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Edited on Sat May-15-10 09:39 PM by regnaD kciN
...also commented how unfair it was that my tulip shot was leading its preliminary, since it was a "picture that makes itself" and devoid of any "technical skill." Oh, really? Would said poster have been quite able to set up the five stops of graduated neutral-density filters necessary to balance the foreground and sky (and doing so in pitch darkness, I might add)? Not to mention scouting out that location the day before to make sure I had a good composition -- with the right bands of colors, and leading lines heading roughly toward the intersection of the vertical and horizontal thirds of the image -- then getting up at 4:30 A.M. to find that same location in the dark, balance on sloped furrows of baked mud while making sure neither I nor my tripod did any damage to the flowers, continually have to pull and reset the filters to remove condensation, calculate the exposure for full depth-of-field but still not have the light breeze leave the foreground flowers a blur, etc., etc.?
In a way, I was the beneficiary of great luck in that the sunrise (not "sunset") was near-perfect; I've gone on long drives and even weekend trips like this to a location that "makes itself," only to get there in the early morning hours and found that a fluke weather-shift has resulted in fog, a blank gray overcast sky, a stiff wind, or something else that meant all my efforts were wasted. But, personally, I think this photo was one of the most technically-demanding I've ever taken (in similar situations, I've come away with unsatisfactory results too many times to count), and to have it brushed off as an "unfair" "picture that makes itself" really frosts me. I'd like to see the author of that comment be given the same location on the same day, and come away with even a half-way decent image.
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