After about 1.5 years living and photographing in Panama, I have compiled a list of my top-5 most photogenic places. Your opinion may very well vary, and my selections may change as I discover new corners of Panama I have yet to explore, but here it is as it stands today.
- Casco Viejo, without a doubt my favourite photo-subject in Panama, with a mix of French and Spanish architecture spanning 3 centuries, old ruins, beautifully restored buildings, city views and lots of colourful people.
- Azureo Peninsula, beautiful beaches, micro-climates and Tuscany-like rolling hills. Azuero even has a desert!
- Altos del Maria, this gorgeous and huge development is my home and it provides superb and varied vistas, hiking trails, tumbling rivers and waterfalls, green lush vegetation, many exotic animals and lots of colourful flowers, birds, bugs and butterflies.
- Chiriqui, this beautiful province which covers the western part of the country and borders with Costa Rica is still mostly pristine and varies from gorgeous islands in the Golf of Chiriqui to the highlands and Volcan Baru. The possibilities are endless and I am just beginning to explore this area.
- Kuna Yala and the San Blas Islands, these tropical islands are still almost completely undeveloped and are thankfully still controlled by the very colourful Kuna natives. This is the place for gorgeous Caribbean islands with crystal-clear turquoise waters and reefs and a very unique indigenous culture.
What do you think? Any place I should explore and add to this list?
On many of the photography related websites that I read regularly I see comments from some photographers on the ethics of modifying pictures through filters or through Photoshop manipulations ranging from slight adjustments to composite images. Those debates sometimes become very heated and end up in name-calling.
Yin or Yang?
There are basically two schools of thought on this. On the one hand you have those who think photography is a documentary medium and photos should not be manipulated and that photographers are somehow cheating if they manipulate their pictures. On the other hand you have those who think that photography is an art form and everything is allowed. There are of course lots of people who are in-between and who will agree with technical enhancements but not outright manipulations like removing or adding objects to a picture. Some photographers agree with manipulations at shooting time, like playing with the light or the exposure or the depth of field or “staging” the scene, but will not agree with any post-processing. I think the whole thing is a little silly…
A Matter of Personal Choice
Personally I fall under the category of “photography is an art medium” just like painting or sculpture and therefore anything is allowed. Some photographers could more accurately be described as impressionists or illustrators, but so what? If they produce beautiful art, who cares? How is this better or worse than a painter who creates an image from scratch?
But I can see how someone might be interested in photo-reportage and in documenting the world or history. These people should therefore put a higher priority on documentary accuracy. Nothing wrong with that at all, but why denigrate those of a more artsy persuasion?
The Ethics of Photography
However, I need to add that photographers have to be careful how they portray their artwork. If you are creating art through heavily manipulated images you should not try to pretend that your work is documentary in nature, that would be dishonest. But there is a fine line here too… A photographer who is trying to tell a story, may very well be right to “enhance” some aspect of the picture in order to give it more impact and better tell the story or better influence the viewer. Nearly all great photographers have done that repeatedly. Nearly all great photographs in National Geographic have been manipulated in some way. That is part of what makes someone an artist rather than a photo-journalist or a mere picture taker.
Restriction as an Exercise
Having said all this, I must say that even if you are of the “artistic” persuasion, temporarily restricting your style can be a very useful exercise to improve your skills or renew your inspiration. I often decide to restrict myself like that for a week or a month. More often than not it will be something like forcing myself to use only a prime lens like a 50mm or 85mm just to force me to look at things in a certain way. Or always using a tripod to slow myself down and taking more time composing. Or concentrating purely on geometrical forms, on repeated patterns, or on colours. Restricting yourself to documentary accuracy and foregoing any image manipulations beyond simple colour and exposure adjustments can be an equally useful exercise.
It is also valuable to remember that you should try to make the picture as “right” as possible at shooting time. By this I mean that it is much better to get the composition, lighting and exposure right while you are taking the picture. This will reduce the amount of post-processing required which will not only save you time, but will most often result in a higher quality picture. Why throw-away pixels through cropping or throw away dynamic range or tonal gradations through post-processing when you could have got it right in the first place?
Relax, it’s just art!
Bottom line is that it is a matter of personal choice and really should not be something worth debating passionately. As long as you’re not trying to sell a highly manipulated image as a depiction of reality, I see no issues with going as far as you want with image manipulation.
Photography is about making art and telling stories, as an artist you should be able to use the medium of digital photography in any way you see fit.
Sylvain Duford
This beautiful butterfly took a rest on our living room wall.
Here’s a few flower shots from my morning walk…
While eating breakfast this morning I noticed this beautiful visitor just outside my window, a Blue-crowned Motmot.
Unfortunately the first one was taken through a screen so it lacks sharpness and contrast. Then when I opened the screen he moved a little further away so the next two shots are cropped.
Tally was just sitting in the front doorway, enjoying the early morning sun.
This past week I spent the week with my crew installing our Palmex product at an amazing beach house in Buenaventura near Playa Blanca. Here’s some pictures of the house and the beach in front of it.
A modest weekend beach home:
The structure that we roofed:
The Beach:
Two of my pictures were published in a new book called Mastering the Nikon D700. My pictures open chapter 2 and chapter 3. Both were taken here in Panama. Here are some pictures of the book (and of my pictures!)
I read this photography book recently and was impressed enough that I thought I should write a short review. The book is The Photographer’s Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos, by Michael Freeman. This book is a very complete yet well written and approachable treatise on the theory and art of photographic design and composition. I think this book is ideally suited to intermediate photographers who want to hone their skills, but it would be just as useful to the beginner who wants to learn quickly, or even to the pro who wants a quick refresher course. The introduction nicely sets the stage for the rest of the book:
“…there have been very few attempts in publishing to deal comprehensively with composition in photography, as opposed to technical issues. This is a rich and demanding subject, too often trivialized even when not ignored outright. Most people using a camera for the first time try to master the controls but ignore the ideas. They photograph intuitively, liking or disliking what they see without stopping to think why, and framing the view in the same way. Anyone who does it well is a natural photographer. But knowing in advance why some compositions or certain combinations of colors seem to work better than others, better equips any photographer.”
…
“In shooting, you can rely on natural ability or on a good knowledge of the principles of design. In other graphic arts, design is taught as a matter of course. In photography it has received less attention than it deserves, and here I set out to redress some of this lack.”
The book is a joy to read (I could hardly put it down) and it is beautifully illustrated. The text is clear and easy to understand without being over-simplified or condescending. The accompanying images are excellent at illustrating the concepts being described and giving you inspiration for your own images. I found this book to be very enjoyable, informative and inspiring. Highly recommended.
