Tutorial led by Editor Michel Romaggi in collaboration with the author Shenshen Dou 
Edited and published by Yvette Depaepe, the 5th of February 2025. 

'Ancient battlefield'

Can you introduce yourself and tell us what photography means to you?
I grew up in a family of artists, both my parents were artists. I drew a lot as a child and learned to draw from my mother. In my teens I fell in love with science and later became a scientist. Although the appreciation of art has always been a part of my life, it was not until middle age that the passion to try my hand at artistic creation was awakened and I began to explore different art forms such as oil painting, paper collage and photography. Now photography is becoming an important part of my life.

From "the traces", "boat ramp" or "sleeping beauties" to "dry river scape" or "ancient battle field" there is a very important creative gap in your work. Why and how did your photographs evolve from the figurative landscapes of your early days (often aerial) to these beautiful, more abstract paintings?
Documenting nature and life is the starting point of my photography. Soon I realised the endless inspiration that nature could offer and the unlimited creative techniques that Photoshop could provide, and the creative fun began.
Figurative landscapes are more like documentary for me. The beauty of nature inspires our feelings and moods, we react to it and enhance it in post-processing. In the end, we kept the nature images as close as possible to their original appearance. Nature is the creator.
The creative abstract photographs are our works. They come from our inner world, from the consolidation of our life experiences, our emotions and our souls. Therefore, they are more personal and unique, they are new creations of us. From the perspective of aesthetic psychology, "anything new and unusual can arouse a kind of pleasure in the imagination, because it gives the mind a pleasant surprise, satisfies its curiosity and gives it a concept that it has never had before". These are the reasons why I am attracted to more abstract forms of creation. Together with my post-processing skills along with my post processing skills developed, I have more tools to realize my creative goals.

'Dry-river scape'

Can you explain to us on one of these photos, for example "ancient battlefield" the different steps to get this result?
The original image was an aerial shot of a petroleum production waste water treatment pond at a remote area of South-West US.

shot with DJI MAVIC 3 pro. f/8.0, ISO100, 1/13 s.

I was attracted by the shape, colors and of the pond at first, I took a few shots of the pond at different angles, heights. I noticed the details of the folded pond liner were interesting, the black color pond liner looked like some kind of figures. I shifted my shooting focused on this particular area, got a few more pictures to cover those intricated elements.

When I have time to examining those shots, interesting things happened: some cold weapon age warriors with spears, swords and horses surfaced from those dark figures which formed by pond liner; in distance of the dark warriors, there were some tree like  patterns;  in the sky, clouds, waves and stars fashioned by the chemical deposits in the pond, they are all appeared in an abstract, paper-cut like forms. An ancient battlefield was emerged gradually in front of my eyes. 

In the post process I added a big ruby colored setting sun in the middle of the image.

The sun in the picture connects past and present. This ancient sun shines on our ongoing modern wars now, with the same bloody red color as in the ancient battlefield. Just like a poem wrote by a famous Chinese poet Li bai twelve hundred years ago: “Today's people cannot see the ancient moon, but today's moon once shone on the ancient people”.
The techniques used in post processing rather simple.
I applied three of my original images.
First image was the mineral pond as mentioned above, Second and third images were a half moon and a setting sun, both shot with NIKON 850, Lens 600 mm f/4.0.

Nikon 850  .  Lens 600mm  .   f/4.0  .  IS 1000  .  1/1000 s  .  -2 (with tripod)

Nikon 850  .  Lens 600mm  .  f/4.0  .  ISO 200  .  1/2500 s  .  -2 (without tripod)

All photos shot with Raw format.
These were the post processing steps I followed:
1) Camera Raw: Curve and Effect to adjust contrast
2) Photoshop: Crop to enlarge the main subject the  warrior figures.
Lasso tool to get rid of  unnecessary motifs.
3) Photoshop:Added the half-moon image: layer >blending option >soft light 100% opacity, Added the setting sun image: layer >blending option >overlay opacity 16%.
Layer mask /Gradient tool to block unwanted parts of the added layers.
Merged all layers.
4) Camera Raw: Color the trees to green: color >Temp -14, Tint -35.
5) Photoshop: Paint out the green trees from the modified layer from 4) .
6) Photoshop: First, Topaz Studio 2 >AI Clear for sharpen.Then PS Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen >Amount 138, Radius 1.6
Only Sharpen the needed areas.

What are the subjects that lead to these pictures?
How do you choose them? How do you photograph them?
1) When I choose my subjects to photograph, I followed my visual intuition, pay attention to nature forms, patterns and textures that speaking for themselves and revealing unique aesthetical features.
2) After shooting, carefully reviewing and examining images was as important as photographing them. This process can inspire new ideas, new perspectives.
3) Photo editing is a process to emphasize ideas, render atmosphere and brewing mood.

'Yellow light'