Fine Art

This is a collection that in my opinion crosses the grey line that separates photographs from photographic art. Although I view all my images as art, and seek to express emotion and communicate thoughts and feelings through the photograph, there is an element of photography that is inherently coupled to a more objective reality. When one views a photograph, as opposed to most other works of art, there is often an expectation that what is viewed is related intimately to what the actual scene contained or portrayed. .. Some photographers prefer to maintain a strong correlation between the original and final image, while others enjoy enhancing the image with post-production while not drastically altering the contents or what the original scene portrayed to them, and still others see photography more as pure art and have little to no post-production boundaries in their workflow. Photography is ultimately an art form in which the photographer can do whatever they wish to create the final product. However, there is a possibility that the viewer may incorrectly assume that the image they're viewing portrays a more literal version of the scene than it truly does. Personally, I generally choose to perform anywhere from little or no post-processing to extensive edited involving changing the luminosity, color, hue, and/or saturation of the image. These are common practices and it is hopefully fairly clear to the viewer when and to roughly what extent they are being done. In general, if it looks like you would never see such a scene in reality, you are probably correct. I also occasionally remove distracting elements from the scene, or even fill-in areas in order to create a more balanced composition. I also use multiple exposure blending or stacking to handle high-dynamic scenes or to create sharper images. For night images, which present particular technical challenges, I often perform more extensive post-processing techniques. For example, I typically use image stacking and/or blend separate images of the foreground and sky to reduce noise. This can involve long exposures of the foreground, or blending an image taken closer to twilight with one deeper into the night. Although, I choose not to do day-night blending or blend images from different locations as this does not maintain enough of the true scene in my opinion. I also do not add what I consider to be key elements to an image, such as animals, the moon, a mountain, or other objects that could draw the viewers attention and are critical components in forming the final impression. These are matters of my person photographic preference regarding the degree to which I wish to keep objective reality in the image. This collection represents a departure from my normal editing boundary, and what I consider to be crossing the cloudy and subjective line into photographic art. I believe it is worth highlighting this distinction in order to prevent confusion over what is being presented. Such confusion could result in the images in this category appearing to be "better" than they really are by assuming that they are closer to what the actual scene contained; or, potentially causing the images outside of this category to appear inferior than they really are by assuming that they are "fake". Although the term "fine art" could really describe almost all of my images, and probably the vast majority of other photographers portfolios as well, I use it here to refer to the images which I deem to be a sufficiently vast departure from the original scene and, therefore, to be closer in genre to pure art. Therefore, these images have key elements added, removed, or the impression of the photo drastically altered and uncorrelated with the actual scene captured. This is an unbounded, unhindered, free from all rules, collection. Enjoy!

Emanating from Within,

June, 2016