Picture of the Day – Balanced Rock at Sunset

Back in December, I showed you a different sunset image of Balanced Rock in Arches National Park in Utah. This one was taken on the next night, if memory serves, and shows not only Balanced Rock, but another rock formation right next to it. Now, you must believe me when I tell you this…this image was almost exactly what my Olympus camera photographed that night with no digital enhancements added by Photoshop or any other software that night. All I did with this image is put my copyright notice on it and add a very small amount of sharpening.

Now was this the sunset I saw with my eyes that night? Well, perhaps not exactly. The Olympus, which I still take with me, has a setting called “Sunrise/Sunset” that adds a little oomph to photographs taken during those times. I like to experiment with it every once in a while to see what I get…and this is what I got that night. I like it…sort of a fire-in-the-sky effect.

The more I work with digital equipment, the more I realize that an image one takes with a camera and what comes out after post processing, are a product of the eye, the mind, the heart, and the soul of the photographer. All great photographers work with the concept of “what is” VS “what I want it to be.” There is no such thing as a pure image…there can’t be. Go back to film cameras…every kind of film, black and white, or color, renders the same scene differently.

Did you know that there is now a filter that can work inside Photoshop that can take your digital image and apply a replica image of what the photograph would look like with just about every kind of film? So you can take your image and make it appear like it was shot on Kodachrome. So what is real…what is it supposed to really look like? There is no answer to that question. So anyone who says they take only pure images and debunks Photoshop is full of you-know-what.

Photography is rendering an image the way you see it…in your heart, mind, eyes and soul (I believe I said that already). This image is what my Olympus saw that night and I rendered it that way.