THE SAME COMPOSITION, SAME LOCATION, REPEATEDLY
January 26, 2023 Tips Shooting the same composition, in the same location, repeatedly. Shooting the same location or even nearly the same composition, many
With the evolution of the digital art, and increasing demand on enhanced editing software which made it easier for end-users to manipulate landscape photos and even create some others, not reflecting any reality at all, it resulted in an invasion of pictures shared on every social media platform.
These pictures are captioned with the trendy terms such as “composite” or “blended”.
Composite as a term, adj., means “made up of several parts or elements.”
In photography, it’s a noun, which means that a photograph is characterized by overlapping or juxtaposed images resulting from a multiple exposure or the combining of multiple elements from different photographs at different times. For example, the core of the Milky Way doesn’t appear in Iceland, so when you see such a picture, know that it is a manipulated one, not real, and it’s a simple composite; a digital art, not in relation with reality. In other terms, it’s like faking “nature” and the audience/viewers.
Blend as a verb, means “mix things so that they combine together.”
In photography, digital blending (also known as exposure blending or blending multiple exposures), is a post-processing technique used to combine multiple images into one, specifically used in night photography to mainly get rid of noisy effects due to long exposure and high ISO. Usually, this technique is used for photographs taken at the same location, not necessarily at the same time, but necessarily the same composition. If this technique is not properly used, then the output will be categorized as a digital art and not a photograph.
Personally, I use the blending technique to get a crisp foreground, when shooting the Milky Way (depending on many conditions). A 3 to 4 minutes exposure for the foreground, at lowest ISO possible, blended with a few seconds exposure for the sky. Here’s an example of a blended photograph:
During this time, competition isn’t fair anymore: The free usage of social media platforms generated too many so-called “photographers”, so the need to get a “surreal” output is increasing to showcase unreal and fake reality to get more likes and followers. The counterfeit’s objective is to get an attention without representing what is genuine. The result of such posts, categorized as photographs, is mainly that we are putting ourselves in front of lies: People visiting a landmark or any touristic area have unrealistic expectations due to these posts.
In addition to this, real photographs are judged as “photoshoped” because of these artists. It’s worth a mention: Digital artists are not photographers. A photographer is someone who shoots with his camera, post-process his photographs (ethically) using any software, without manipulating reality.
Finally: Make it, don’t counterfeit it!
If you fail, Google it, try again, do not fake it! Do you know how any times I’ve been in the field, trying to capture a landscape photograph but with no luck? Too many elements should be taken into consideration: The weather, the wind, the clouds, the light, etc. So every time, I learn, re-adjust, re-plan and try again.
