Should we remove pylons?

Should I remove the pylon? I do not want to. (Some of them are 50 or more years old and are beginning to blend in as much as churches and barns and cottages.)

I just had a print of this framed and the framer, who is a watercolourist, thought it was a shame about the electricity pylon and suggested I use software to remove it.

I didn't have the energy to justify why I want it to stay.

It's your picture....don't remove it.

Had to search a bit before I saw it.

I am one of those that sees little fault in doing some retouching (wether by hand or in PS) to get the image that you want. To me it adds to the "art" of photography. We have new tools that allows us to achieve the image as we "saw it".

In this case, I might be tempted to remover the tower.

Your call. I wouldn't.

It's your photo - you can do whatever you feel you need to do. Other peoples rules are for other people.

Sometimes I will wait for a train to pass or for a clear patch in the traffic so a road or railway is not evident. (Usually when they are behind trees.)

Maybe I will get a distant bird or aircraft removed using the 'stamper' because it just looks like dust.

So my photograph would show what anybody else could see if they also waited for a distant vehicle or bird to remove itself.

Is it 'right' to take out permanent features of a landscape though? Say someone liked a photo of a beautiful village and went there to enjoy it then realised that every house really had satellite dishes and telephone cables and the pretty lane was festooned with roadsigns and that the 'village' was surrounded by tower blocks which the photographer had 'removed'.

I know that removing a single electricity pylon from my picture here would change it little but would I not be just as guilty of trying to depict a 'fantasy'?

As an englishman who always rather liked how some pylons seem to stalk the landscape in procession, I say no. It's no more and no less unnatural than the church, the ploughed fields, the hedgerows, etc.

Nice photo, though - love your stuff.

I figure if you put it in your frame to start with, you ought to keep it. Nothing should be accidentally in your picture. I'd have been more tempted to crop it out "in the field," so to speak, than to zap it after the fact in PS.

Technically, by the way, if you're going to set about methodically removing all traces of the modern world, you might have to do some serious PSing to get rid of the tractor furrows! Or possibly delete the entire photograph as it most likely reveals modern practices of land distribution and use. ; )

Mike Johnston has some thoughts on removing a telephone cable somewhere. I think he's against it.

Me too. I just think it's precious and a bit vulgar, like a Ye Olde Tucke Shoppe.

Surely a man of your Chartist passions should be removing the church instead?

Or there is the question of B&W.

B&W was the only option until 2 generations ago when colour film became available to all. So there is an 'aesthetic legacy' or even a 'folk memory aesthetic' of seeing things depicted in B&W. (I remember B&W television and we all enjoy B&W films despite the fact that they were in B&W either because Colour was not available to filmakers or because Colour was too expensive for some budgets long ago.) So despite being 'false' Black and white is accepted.

Accepted as truth I mean.

Here's another perspective...

Trevor, Mike Johnston's thoughts here.

Trevor - two words - clone tool

That pylon adds minimal value to the image; its geometrically out of context with everything else; and removal is easy to do.

If it were an artist painting this scene, it would be excluded...

Personally, I almost feel a bigger point to me is a need for something else in the foreground (probably the second field on the left side) - a tractor, maybe a farmer. Another job for "clone tool" :)

Regards
Craig / in the process of moving to Bangkok

IMO, leave it in.

That's a beautiful image.

Then again, 50 years ago all these women would have been wearing kimonos - and may even have been barred from participating as pilgrims.

The pylon might be an annoyance now but in 50 years it may be quaint.

Beautiful. I disagree with the contention that the pylon adds nothing to the image. Look at the line of the top right hillside. It leads to the steeple of a church. Continue along that line it and we arrive at the pylon, jutting in the same way, as if in competition.

Will.

Keith Laban Photography

Personally speaking I think the landscape ruins the pylon.

If you shot it for a client, the client would get what he wants. That's the nature of commercial photography. Since you shot it for yourself, my opinion would be that you should do what pleases you.

Personally, I've come to appreciate the reality photography of people like Lee Friedlander and Robert Adams as opposed to those pictures by photographers who try to avoid anything they think intrudes on the prettiness of the image. In the case of this photo, it's pretty just like it is. It doesn't need to have anything added or taken out to make it prettier.

*Is it 'right' to take out permanent features of a landscape though? Say someone liked a photo of a beautiful village and went there to enjoy it then realised that every house really had satellite dishes and telephone cables and the pretty lane was festooned with roadsigns and that the 'village' was surrounded by tower blocks which the photographer had 'removed'.

I know that removing a single electricity pylon from my picture here would change it little but would I not be just as guilty of trying to depict a 'fantasy'?*

It's your fantasy/image, render it as you see fit. Personal opinion witheld.

BTW, I do remember the B&W world. Nice place.

It's not much of an artistic image in any case. More of a straight documentary shot. Once you remove the tower, it's not even that.

Don't let philosophical thoughts prevent you from creating what you think is the best picture (and whether keeping or removing the pylon creates the best picture may depend on the purpose of the picture).

Sounds like a philosophy to me.

D. Carroll makes a good point about tractor furrows and modern practices, etc. Landscape photography does present a challenge: To record the scene as it is OR to alter the image to fit other criteria be they commercial or personal style/theme.

Regardless, I find most of the images T. Hare posts herein to be very, very good. They give me both good rural and urban impressions of a land I've yet to visit.

Trevor: It is your call. To make it fit into the era, try tethering the Hindenberg to it. D)

Cheers.

No pylon and B&W....

The pylon adds character.

I agree with the person who commented that in 50 years the pylon might be considered "quaint". It isn't obtrusive and it's part of the scene so I would leave it alone. What if we deleted the windmills from all the Dutch landscapes? It's a lovely shot the way it is. Best regards, Bill

My own philosophy is: "to each his own." The pylon doesn't bother me. I enjoy photographing country churches all over the U.S. Sometimes the views are obstructed by wires. When the obstructed view is too obnoxious to me, I eliminate it with Photoshop.

Trevor, here's one more take on the manipulation question. Actually, I think your photo is quite nice but here's another version that removes the "reality" of the haze in the background and adds a light degree of edge burning, which BTW, Ansel Adams added to nearly all of his prints.

That certainly has more 'Zap' Donald.

I like a little haze as a visual cue to distances. I used to worry about it and polarise it away but I dont like the side effects of polarisers any more and just use UV filters nowadays. I used to use red filters for B&W for sky/cloud contrast and to cut haze but got rid of them as well.

Trevor, I believe in photography, with all its advantages and limitations. Once you change an element in a photograph, it no longer is a photograph. Not that it's a worse image - not by any means. And not that it's less worthy either. But it becomes an image now, even a composite image if that's what you're doing. It becomes more than a photograph. Again, not less worthy, just different.

Here is an example of how stunning pylons can actually be as the subject of a photograph.

Here is an example of how stunning pylons can actually be as the subject of a photograph.

Shouldn't that be: Here is an example of how stunning pylons can actually be as the subject of a photograph an image.

I suspect that photograph, as well as many of the others that photographer calls photographs have elements that were changed in some way.

An example of how I 'used' the telephone wires and streetlamps etc because I had no choice. The streets around there are festooned with them wherever you stand. I had my new (at the time) Leica CM loaded with Agfa Ultra 100 film and had a few frames left and just used them all up at different angles. This sunset sky lasted for only about 1 minute before going really dull.....

The pylon does no harm to the picture. You don't mind it's being there, so let it be, let it be.

I would have removed the pylons before shooting, just to make sure I had taken a photograph rather than an image.

I would have photographed Jeff single-handedly removing the pylons.

Mike would have photographed Jeff frying to a crisp and creating a blackout over much of the British Empire.

As long as it's a photograph.

i'd clone a few more in just so it make sense actually... seriously though man, just go with what feels right.

Eric, let me see you put in a Sun Glass Hut and Pottery Barn.

Leave it. I think it fits in the picture quite nicely.

Keith Laban Photography

"Is this more or less real?"

Donald, it's more or less a complete abomination of Trevor's original upload which at least had a certain charm about it. Why you would choose to eliminate the atmospheric perspective is beyond me.

Keith, I didn't claim (or intend) my version to be an "improvement" -- but rather just as a example of a further form of manipulation that many photographers choose to indulge in, namely dodging and burning.

I actually also prefer Trevor's more atmospheric original. But Trevor seemed like he wanted to explore the question of "reality" in photos -- not just to post a nice shot for praise.

Remember as well that film (and yeah I know this is digital but...) actually records atmospheric haze in a more pronounced way than the human eye perceives it. Therefore, while my version is (purposefully) overdone, it might actually be closer to the experiential "reality" of standing on that hill.

Trevor, I've stopped using polarizers as well, they just weren't helping my street photography at all! : )

Oh, and Keith, you've got some wonderful photos on your site! Great color!

Keith Laban Photography

Sorry Donald, I misunderstood the reason for your upload.

It is what it is. A beautiful landscape with the scars of man's abuse and use of it. Not just the towers, but the fencing, the farming and even the smog/haze in the distance. I like the photo as it is.

why not just shift your composition from the start Trevor? Dust I can understand, but I wouldn't do it with objects inside the frame. Unless I had no way to compose without including it in the first place. it's a personal thing though.