Tuscany near Pienza, Italy
Fujifilm GFX100S II, 500mm lens, f6.4 @ 1/150 second, ISO 125

Maybe it's the circles I move in, but there seems to be less emphasis given to the practice of waiting for the light when it comes to landscape photography. When I was boy, walking bare-foot over broken glass just to get to the bedroom door, the landscape photographers I idolised would talk lovingly about the hours, days and even weeks it took for the light to be just right. Milton Wordley talked about a vineyard photo where he waited four hours for the clouds to move into just the right position. Hell, Andris Apse would spend three weeks making a trail through dense undergrowth, just so he could plant his tripod in the right position - and then he had to wait even longer for the light!

But we have new technology today. It's called post-production in Lightroom, Photoshop, Capture One or Affinity Photo. We can do so much to an image we don't have to wait if we don't want to. We can create the light ourselves. Or can we?

There are a number of photo competitions that champion the natural landscape. They resist too much post-production, putting the emphasis on capture. I think this is a good skill to learn because great captures are essential for creating better photographs and it definitely improves the end result. A top location photographed in great light is always going to look better than if it were photographed in average light, so why not reward the photographer for waiting. Or for being lucky enough to arrive at just the right time.

Unfortunately, the rhetoric accompanying these natural masterpieces denies the importance of post-production. No matter how good your capture, 'straight out of the camera' is rarely enough. And what is straight out of the camera anyway? A technically correct exposure with no clipping might actually look better if the blacks are slightly clipped (strengthened). The result is still 'straight out of the camera', but it's the photographer's interpretation of the file in post-production that makes the difference.

Capture and post-production. The two are inseparable.

This photo taken near the Gladiators walk in Tuscany is an example of being in the right place at the right time, waiting for a little longer for the interplay of chiaroscuro to work its magic, and then using post-production to re-interpret the scene. I'm not suggesting that different lighting wouldn't have made a better photograph, but I am suggesting the final rendition has its strengths exactly because of the light captured in the original exposure. When you look at the raw file, there's no doubt even more could have been created with better light, but I think that the light that is there still works. 

And if you're interested in visiting Italy in October this year, Tony Hewitt and In are taking a group of 8 on a 12 day photo tour from Rome to Venice, including Tuscany and Pienza. Details on the magazine website.