Movement. A thread was recently started on this. You may want to check it out.
https://photography-on-the.net …read.php?t=1483​835&page=1

I thought they look nice.....trees?? Forget the trees....Is not about the trees anymore....