ku # 621 ~ a correction
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 09:54AM 
2 months of rain will do this • click to embiggenYesterday's entry, in which I mentioned Jeff "Foliage" Folger article (in the current Yankee Magazine) and his thoughts on that slider for saturation all the way to the right, contained a error on my part - I left out the word "not" in this sentence -
Apparently, in making the cover picture selection, the photo editor and/or editor did follow that advice.
That omission obviously changes what I meant to be my point. I have since corrected that mistake to read:
Apparently, in making the cover picture selection, the photo editor and/or editor did NOT follow that advice.
That said, Jeff "Foliage" Folger stopped by and left, in part, this comment:
... Do you jump on all those hdr photos because they create images whose colors are all over the color wheel? or are they just art and in the beholders eye ... [I]f people like and enjoy the cover then all is good, if no one buys it because the photo is of poor quality then it is self correcting and they will learn ... [T]hank you for reading the article.. oh! did you like it? :-) Also you did review my photos to tell me they are too over the top?
Yes, I read the article and it certainly makes clear why Jeff's middle name is "Foliage" - it's a very appropriate moniker for someone who has made 50,000 or so pictures of autumn foliage over the past 5 years. Jeff also seems to take seriously his own advice re: "colors that Mother Nature just didn't create" - the pictures that accompanied the article (and others of Jeff's that I have found) seem to be quite restrained when it comes to the use of color. Jeff's foliage pictures are quite definitely pictures that are well placed in the natural-color side of things - very assuredly NOT over-the-top.
Re: HDR pictures - a precious few picture makers are using the HDR technique to make extended-range pictures that are quite natural looking. Most are making freakish unnatural looking pictures. These are not at all my cup of picture-making tea and they most definitely fall into my "jump on" category.
I do disagree with Jeff's assessment that "If people like and enjoy the cover then all is good ..." - Unfortunately, eco-porn and/or nature-porn is far from "self-correcting". Rather, it is at the forefront of creating and maintaining a false and misleading conceptualization of the natural world.
A conceptualization that generally operates well below the sensitivity threshold of conscious public awareness. Consequently, the vast majority of the public has come to accept, or at the very least prefer, pretty but not so true pictures of the natural world.
This pretty-but-not-so-true conceptualization of the natural world is so widely accepted that many a corporate advertisement that extols the company's environmental record or policies - usually by a company known to rape and pillage the environment as often as possible - use this "acceptance" to try and create a public image of environmental responsibility.
That said, and as an addendum to yesterday's entry, man & nature # 209 ~ sizzling hot, I would like to point out that, despite the use of an eco-porn cover picture, virtually all of the pictures used to illustrate a variety of articles inside of the magazine are quite natural in their use of color. There is no evidence of the over-the-top color, saturation, and contrast manipulation that is the defining characteristic of the cover picture.
FYI, for those wishing to see more of Jeff "Foliage" Folger's foliage pictures, you might start here.
Reader Comments (1)
Thanks for the clarification. It's good to be held accountable (at least a little) in the art we create.
I'm still not sure I agree with your "Eco-Porn" terminology. I googled it with the expected results and maybe you can point out one of your articles that discusses this in more detail. In your original article you talk about how "if one avoids some wide-spread and significant areas of rural poverty" then you can find the pretty side of Vermont. My wife grew up there on a "working" farm so in the past few years I've seen both sides of what Vermont has to offer. Of course this applies to every state and in my opinion this goes for every country as well.
But!
People like to see the good side and ignore the gritty side of real life. We all like to imagine the pretty side because we get enough reality daily and being able to put aside reality for a moment or two helps us deal with the rest of the mess that we call life.
The question is are you a Vermonter or do you live somewhere else in New England...
I think we could have an interesting conversation on New England life in general...
I looked over your gallery (weekend gallery) and I read the accompanying text. I begin to wonder if I can life up to your expectations... :-) But then I'm not trying to.
You have some really good shots there and a few that I would assume you could sell as cards and prints because I like them and probably so do others.
I guess I will stop back by every once in a while and see what you're writing and taking pictures of.
Sorry if I'm hijacking your column :-) but I know I also appreciate discourse and usually only get (nice pics comments) :-)