In search of the perfect photo

While not falsifying or doctoring M’s competition pics, I have found myself having to sharpen and improve quality in some of them, being scans from film as they are. (M is now likely to get himself a digital camera, as he really does want to pursue this photography thing in the future.) Of course I can’t display the current pics here, but I did post one of the reject batch the other day, and there is another on my Facebook — visible to friends only.

I can’t afford Photoshop etc. I have been using a free open source program called PhotoFiltre, which is excellent for my usual purposes. However, I found I needed something better — or with a tool or two PhotoFiltre — it’s French, hence the spelling — lacked. Thanks to MajorGeeks (see yesterday) I found just the thing: Paint.Net. It is also free; very good — solved a problem we were having.

M has a photographer’s eye. As John Williams used to say (when he taught me) the camera is merely an instrument. The photo comes from the eye and brain of the photographer. Not everyone has that eye and brain.

When I took the final twenty to the Head of Art and Photography at The Mine for an opinion, she and I suddenly noticed something. A picture of the Iguazu Falls last year morphed in M’s eye (and camera) into a Chinese painting. Another of  Mount Everest uncannily echoed Hokusai.

When I mentioned this to M last night I found he hadn’t heard of Hokusai, but on showing him the famous print above juxtaposed with his image, he conceded the resemblance… He was not displeased.

None of this means M will win the competition, but he sure will be competitive!

BTW: I taught photography at Wollongong High for four years, even if over a quarter of a century ago…

UPDATE 30 August

This is the competition. Yes, Marcel, we do know… The photos are now safely in New York.

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