Introducing 42 New Vietnam Images

I am happy to report to you that I have posted 42 new Vietnam images on my website. These are images that I shot during my most-recent trip in May of this year, as well as a few images from the trip in 2008 before I had my tumble from a mountain rice paddy and busted up my knee.

For the last three-and-a-half months, I have spent much of my time doing the Photoshop editing that turns raw images out of the camera into fine art prints. The process is intense, takes hours for each image and is a lonesome pursuit for someone like me who prefers a working environment full of chattering people. After all, I worked for more than 30 years in newspaper newsrooms.

You can find these latest images on my website at www.RobertDodge.com. Once there, just click on “Latest Work.” As a reminder, please subscribe to this blog for new updates: I promise not to drown you in shameless self promotion and will send you updates only when there is something important to say.

If you live in the Washington DC area, please mark your calendars for Oct. 24-25, Open Studios weekend – the semi-annual walking art tour where patrons hop from one studio to another to view art in the artists’ studios. I am using this fall’s Open Studios to show these new images for the first time. I will be posting more news about Open Studios soon.

Shameless Promotion: All my images are available as prints and are priced to be friendly to entry-level collectors. Most images are available in two sizes, 13x19 for $190, and 17x22 for $300. Please note that I use a graduated price structure, and prints become more expensive as an edition sells and fewer prints are available.

'Are These Images Enhanced?'

As I worked through these images, I was reminded of some of the folks who come to look at my work during Open Studios. Frequently, visitors will admire the rich, saturated colors and dramatic lighting in the Vietnam portfolio and then ask, “Are these enhanced?”

I am always a bit put off by the question, because there is an implicit suggestion that the images are somehow fake, that I have been dishonest and used the magic of digital imaging to deceive the viewer. While I find the question annoying, I know that I should take it as an opportunity to explain my own technique and at the same time use it as a teaching moment to educate my guests about the fine art photographic process.

To start, photographers have manipulated their images almost since there was light and film. It starts in the camera with choices about exposure, depth of field and composition. When shooting with film, the interpretation also includes choices about film type and the chemistry used to develop the film and prints. And finally, in the traditional darkroom, photographers employ a vast variety of techniques to bring out wonderful tones, deep blacks, bright highlights, textures and other attributes that create deeply emotional, luminescent and memorable prints.

Ansel Adams, the famous landscape photographer, once said that the film negative is simply the sheet music. It is in the print where the symphony plays – a production directed by the photographer, working in the darkroom. Adams was among the first to use the technology of his day to produce the rich and luminescent landscapes that made him so famous.

Today, everything has changed and not much has changed at all.

As many fine art photographers have moved to digital technology, many of the choices are similar but have moved to the computer. When images from high-resolution digital cameras are paired with a wide range of software, printer and paper choices, photographers are armed with a breathtaking range of techniques and options to express their vision in the final print. In fact, these digital tools have provided photographers with more tools and options than they have ever had before.

So, their vision, and the choices they make to get there, are not much different than those of painters who expresses their vision of a scene with oils, acrylics and water colors. Did anyone ever ask Claude Monet if his impressionist paintings were enhanced?

To help illustrate my own process, I have included two images here. One shows the image just as it came out of the camera – raw data with no editing or interpretation of any kind. The other is the finished image, showing what I saw and felt as I stood on this mountainside in the far north of Vietnam. To me, the final print is an accurate representation of what I experienced. As I stood there, I could smell the rain in the darkened clouds rolling towards me. I could hear the wind blowing through the leaves of the bamboo trees below, and I could see the flicker of the luminescent lighter green in the top of the trees as they were illuminated by a little sun poking through the clouds above. I could also hear a little bell on the collar of the dog on the path below as it scurried quickly from one house to another before the next rain. And in the distance, from down in the valley below and out of sight, there were the voices of laborers working the orange dirt fields of crops.

I come from a tradition of journalism, where a high value is placed on accuracy and integrity in storytelling. While I was never a photojournalist, those values still guide me when I am working on my photography. While I use my tools to push an image to be the best it can be, I am also mindful of not tricking the viewer. If I have used tools that some might think of as “special effects,” then I feel compelled to disclose that as part of a candid and forthcoming discussion about process.

And so, yes, in the interest of full disclosure, these images all have been enhanced. And proudly so!