Matt Suess – Dramatic Landscape Photography

Image enhancement has always played a huge & necessary role in my work. Many, many years ago when I used to print my photos in my b&w and color chemistry darkroom I was always working on enhancing the final print – from dodging and burning to masking using cut sheets of paper to adjusting the settings on the color enlargement head – anything was fair game in getting the results I wanted.

"Entwinement"

The same holds true in my digital darkroom. Look at the above photo, titled “Entwinement”. It is a new photo from my Contemporary Collection. What is remarkable is how poor that photo looked originally, straight out out the camera, with no adjustments made. You can see below how pale and lifeless the original photo was.

The original RAW file was processed in Lightroom with all of the settings and changes I made reset, showing you the way the camera saw the scene.

By shooting RAW I was able to, starting in Lightroom, find many of the hidden colors, textures and details that were part of my vision when I originally photographed it. All that texture, color and feeling was there somewhere in the original file – I just had to spend the time searching for and bringing it all out.

For me the image enhancement does not end with Lightroom. After I get the file adjusted and in the ballpark of my original vision, the file is then brought into Photoshop to complete the transformation. Sometimes the final results are not that far from the original, straight-out-of-the-camera file. Most of the time, however, it is. “Entwinement” was a particularly dramatic difference – many files are not that extreme.

Close-up of the detail in "Entwinement".

My goal has never been to show you what the camera saw and recorded. The camera is just a mechanical device, devoid of all emotion & feeling, lacking in color & intensity. My goal is to share with you my vision – a vision that comes from a living, breathing person – not a cold, plastic & metal box.

I love working in my digital darkroom just as much as photographing behind the camera. I get just as excited watching a new print slowly come out of the printer as I did watching a print come to life in the developer tray of a chemistry darkroom.

The excitement, of course, is due to seeing the final representation of my vision that started by tripping the shutter on a camera, grew in the enhancement & processing in the digital darkroom, and came alive after the printer finished laying down it’s last drops of ink.

Article by Matt Suess

On two separate occatiions last year in 2007 – once in late summer and again in early fall for a total of about 8 days – I traveled to New Mexico to two different locations for a photo shoot for a company looking to use the images to promote two new developments.

The client was a group who, as per their literature, “purchase ecologically important properties in the path of development, then protects them through a unique combination of low-density development and large, open natural areas. We designate a very limited number of homesteads, blending them aesthetically into the natural topography and leaving the vast majority of a community’s space open and permanently untouched.”

The client found out about me quite by accident. Attending one of my art festivals in New Mexico last year, he fell in love with my work. After exchanging a couple phone calls and emails and mentioning that I used to do a lot of editorial and advertising photography (I now primarily concentrate on my artwork full-time, accepting the occasional editorial/advertising assignments that really excite me) we both decided it would be great to work together on their project.

My assignment was to photograph the natural beauty of these two homesteads with an emphasis on the open space available, breathtaking views, wildlife, and beautiful atmosphere prevalent. After being given brief tours of the properties, I spent time either exploring and photographing by myself or with the company of the client and advertising agency that was hired to put the campaign together.

Photo shoots were scheduled for me to be on location before sunrise and during sunset – the normal ideal times for landscape photography. That usually meant getting up at the hotel a couple hours before sunrise and not returning until a couple hours after sunset. Two days of the shoot included working with a group of 4 models, as well as a hair and make-up artist.

The middle of the day was saved for meetings with the client and advertising company to look over photos taken so far. First I would download images to my Mac laptop. Viewing, selecting, and quick color corrections were accomplished using Lightroom and a slideshow was made as well for quick and easy client viewing.

On-site previewing has been something I have been offering clients ever since I moved to a digital workflow full-time some 8+ years ago. Long gone are the days of waiting for film to be developed and sent to the client. Instant approval or regection of photos while on-location provides the opportunity for both the photographer and client/advertising company the ability to both know exactly how the photo shoot is going and gives the ability to modify and adjust plans on the fly.

Once favorite photos were selected on-location I then further optomized the images at my home studio using my color calibrated system. Finished files were uploaded to the advertising agency via FTP, and were appearing in print by late fall of 2007.

The above two photos show how the photos look with the entire ad layout. Each of these layouts were standard magazine sized. Other photos used in this essay were taken from sections of the entire ad. Note that I added the ©www.mattsuess.com watermark prior to uploading on the web and did not appear in the ads.

© Matt Suess
October 2008
Phoenix, AZ