We value your privacy

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized ads or content, and analyze our traffic. By clicking "Accept All", you consent to our use of cookies.

Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Powered by Cookieyes logo
  • Tips

MAKE IT, DON’T COUNTERFEIT IT!

With the evolution of the digital art...

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.”

Credits: Unkown. This is a manipulated composite, no core of Milky Way shows in Iceland – at any time of the year.

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:

My own blended photograph: 6 minutes exposure for the foreground and 15 seconds for the sky.

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.

  • Photography

LATEST BLOG POSTS

Read about the latest projects, news, stories, and some tips on the blog.

A YEAR IN REVIEW 2020

January 9, 2021 Collection A picture says more than a thousand words! A picture says more than a thousand words – an old phrase
Read More
Visit the blog