He is probably the best landscape photographer i have ever seen... He is Marc Adamus.I have taken extracts of what he says about himself and his work. Do check his webpage...
http://photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=1353935&include=all
I am a professional landscape photographer based in Corvallis Oregon. My photographs have been published extensively worldwide in a large variety of media such as calendars, magazines, books, ect. Recent work has appeared in Outdoor Photographer, Digital Photo, Popular Photography, Unique Image, Digital Photo Pro and Photo Media magazines. My photography comes from a life-long passion for wilderness adventure. Presently I spend much of my year traveling and shooting various projects around the Northwest region. My style is one of big, bold, dramatic and dynamic images utilizing wide angles and amazing light. I will stop at nothing to capture an image that defines a place at it's most magical moment. I totally emmerse myself in the landscape and often camp in the wilderness locations I photograph. Galen Rowell and Art Wolfe are two of my idols. I no longer accept ratings on my new work but am always glad to hear constructive feedback.
I see landscape photography as a treasure hunt. I spend countless hours traveling, researching, scouting and returning again and again to places so I might capture them at the most magical moment. This, "appeal to everyone" style is my chosen one (though you can never really appeal to everyone). This style, regardless of whether it appeals to everyone, IS one that embodies my soul desire, the love of my life, the wilderness. "Everyone knows how to make an asthetic landscape" but few put out the life-long efforts to capture the shot. The defining shot from a particular location. That's what I'm after. It can be found anywhere at any time but to truly be a defining shot for me, it must portray a sense of the place. I try to include as many elements as I can and offer a dynamic photograph that provides that multi-dimensional sense of place. The abstracts, the "risky" shots and the unusual rarely fullfill my desire to capture a grand sense of place found in traditional landscape photography. And of course, as a pro photographer it is somewhat important for me to create images that have a broad appeal. I believe my portfolio here shows off tremendous diversity, even if working primarily within a favored style, as most photographers develop. From deserts to oceans, B&W and color, the surreal and artistic like "Transformation", the direct and immediate like "Towards Heaven", the traditional wide angle like "Crater Lake" and I work in any light - not just the magic hour - like my rainforest and canyon images. It's about beautiful landscapes and sense of place. These images, hopefully, immediately connect with viewers, the public (non-photographer) especially. But I never tire of them. The new images you mention are not disimilar to my collection of dramatic images. As in all my work, I seek only to take advantage of the landscape and show it off the best way I can keeping asthetic appeal and dynamic sense of place in mind. I can never say when that magic moment will come, whether it be the intense and dramatic, the subtle or the intimate I simply try to work with what I've been given the best I can.
see the link.
http://photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=1353935&include=all
Galen isn't around today so there is absolutely no reason to assume what his opinions on post processing would be. I believed the same things as him back in 02', as did many of his closest friends, who have since turned to more artistic interpretations of nature. Times change, people change, we use the tools available, this is all art. I may heavily manipulate an image to get them to look much more natural than a strong grad-line across a horizon.
WHAT I DO IN PHOTOSHOP - Balance exposures and render an accurate dynamic range of exposure throughout, using any techniques available, prefering grad ND's but I won't rule out dodge/burn, curves, layer masks, blends, etc. I correct and/or enhance colors and contrasts, just like any over-saturated slide film. I correct perspective distortion from wide angles, straiten horizons, etc. I dodge/burn for artistic reasons, much like what has been done for an eternity in the B&W darkroom.
WHAT I DO NOT DO IN PS - Add or remove significant elements of subject matter, such as replacing a sky that wasn't there, or cloning or removing major features that would noticeably impact the image. I don't do composites unless it is necessary to control dynamic range of exposure - very rare IMO.
Bierstadt - yes, I've heard of him. I have his book Art and Enterprize. He's definitely an influence on my artistic preferences. The "Painterly" look to some of these images is a direct result of the combination of extreme dynamic range (few true blacks or whites, except in my old Velvia images) and traditional dodge/burn techniques. We have the tools available now to make images much more in the style of painters, who see no limiting factors such as limited range of exposure. The best digital images today are looking less and less like their film counterparts of old, and will undoubtably continue to do so. Manipulations can be used every bit as much to bring the image closer to what we see with our eyes
if you honestly believe landscape photography has or will or should ever be 100% faithful to the subject matter at hand, I'm afraid you are mistaken. Ansel Adams' images were anything but a faithful representation of nature, same with every great landscape artist in at least some respect. Landscape photography is NEVER totally reportage. This isn't journalism - this is far from it, and even journalists distort the scene in ways we could have never seen without a lens. Where do you draw the line, anyway? The green bothers you, but why not the blurred water? Would the enhanced greens bother you if you were looking at an unaltered Velvia slide? This is art, Fred. Art with a unique relationship to nature, perhaps, but it's very interpretive. The landscape has always been interpreted by great photographers, not documented. My images are based in reality, but I make no claims to document reality alone. Ever see a Velvia image? Dodging, burning in the B&W darkroom? A hard grad filter and a bright foreground? I could go on and on and on....this isn't about a perfect replication of nature, and you should NEVER expect to see a particular scene exactly as a photographer has portrayed it. But by the way, it really IS that green.
I produce 'wow' over and over again in my shots? Man, I should hope so! I mean, if I didn't, why would anyone look? Why would I photograph for that matter? What Michael talks about is diversification and refinement of ones style. A different type of 'wow', if you will. My images evoke a range of emotion - as landscapes go, and this is important. Some are lonely, others are dramatic, some are peaceful, etc. Just like anything in life. The key, of course, is to generate emotion. Without that......what?
