ty i agreei keep going back to this moment in high school where the photographer for the town newspaper came to give a talk to my art class, and he said somethng to the extent of "any editing of a photo beyond basic cropping isn't real photography, and a crime against art"...and like i understand the journalistic "just the facts" mindset he must have been coming from, but even a decade on i totally disagree. for me the raw photo often feels like a big block of concrete with a vaguely evocative shape, and the final (sometimes heavily edited) image is like a finished sculpture. same feeling as how an hour long recording of a noodly jam session can be recontextualized into a three minute cut that more directly conveys the underlying feeling
always impressed by your macro work but here i think i'm particularly drawn to the second & last shots (with the mosquitos on glass). hard to describe the feeling it evokes exactly - visual sensations that are often felt in my irl experience, but rarely do i see them documented on film (sort of like how irl sound has that particular multi-dimensional spatial quality, which very rarely is captured by music mixed down to two stereo channels)
thanks
the photographer was a news photographer so yeah, he probably is in for documental accuracy but in my opinion for good looking photos editing isn't only allowed, it's necessary for every single shot.
as for the flies, well, I think all the contrasts between out of focus and focused dust might contribute to an enhanced sense of spatiality, also the usage of a flashlight coming from the side might enhance the three-dimensionality but maybe it's the chromatic aberrations that do the trick and perhaps remind on fractured light on the eyelashes?