Can the Zone System Go Digital?

In a word: YES! The Zone System (ZS) can be an integral and important part of any digital photographer’s workflow because it allows you to plan and predict an image’s tonal values rather than letting the camera make the decision. The computerized metering systems in modern cameras are really amazing, and a lot of the

Ansel Adams, Leica, and Yosemite in April 2012

News Flash: Experience the Leica S2 in Yosemite! Students attending my April Ansel Adams Gallery workshop, “Ansel Adams’ Yosemite: The Art of Seeing,” will have a rare opportunity to photograph with the Leica S2, a premier medium-format digital camera that retails for approximately $28,000 and was developed exclusively for digital photography. It’s based on a

Choosing a Lens – How Does Focal Length Affect Your Image?

It comes as quite a surprise to a lot of the photographers I work with that the only thing that changes when you use a different focal-length lens is the cropping of your image! Optical aberrations aside, short focal-length, or “wide-angle,” lenses do not distort close subjects, and long focal-length, or telephoto, lenses do not

Selective Masking for Printing Challenging Negatives

Get Total Consistency from Print to Print Over the years I’ve evolved a technique I have come to refer to as Selective Masking. I use the term “selective” because it is a physical, hands-on method of tonal control in analog printing, rather that the photometric “unsharp masking”. In its basic form, it’s not techno-anything; it

Photoshop and Photography – What is a Photograph?

On February 25th, 2010, technology writer David Pogue posted a thought provoking commentary for the New York Times on the subject of Photoshop and Photography – What is a Photograph.  I replied with some thoughts of my own, and David graciously gave me his permission to quote him in my news letter and on my site. (I added the photos, they weren’t in the original article).

Photoshop and Photography: When Is It Real?

 

Popular Photography Award Winner 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Popular Photography Seagulls Award 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By DAVID POGUE

In the March issue of Popular Photography magazine, the editor’s note, by Miriam Leuchter, is called “What Is a Photograph?”

You’d think that, after 73 years, a magazine called Popular Photography would have figured that out. (Ba-da-bump!)

Actually, though, the editorial is about the magazine’s annual Reader’s Photos Contest. This year, in two of the categories, the winners were what the magazine calls composites, and what I call Photoshop jobs.

One photo shows a motorcyclist being chased by a tornado; another shows a flock of seagulls wheeling around a lighthouse in amazingly photogenic formation. Neither scene ever actually existed as photographed.

Now, in my experience, photographers can be a vocal lot. And a lot of them weren’t crazy about the idea of Photoshop jobs winning the contest.

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