This is where capturing that special characteristic becomes the goal instead of just snapping pictures. Honestly, this is the beginning of creating an image like the masters. Or, as I said its the whole point of artistic nature photography.

Now were back to the purpose of this articlethe merits of manipulating images in nature photography. If you hope to portray the emotionthe experiencethat you felt when pushing the trigger, you have to adjust things. This is absolutely necessary if the subtle ingredient that drew you to a situation has any hope to be discovered by your viewers. Since they arent in the same situation, experiencing the same hardships, or being belted by the same curveballs appropriate manipulation is required to make that subtle characteristic blossom. The challenge is determining whats appropriate. Unfortunately, I wont get into that too much except there is a point with any manipulation that may cause a nature scene loose its appeal as a natural subject. Theres always too much of a good thing.

This last example was made in Jasper National Park. I arrived at the base of Mt. Edith Cavell armed at dawn with my F90x and new Cokin Filter system. I had an idea of what I wanted especially since I just read a fantastic book on the Canadian Landscape by Daryl Benson. He makes extensive use of filtering and I wanted to try my hand. So, heres the result. The sky is clearly unnatural. Its way too orange for most people. I dont think its too unnatural to give it a contemporary label but it exceeds my bounds for what gets counted as a nature photograph. Its a little over the edge. Even for me there is a limit.

So, where does this leave us? To fully portray your creative vision in nature photography, an appropriate amount of manipulation is required and necessary. Viewers will just miss the point if you dont accent what you want them to see. Film and digital recording devices collect too much info without thought to why that detail is being captured. Active human intervention is required to make the tough choices of including things, discarding others, and even enhancing some of what remains to make any image worth viewing from an artistic perspective. Does this work with nature photography. Sure, its no different than working with any other subject. Its a basic prerogative of being an artist.