The differences among your Personal Vision, your Photographic Vision and your Artistic Vision.

Christmas market in Jungfernstieg, Hamburg, Germany.[/caption]

Published on 2015/12/05 - Text and Pictures by Alberto Mateo, Travel Photographer for The Last Footprint.

A 'Personal Vision' is a way to see the world around us. It is not something we have been born with, but something we have to develop throughout our life. It is a different way to experience our world. A "Photographic Vision" is someting that has to do with a photographic camera; it is about knowing what can be taken as a photograph. An "Artistic Vision" is what allows me to express a feeling with a photograh, no matter if the picture resembles reality (we would call it a 'figurative picture') or not (we would call it a 'non figurative' picture, like the one you see above).

• The movement effect has ONLY been achieved with a usual DSLR camera.
• Digital Edition Tools have only been used to color correct and adjust the contrast and brightness of areas of the original RAW file, and always trying to get my tweaked picture as near to reality as possible.

If I have to answer the question if this picture is something I have seen ‘with my eyes’, I have to say: “No”. If I have to answer if this picture conveys what I saw and felt, I have to answer: “Yes, even more than the static picture I would have shot setting the parameters of my camera at more common values following the rules of the ‘technically correct picture’.”

Gallen Rowell, who is known to have been very critic about digital techniques, wrote in his article ‘Reality, Visions and Photographs’: “I have grown to accept the fact that the borders between real vision and photographic vision can never precisely be defined, but that’s very different from conceding that there are no boundaries. I have given up the battle on the commercial front, where photographers have come to be considered illustrators with limited accountability for content, but I am ready to fight for my beliefs about the need for more integrity across the board in editorial photography.”

  Regarding this image I can say that my ‘photographic vision’ allowed me to take it using different parameters on my camera than the ones that would have led me to a more static and usual picture. On the other hand, my ‘personal vision’ will never allow me to see the world this way, I will never be able to state that ‘I saw this image through my eyes’. The ‘Digital Vision’ (which is cousin of the ‘Artistic vision’) is the one that allows me to express a meaning of feeling with Digital Edition Tools applied to photography and/or other process like painting. One of the best examples I have ever seen is this wonderful digital composition by Travis Smith - www.seempieces.com. 

Terria CD Cover by Travis Smith - www.seempieces.com. Published with kind permission.

It is clear that this picture have never existed in our world, but in the mind of an artist, but does it have less value as a photograph? I do not think so. Someone may state that it has no value as a proof of existence of its referent, as other photojournalistic works have, but it was simply conceived with other finality. Being National Geographic a source of unbiased information during more than a century I understand the zeal of her staff on protecting the integrity of the submitted photographs to the Forum, but have to say this photograph resides somewhere within the interstices of the guidelines, and those guidelines could be extended to include images that have other values different than their journalistic approach. 

Jungsferstieg, Hamburg, Germany. Source: Google Maps.

TECHNICAL DATA OF THE PUBLISHED IMAGE

APERTURE: f22

I closed my lens as much as possible to get the sensation of movement.

ISO: 100

Light intensity was low in a Christmas day in the North of Europe (we were near dusk) and wanted to have a veeeery long exposure, so set my ISO as low as possible.

MODE: S

My main need was to have movement, so went for a low shutter speed.

LENS USED: Nikon 12-24mm AF

Used at 14 mm (21mm on a 35mm size sensor)

I wanted to be show the head in relation with the movement around, so used my Nikon 12-24mm wide angle and tried to locate the camera as near as possible to my subject.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

I wanted to be show the head in relation with the movement around, so used my Nikon 12-24mm wide angle and tried to locate the camera as near as possible to my subject.