Just a brief thought about photography and my personal responsibility to the environment. I recently a stopped by a familiar red barn in Keene NH. I had never tried to shoot here before, but after passing by I decide to come back and explore for possibilities. Although the light was blindingly strark, I found some reasonably pleasing angles looking up the hill at this imposing structure. At home I discovered that the hillside had the usual modern archeologic collection of societal artifacts. That is to say trash. I thanked the gods at Adobe as I smugly cloned out the distracting garbage. The whole process took about one minute, but then it struck me. It probably would have taken about the same amount of time to have removed the trash from the site itself. I believe that as photographers we sometime miss the small stuff as we scan for grand themes of light, line and color. 
I try to be aware of distracting elements in my images, but it is easy to become lazy about removing them when Photoshop can so seamlessly correct these small blemishes. Often I never really see this stuff until it is flattened onto my monitor screen. I need to be more alert, not only to improve my images, but also to pay back the limitless debt that I owe to the environment for feeding my imagination and creativity. I appreciate that many dedicated people commit there time to removing trash along our highways and trails and I have worked with trash removal crews especially on our local trail system. But photographers have a special opportunity to contribute to this effort as our eyes scan many of the most beautiful, and fragile vistas in our country. So here is my simple commitment. I will keep a trash bag in the trunk of my car and in my pack and whenever possible I will remove rather that clone the junk I find along the way. Let's think of "Finger Cloning" as simply a new, unteathered, Photoshop plugin to improve our images and maybe a small piece of the earth.
Just a brief thought about photography and my personal responsibility to the environment. I recently a stopped by a familiar red barn in Keene NH. I had never tried to shoot here before, but after passing by I decide to come back and explore for possibilities. Although the light was blindingly strark, I found some reasonably pleasing angles looking up the hill at this imposing structure. At home I discovered that the hillside had the usual modern archeologic collection of societal artifacts. That is to say trash. I thanked the gods at Adobe as I smugly cloned out the distracting garbage. The whole process took about one minute, but then it struck me. It probably would have taken about the same amount of time to have removed the trash from the site itself. I believe that as photographers we sometime miss the small stuff as we scan for grand themes of light, line and color. 
I try to be aware of distracting elements in my images, but it is easy to become lazy about removing them when Photoshop can so seamlessly correct these small blemishes. Often I never really see this stuff until it is flattened onto my monitor screen. I need to be more alert, not only to improve my images, but also to pay back the limitless debt that I owe to the environment for feeding my imagination and creativity. I appreciate that many dedicated people commit there time to removing trash along our highways and trails and I have worked with trash removal crews especially on our local trail system. But photographers have a special opportunity to contribute to this effort as our eyes scan many of the most beautiful, and fragile vistas in our country. So here is my simple commitment. I will keep a trash bag in the trunk of my car and in my pack and whenever possible I will remove rather that clone the junk I find along the way. Let's think of "Finger Cloning" as simply a new, unteathered, Photoshop plugin to improve our images and maybe a small piece of the earth.
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