Few days ago it was snowing in my little town in the Italian region of Piemonte.
It was quite beautiful and I took some pictures from the balcony. My reason was not just to have some photographic fun but also to create some images to promote the sale of my house.
I posted this image on FaceBook and a friend commented: “if he had a red umbrella that would be a competition print possibly loan collection!”
I’m sure it was a compliment and a way to stimulate me in a moment I’m getting far away from photographic competitions and some associations. But this made me think.
Why do we have to modify every image with a contest or likes in our mind? I like this picture because it’s real. It was not snowing anymore so no need for an umbrella, eventually why red when the most common umbrellas here are the cheap interchangeable black ones?
This is not a contest image that will catch the attention of a judge in 3 seconds on a screen, but I do not care, it is an honest one.
Part of my idea is to show how beautiful is the view from this house. I want happy buyers that will enjoy real views for the years to come, not pissed buyers because they will never see what I showed in my images. No matter if the image will win some contest where over editing is become the only way to win.
Yes, as photographer I see things and moments that other people will not see, but still will be there for them to look for and find.
The reality is what matters to me
I know for a contest I will probably need to pump the clouds with filters and editing tools. But I like the clouds as they were.
It happens probably two or three days a year to have those kind of clouds but it happens. It is not a fantasy.
In advertise, as in contests, we now see a lot of fake realities. We see teenagers trying to adapt at the point where beautiful girls deform themselves thinking to have more likes, as we can see in this great project by Rankin
I have to follow my ethic and if I create an advertise, or generically an image that is note pure fantasy, I want it to be something that people can experience in their reality, also if without my effort to evidence some aspects they will probably never notice.
The serious problem is that with all the editing people start to not trust images. We are so used to pumped images that we do not expect to see the same reality if not in a display of our devices.
And here is the other problem.
Yesterday I took from my window some pictures of the sunset. No retouch, daylight white balance, some levels to compensate the flattening of the high dynamic range of digital cameras and nothing more.
Almost nobody will believe these images are not retouched. I will not use them to promote the sale of my house.
It is not so common, a sunset that colorful does not happens every day at this latitudes, but it happens.
At this point to sell sometime is better to not show the best because everybody will think is retouched. The average still have some trust.
Please note the beautiful change of colors in just 10 minutes. Yes I love the Fuji XPro-2 coupled with CaptureOne!
I forgot… just drop me an email if you want to buy this beautiful panorama and enjoy it comfortably from a 4000sqf apartment with a 360 degrees view, a great 4 cars garage, a huge cantina and luxury fully furnished 😉
