Recently, a friend posted a remark about how many photographers these days seem to be more post-processing ‘artists’ to the max than skilled photographers. Unfortunately in that is true in a sense. Many have been taking things so far over the top that their work becomes so unrealistically hyper-realistic that the viewer’s eyes become oversaturated with a bombardment of detail, colour information and sharpness. Should that viewer be looking at a well processed photo on a good screen, it will look awesome. Too awesome, I’ll get to that later.
With fast and powerful computers, big screens and the right software it has rapidly become very easy to go extremely far in terms of photo manipulation. Great cameras produce crazy amounts of megapixels and noise reduction keeps getting better even at ISO levels that defy every logic. It has been said that too much of a good thing can make you crazy and I think that is a fact of life. When I look at a potentially beautiful landscape photo that is processed up to the point where there are no shadows anymore and an overused clarity slider results halos around everything in the photo that has a contrasting color against it, I feel hurt. And dare I say it? It sucks!
Doesn’t mean you should, just because you can.
King Crimson – Facts of Life
It hurts the beauty, it hurts art and it hurts the audience. Because many seem to have adapted to this style. Their walls are filled with overly saturated imagery, so overly sharpened that your eyes start to burn. Awesome is a good thing, but too much of a good thing makes you crazy.
I hope I did not go too far into the horror zone with the composite below.
