Trying to take a decent seasonal photo has driven me mad this year. I look out the window and can see an alternative rainbow of autumnal colours in the trees behind our house. By the time I grab my camera, the sun shifts just that little bit, or a cloud appears from nowhere and the moment is lost. The way the weather currently is in Britain, chances of perfect conditions are fleeting. Then there’s the problem of getting the camera to capture what my eye sees.
Autumn scene in the Quantocks taken with ‘auto’ setting.
Walking in the Quantock Hills with one of Andy’s cousins recently, we passed through an enchanted arboreal avenue beneath a golden and green canopy. All three of us stopped and spun around, taking in the splendour, mouths open. I adjusted my camera and took a photo. It was crap, lacking in a diversity of colour and completely flat. I changed the setting. Once again, the result didn’t do the scene justice. Here’s the thing. To replicate the spectacle our eyes were enjoying would require some fiddling with photo software.
I might end up with an image that accurately reflected the landscape, but which didn’t look the same as the photo I took.
Does that make the end result a deception?
Near the area where the stock photo was taken at Anaga on Tenerife.
Stock photography landscapes
The question of whether travel photographs can be misleading or not is a complicated one. I’ve written before about the pros and cons of stock photography. It’s a multi-layered topic. This week, I saw a photo on a travel website specialising in walking holidays. It was of Anaga in Tenerife and featured a single, youngish woman. The depiction of the scene was accurate – it does look as it did in the photo. So, it wasn’t a deception in that respect. On the other hand, the walking company specialises in group holidays, and this was a lone hiker, so maybe a tad misleading. I’ve also seen the same image on another walking company’s website; a sportswear company’s marketing material; a supermarket chain’s website; Tripadvisor; and used by a Spanish hotel brand. That makes it not a true depiction of any single brand, only illustrative.
A ‘not too busy’ photo of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The big attraction
Seeing popular tourist hot spots mobbed by people may not make them quite so appealing. As a result, images are often presented in a way that makes top attractions look less busy than they really are. But are some travellers so naïve they think they’re going to get the Eiffel Tower or the Bridge of Sighs all to themselves? I don’t think so. I read one report from a travel blogger who was disappointed with the Leaning Tower of Pisa because of the crowds and people having photos of themselves taken holding the tower up. The writer felt it turned it into a Disney-type attraction. Personally, I thought it was just a bit of fun. Here is a shot of the tower where the crowds aren’t too bad. Is it deceptive? Not to me. That’s exactly how it appeared from where I stood. Move to a different position, and I’d be in the middle of the crowd. Move yet again, onto the old ramparts, and I get a view of it all to myself. Like many things in life, it depends on how you look at it.
Pig cheeks are never going to be food porn.
Food, inglorious food
We try around two new recipes every week, usually from the Waitrose newspaper. Regularly, what we produce doesn’t match the recipe’s photo. But that’s not the fault of our cooking skills, not always at least. A photographer writing in the paper warned readers to not expect their attempts to recreate dishes to always look the same as the images accompanying recipes. In food photography, dishes are often ‘tweaked’ so they look sexier than the result if the recipe was followed to the letter of the law. Basically, there are a lot of dishes which taste great but don’t look it. It’s a recurring problem I have when trying to photograph regional specialities when we’re working on Slow Travel guides. A huge lump of meat with a smattering of chips just isn’t photogenic. And as for pig cheeks, they can look like something a dog has spewed up. Mostly, the best food photography has to be staged in order to make dishes look as good as they taste.
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct – not so scary from the footpath side.
Give us more drama
Another photo which popped up on my socials feed this week was of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in the Vale of Llangollen in Wales. It was one of those ‘My god, I wouldn’t fancy crossing that’ type images where one wrong step, or paddle as it’s an aqueduct, and you’d plummet to your death. The reality isn’t like that. The photo was taken from a clever angle so that the footpath with reassuring railing which crosses the aqueduct wasn’t noticeable. Admittedly, the narrow crossing isn’t for anyone suffering from acrophobia, but it isn’t the buttock-clencher the photo made it look. There was nothing false in the image, it was just all about positioning the camera to get a more dramatic shot.
Getting back to the Quantock Hills. I gave it one last go, adjusting the aperture, speed, ISO, and white balance. What I ended up with wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot closer to reality than my previous attempts.
Adjusting camera settings for a different result.
Which is the true shot, the photo I originally took without touching the settings, or the one after I manipulated them?
