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This image was made at Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, July 2005 Notice: Image copyright © 2005, David Halpern, All Rights Reserved. This image may be viewed on this site and may not be downloaded for any use whatsoever. The original image was manipulated in Adobe® Photoshop® utilizing the transform feature to stretch the upper portion (mountain peaks) and lower portion (near foreground), while maintaining the character of the mid-ground (trees). Following these transformations, the entire image was compressed horizontally to create a more appropriate relationship between the peaks and cropped to satisfy my compositional tastes. My purpose was to create an interpretation that is closer to my perceptions than the original wide-angle photograph depicts (see below). |
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This is the image, before it was manipulated in Adobe® Photoshop®. The exposure was made with a 24mm lens which covers the entire scene, but makes the more distant elements appear to be smaller than they appear to a viewer standing by the lake. |
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| This is the latest interpretation of the 2005 photograph as featured on my current home page. I have applied a faint image of clouds as a layer over the upper half of the image. This enhances the effect of the clearing mist and cloud cover and adds depth and drama to the scene. Looking back, this seems to me a more expressive depiction of my experience waiting by the lake that morning. |
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Comment: I have taken the same liberties with this photograph that a painter might have taken in rendering the view on canvas, and I have achieved a result that satisfies my own sensibilities. No longer bound by the limitations of camera and lens, photographers can produce images that express our own vision rather than one defined by the characteristics of optics. From my camera's position, I actually had to look up to see the mountain tops, and down to see the water below the rock on which I was standing. My wide-angle lens was able to take in the entire scene, but not without diminishing the mountains' height and distorting the immediate foreground. The manipulation,therefore, seems totally justified in the artistic sense, for it more accurately reflects my perception of the scene. Historically, photographs have been defined by the camera and we have offered numerous rationalizations in defense of the straight photograph while, at the same time, we have argued that our manipulation of values within the image itself to conceal and reveal details is our artistic right as self expression. Thankfully, the digital medium has helped to liberate expression. If, as Ansel Adams reasoned, the camera, is no more than a tool comparable to the brushes of the painter working with oil on canvas, then the computer and Photoshop® are just two more tools that enable us to extend our vision beyond the fixed perspective of a normal, wide-angle or telephoto lens. The most important tool that any artist brings to his or her work is a creative eye and we should not arbitrarily place a limitation on the expression of vision—certainly not under the pretense that we are preserving artistic purity. |
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