Edited | Artful | Altered
The inspiration email talked about post production work on photos, in particular using an app called Waterlogue which manipulates the photo to make it look more like a water painting. It's not one I've heard of before so I downloaded it onto my iPhone and then used it to manipulate a photo of a flower I had taken.
There's quite a lot of discussion, as well as controversy, about the use of editing and the truthfulness of using post production software. The old maxim that the camera doesn't lie, isn't quite so straightforward. When we choose to take a photo we usually choose the moment, the subject/object, the composition, the light and many other things that factor into our photo. We tell our life stories with photographs of happy moments, special occasions, of the beauty we see around, of family and friends and of course our pets. On holidays we happily snap scenes of amazing architecture, beautiful landscapes and so forth. And we neglect to document the moments of sadness, the not-so-good times. On holidays we neglect to photograph the abject poverty, the grime, the shanties, the not-so-pretty parts of life. The person behind the camera is already manipulating what story is presented, what story to tell.
Manipulation of photography has always been used, as film photographers did their own processing and could therefore manipulate their negatives to achieve their desired results (some photographers still use film and do their own developing). For me, photography is an art form and I see editing as part of the artistic endeavour; a means to tell a narrative about the image I have created. Or simply to enhance an image to achieve a look I like.
This is the original photo, transferred from the iPhone to the computer and with no editing.
These are some of the effects easily achieved by choosing different options in the Waterlogue app.