Across Blackheath Redux

The image a modern digital camera takes is not what the eye sees, and it's not "what's there", it's what the camera takes given the parameters you've told it to work to. In this photograph, it shot to get good detail and light int he sky, and the land and buildings followed on behind. Play around with the light variables in Photos, and the sky remains remarkably stable, while the buildings and grass get more or less clear and visible. On the day, the light was diffuse, but the Heath and the buildings weren't dim.

Within a dull-looking photo there may be a really neat one hidden by cookie-cutter development and printing. Ansel Adams said that the photograph is the script and the print is the performance. A chunk of the work of photography is taking the photograph, but another chunk is making the print. What makes the snap-shot aesthetic is its refusal to use the printing process to bring out the image. I've been a snap-shot guy for a long time. (Maybe all those hours trying to find a guitar tone is changing the way I think.)

Anyway, here's a re-print of one of the photos I took about nine months ago (it feels like at least two years) and thought was a bit dull.

Much more interesting.