I’m interested in: How as humans we relate to pictures, respond to pictures and how the brain processes images, and how we can use that knowledge for creating better images. If we understand how people perceive and respond to pictures and codify some fundamental visual principles for pictures ‘in general’, we can use those principles to create better pictures of any subject, in any style, in any media. – We become better ‘picture-makers’.

They’re universal visual and artistic principles based on human nature and psychology. – If we understand how we ‘read’ pictures, it makes us better at ‘writing’ or creating pictures. – Many of the principles I found are based on understanding human nature and how our brain processes images of any type, be it art or day-to-day life. Many of these principles were used by old master painters, but photographers don’t use them because photographers don’t want to alter their images. They expect the camera to do all the work, but it can’t because a camera is only a mechanical tool. Not altering pictures is a rule photographers apply to pictures, but it’s only a self imposed rule.

Many of these principles are covered in my tutorial, what I call on my website an ‘ebook’. Knowledge that applies to anyone making images. The educational benefit of my pictures is found in reading my tutorial.

The ‘look’ of my pictures is missing the point, it’s the visual principles behind my pictures that’s important. – Style is only superficial, it’s just my personal style and love of old master painters. The style is different for every one of us, but the visual principles don’t change because we’re all people and we process pictures using the same processes.

May I suggest reading my ‘e-book’? That’s where the knowledge is and it’s knowledge that applies to everyone. – I will keep following the comments. I’m interested.

Best regards, David.
Just a quick reply, I’m on the road at the moment, so it’s not perfect.

On my walls at home I have many paintings from old masters as canvas photographic prints. I have toured many art galleries here in Britain and on the continent and where copyright allowed, snapped away with acceptable results. On the main wall in my lounge I have five Rembrandt paintings with the famous “Night Watch” from the Rijksmuseum being the centrepiece. I am very happy with the images as they are now without wanting to “enhance them” to nullify the effects of ageing which could I am sure be done with post-processing.
Chris

David’s pictures above look ‘nice’ and they may be the sort of thing which might appeal to people who are not really interested in photography and consider painting to be a superior art, which is an awful lot of people in my experience. Indeed, many such people might think that David’s images were actually paintings. With the advent of ‘AI’ etc we probably need to define what is and what is not ‘photography’, which term was intended to describe drawing with light. I’m not sure that the term ‘altered photography’ would fit, but it would be preferable to ‘enhanced photography’ as the question of ‘enhancement’ is often debatable.

I don’t mind what people do with images, but my preference is for images that reflect the reality of what a photographer saw and which were created using light. I don’t think that it is time to reverse Delaroche’s statement and say “From today photography is dead”, but with the exponential rate growth of possibilities to alter images electronically we probably need to look at our definitions to avoid confusing our audiences and ourselves as photographers.

William

Very interesting and challenging!