ONE PHOTO ON MT. TABOR, TWELVE IMAGES AN HOUR LATER

MAY 23, 2025

                RAW FILE TAKEN IN CAMERA, WITH "VELVIA" FILM SIMULATION APPLIED.

Yesterday I spent an hour walking through a small portion of Mt. Tabor Park in Portland. Mt. Tabor is a prototypical Portland Park, in that it is an oasis on the city’s East Side, in the midst of  an eclectic mix of Portland neighborhoods that despite considerable gentrification, still exhibit an incredible mix of socioeconomic characteristics. It contains areas that contribute to the entire city, including playgrounds, three historic reservoirs, picnic areas, hours and hours of hiking trails, and view points that include the Downtown skyline to the West as well as Mt. Hood to the East. It is one of the centers of Portland Bike culture, with most of the roads closed to auto traffic at least one day a week. And in the "Keep Portland Weird" category, it is the venue for the annual full-scale adult soap box derby, which is as crazy as it sounds. Oh by the way, did I mention that Mt. Tabor is the only ancient volcano within the city limits of an American metropolis?

                A CHANGE TO "PRO NEGATIVE" MOSTLY JUST REDUCES THE SATURATION AND CONTRAST, JUST LIKE CHANGING FROM VELVIA FILM.

It was a typical day in Portland, with sunshine and rain drops present in the same short hike. I shared the park with hikers, joggers, bicyclists, tourists, and some people who you wouldn’t want to spend an extended time with by yourself. The amount of dogs in the park showed how much the neighborhood maintains it’s ownership of the space - I was in a small minority of people who were not accompanied by at least one canine. The fact that it was just a typical Tuesday meant that there were not that many people present in the park. I saw only one other person with a camera the entire time I was there.

                LIGHTROOM'S "ARTISTIC 5" LACKS POETRY BUT WARMS UP THE IMAGE A BIT.

The park contains an incredible number of trees, some of which if not in fact Old Growth might as well be. There are many areas in the park which are more forest than park, and often the only clue that you are in a park is the occasional park bench and the fences to prevent you from falling off the hill or down the stairs. I took a series of photos which tried to capture the woodland in early spring, with the overall sense of being encased in green.

                "LIGHTROOM 2" SEEMINGLY JUST INCREASES THE EXPOSURE WHILE REDUCING THE GREENS AS A RESULT.

This is one of those photos, taken of a stand of trees right off the park road. I am indebted to Andy Gibbs, a photographer from Vancouver, Canada whose woodland images I admire. His work has given me the “permission” to try a horizontal framing of a subject that usually encourages a vertical orientation. I am trying to show the forest, not a portrait of a tree, so that the subject becomes the series of tree trunks that make up this portion of the forest. By ignoring the park road, I can get an approximation of the wilderness that makes up a large portion of the Northwest environment outside of Portland. The horizontal orientation also cuts off most of the sky, whose   brightness compared to the overall scene is the bane of all woodland photography.

                OK NOW WE ARE GETTING SOMEWHERE BY GOING TO "LIGHTROOM BLACK AND WHITE #3". BUT THE REDUCED OVERALL EXPOSURE IS SOMEHOW MAKING THE BRIGHT SKY EVEN MORE OF A PROBLEM.

Before you start to realize that these twelve versions of the same photo are in fact pretty subtle, I would both agree and caution you that their appearance on the web does not really compare to a larger reproduction in real life. That is why that the true measure of a photographic image is as a larger print you can at least hold in your hands. I hope that you enjoy these images in my blog, but they in no way compare to even an 8 x 10 print in the real world. Which is not say that some of the differences are in fact rather subtle. I have already commented in my appraisal of the “Cult of Fuji” that the Fujifilm film simulations, which now number in the hundreds, can defy characterization in the same way that my wine magazines can differ on the “undertones” of what might be a fantastic beverage but is in the end an alcoholic form of grape juice.

                THE PROBLEM WITH ROMANTIC FILM SIMULATIONS IS WHEN THEY DON'T SEEM TO FOLLOW THE HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS. "BLACK AND WHITE RED FILTER" DOESN'T OFFER THE INCREASED CONTRAST I EXPECTED FROM A RED FILTER, SO IT'S A BIT DISAPPOINTING.

Thus the first six versions of this scene are un-retouched variations that just use Fujifilm and Lighroom film simulations without any further post processing. This, according to the "Cult of Fuji" is "straight-out-of-camera" as long as you ignore the fact that you have delegated your post processing to the camera's computer when you were snapping the photograph. If you think these are subtle, remember that there are dozens more available. Some are just horrible (at least for this image) while others defied my ability to define any real difference from the ones that I had already tried. The fact that Fujifilm labels their versions after old Fujifilm film stocks and Lightroom just unceremoniously numbers them is really the only difference in the range of possibilities.

                FINALLY IT'S TIME TO DO SOME POST PROCESSING. I'VE LIFTED THE SHADOWS, ADDED SOME "TEXTURE", SUBTLY INCREASED THE SATURATION OF JUST THE GREENS, SHARPENED THE ENTIRE IMAGE AND ADDED A SUBTLE VIGNETTE - DARKENING THE EDGES OF THE FRAME TO DRAW YOUR EYES TO THE CENTER.

My arguments for the utility of post processing might also be hurt by these reproductions on the web, but I assure you that the next two versions which contain work on exposure, contrast, color, and sharpening improve the images greatly when viewed at larger scales. None of this work is out to fool you, but only to subtly heighten what drew me to the scene in the first place. With post processing, if you notice it, I have gone too far. On the other hand, if you leave it to the camera, you have left money on the table.

                 HERE I'VE REDUCED THE HIGHLIGHTS IN THE SKY ALONE, BUT IT'S SOMEHOW TAKEN A LOT OF LIFE OUT OF THE IMAGE.

                NOW WE ARE FINALLY GETTING SOMEWHERE. DON'T REDUCE THE EXPOSURE IN THE SKY, JUST GET RID OF IT. YOU DON'T HAVE TO AGREE WITH THE RESULTS, AS LONG AS YOU ADMIT THAT THE CAMERA CANNOT DO THIS BY ITSELF.

It is when you have the guts to change your framing after the fact that you really take control of your images. By eliminating much more of the sky with a 1:2 crop, I have increased the focus on the trees and removed the need to further reduce the exposure of the sky. Sometimes you can mitigate problems with your image by just cropping out the offending areas instead of just modifying them. I leave it to you to decide if I have left out too much context, but I think the panoramic crop is closer to what I saw in my head, not in the viewfinder.

                ADDING SOME SIDELIGHT TO BRING SOME MORE LIFE TO THE IMAGE. IT'S ALL RIGHT IF YOU MISS IT. TAKE A LOOK AT THE TREE IN THE CENTER.

The decision to go for black and white is also to taste. As usual, black and white allows for more exposure modifications and increases the focus on textures by eliminating color. The thing with woodland imagery is that it is really monochromatic as well, since overwhelmingly green images do not contain that much more “color” variations than black and white versions of the woodland.

                NOTE THE INCREASED TEXTURAL EMPHASIS AND EXPOSURE VARIATIONS ALLOWABLE IN BLACK AND WHITE. THE LAST BRUSHING ON THE TREES SEEMS MORE APPARENT. IT'S OK IF YOU MISS THE GREEN - I DO TOO.

Finally, the last two versions of the image contain subtle brushwork on the tree trunks that mold them by introducing a side lighting that brings out their round dimensions. If I worked on these images for an hour, at least half the time was devoted to this effort. I’ve lightened the right sides of the tree trunks and darkened the left sides to add some life to the overall exposure. It’s alright if you miss it, but I assure you that it is there. It is so subtle that I don’t even see it while I am doing it, only at the end of the process when I go back to the previous version.  Of course we are rapidly reaching the area of diminishing results, where Fran declares that I’m just crazy because she can’t see a difference at all;  that’s when I call it a day, and finally declare the image as "finished."