Today's photo is a fine and evocative example. It's a shot of the Clark Fork River just outside of Thompson Falls, taken by a Missoulian named Chauncey Woodworth about 1908. I'm not sure of the exact spot where this image was taken, but much of the river near Thompson Falls is now entombed beneath a reservoir ... so tattered views like this may be all we have left of a very lovely spot.
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I bet that would have been an awesome view at the time that this picture doesn't do justice too.
ReplyDeleteWow. That looks like something out of a dream! I always wondered what it looked like before the Ft. Peck Dam covered most of the Missouri River Breaks.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is going to sound sorta snooty, but I don't mean it that way...I think if a photographer can't get the picture to look right without Photoshop, all the computer manipulation in the world won't fix it.
It's still not a bad view, NIck, even with the modern intrusions. But I really think that old photo captures a mood that just couldn't be replicated today.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah ... the Missouri River country! I would have LOVED to have seen it before it was drowned. Haven't even seen many photos ... but of course, that was before there was a more widespread appreciation of such things.
As for photoshop, I see it as a tool in the same league with the darkroom tools photographers used a generation ago. But using it won't give you a good photographic eye, or turn you into a good photographer. And if you get carried away with photoshop, your pictures show it ... and it's not something that I approve of.