Google Auto Awesome

All my photos taken on my phone are automatically backed up to Google Photos. From there it is easy to put them on here, after editing if necessary. When I do edit them first, I take quite some care to ensure it is making the picture reflect what I saw and / or felt.

However, Google, in its wisdom, has developed an "Auto Awesome" feature that takes random photos saved to your cloud and makes them "awesome" ummm... I don't think so...

How can this "Auto Awesome" photo:

be considered awesome compared to the orginal:

Or this "Auto Awesome":

Compared to the original:

And if I wanted to use effects so that this:

became this:

then I would. Please Google, stop Auto Awesoming my photos. What you do to them is NOT awesome. It is very annoying!

Does it irritate anyone else as much as me?!

Photo Effects

Since I have been doing (I was going to say writing but there isn't normally an awful lot of writing going on!) this blog, I have rediscovered Google+.

I say rediscovered because I had previously thought of Google+ as a failed Facebook. Then on looking into it as a way to share my photos and my blog I have found some amazing global art and photography communities. There is so much talent out there worldwide it makes me feel quite humbled.

It is also interesting how many different photography styles there are. In this day when decent editing tools are available to any person with a smartphone, everyone seems to be using them to great effect. I personally use them to enhance a photo and to make it seem more true to what my eye actually saw. Given that nearly all my photos are taken while I am walking my dogs, I normally see a scene that takes my breath away and snap it as quickly as possible before the dogs run off and get into mischief. I don't have time to check everything a professional photographer might. So when I get home I tinker to get the photograph as close to what I actually saw as possible. For example, I took this picture recently:

I loved this scene because the line of the clouds almost directly followed the line of the trees and it looked like a mushroom cloud coming from the top of the trees. I have a thing about clouds by the way, which may well come to light if you follow the blog!

Imagine my disappointment when I came home to discover that the photo I took was actually mostly just dark shapes and smudgy clouds. I really didn't think I would be able to save it but with Google Photo Editor I achieved this... exactly the scene I had seen!

But other people use photo effects in totally different ways. Colours and other aspects can be changed to be almost unnatural, with stunning effect. It enables photography, for those who want it, to be like other art forms, less a copy of what is seen but more a personal interpretation or representation of the scene taken.

For me though, I shall stick with effects that show you what I have seen. Walks with my dogs have unearthed beauty around me that I didn't know existed. I have literally gasped out loud sometimes when confronted by it and it is this that I want to share when I share my photos.