Photoshop and post-production of images is such a hot topic. The newest example is from Denmark where a series of images from Haiti by Klavs Bo Christensen were deemed as too post processed. The judges in the The Danish Union of Press Photographers – Picture of The Year competition ruled Klavs photos out of the competition after comparing them with their RAW counterparts. The images are certainly not flat, dull or colour-less and some of them verge on that line between reality and illustration, a good or a bad thing depending on ones taste. Still I think it is unbelievably unfair to judge them by the RAW files, converted without any enhancements what so ever.
A RAW file is just that – raw. If one shoots in jpg, the camera will enhance the photo by sharpening, increasing the contrast and so on. Often people have parameters set that govern how it looks. The purpose of RAW is to keep all the info, so that later the photographer can develop it. Once it was done in the darkroom, today it is Lightroom, Aperture or Photoshop – the digital darkrooms.
Klavs Bo Christensen makes a good point when he says that from now on he´s only submitting B&W photos for competitions. For some reason the heavy Dodge and Burn look is accepted in B&W images, even celebrated.
15
Apr
My Photography
