# Yankee Magazine feature! And questions for everyone



## jsecordphoto (Aug 3, 2014)

Featured Photographer | Jon Secord » Yankee Magazine

So Yankee Magazine is featuring me as their photographer of the month for August. For those not familiar, Yankee is one of the classic New England magazines and it's an honor to be featured by them. They wanted a specific theme for the photos I submitted, and I ended up doing the Maine coast at night. Now, from what their editor told me, they have never featured astrophotography before, and sort of took a chance in trying something new with me. It's understandable, with night photography, most people either love it- or think it's totally fake and hate it. 

I also had a space.com feature and a lot of the comments on both articles were similar. Most of the comments and feedback were great, but there were a few people hating on it, which at this point doesn't bother me as much. Some people are purists, and want photography to strictly be capturing the moment and expect photos to basically be SOOC. To me, photography is more of an art and I consider my work to be my interpretation of the scene. Most of what I do at night, especially lately, is layering exposures and focus stacking. Shooting at f2.8 or f4 for my foregrounds, I basically have to focus stack. Now, a TON of daytime landscape photographers I know are doing this type of stuff anyway to their photos in post- exposure blending and focus stacking. Just curious as to how people feel about that here. Do you consider layering exposures and such make a photo "not real" (one of the comments)? 

Either way, I've been getting a lot of exposure (no pun intended) and recognition lately, which is a HUGE blessing. I feel very lucky that I have been making some money and getting my work out there, just wanted to see where people here on TPF felt about this stuff.


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## Derrel (Aug 3, 2014)

Really amazing nighttime Milky Way + lighthouse stuff, man! You're working in the current methodology, but the lighthouse with beacon active? Oh, man, oh man, that added element added puts it way over the top. Nice!


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## Trever1t (Aug 3, 2014)

Art is art. There's no such thing as real or not real photography. Do your thang mang!


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## paigew (Aug 3, 2014)

Awesome images! Congrats on being featured


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## jsecordphoto (Aug 3, 2014)

Derrel said:


> Really amazing nighttime Milky Way + lighthouse stuff, man! You're working in the current methodology, but the lighthouse with beacon active? Oh, man, oh man, that added element added puts it way over the top. Nice!



Thanks Derrel! That was a crazy night. The sliver of moon rose to my left as I was taking the foreground exposures of the roses and the light was just beautiful.


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## jsecordphoto (Aug 3, 2014)

Trever1t said:


> Art is art. There's no such thing as real or not real photography. Do your thang mang!



I agree, and understand there will always be naysayers. I have pretty thick skin at this point, just curious how everyone here feels about that type of post processing


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## tirediron (Aug 3, 2014)

Congratulations!


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## jsecordphoto (Aug 4, 2014)

tirediron said:


> Congratulations!



Thanks, it's pretty exciting!


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## The_Traveler (Aug 4, 2014)

congratulations
lovely images


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## notgreybeard (Aug 4, 2014)

Cograts - That is the processing I hope to achieve one day - always remember - you can never please everybody


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## spacefuzz (Aug 4, 2014)

Art is art. Since its mostly due to personal taste if you want some people to love it....inevitably some will hate it. As for me personally I like getting my star shots in one frame, I really enjoy the challenge.


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## KmH (Aug 4, 2014)

jsecordphoto said:


> Some people are purists, and want photography to strictly be capturing the moment and expect photos to basically be SOOC.


Congrats on the write up.

People that expect a photo to be SOOC usually don't understand how unrealistic a SOOC photo is.


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## keyseddie (Aug 4, 2014)

Congrats, Jon. Your work is magical and it's good to see you reaping the bennies for your efforts.


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## jsecordphoto (Aug 4, 2014)

KmH said:


> jsecordphoto said:
> 
> 
> > Some people are purists, and want photography to strictly be capturing the moment and expect photos to basically be SOOC.
> ...



Right?? I've had people ask me to see the "original file", but showing somebody a RAW file isn't even an accurate representation of a scene. 

And thank you everyone!


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## vintagesnaps (Aug 4, 2014)

Some of them are really cool. To me usually if a photo is more processed it tends to get less believable. I'm not real familiar with astrophotography but some that I've seen do of course capture more light over a period of time so they can look somewhat surreal. Congrats on having your photos chosen.


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## Civchic (Aug 6, 2014)

I think night photography almost HAS to be post-processed in the way you do it, just to approach "real".  What I mean, is that at night, if I were there with you, my eyes would have adujusted to see the lighthouse beacon, the stars, the roses, the rocks.  All well focussed and as a complete scene.  The camera sensor just can't do that.  Yes, your PP "enhances" that reality, but only just to illuminate the beauty, not to make it "fake".


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## Msteelio91 (Aug 6, 2014)

Congrats!!! I think if you're putting time and effort into a photo, stacking, blending, meshing everything together to make something aesthetically pleasing that appeals to so many peopl - that is ART. 

You can't take away that fact. People can say "oh well you didn't just use one photo."... well guess what, it's not possible to achieve some of these shots with one photo. If anything, I think using multiple shots to achieve one final image is more complex and involved than trying to "make due" with one shot. 

Just my .02 anyway


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## snerd (Aug 6, 2014)

I feel that congratulations are in order, so Congratulations!!


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