Good Photography should include as much time editing as it does shooting.
This is something that was seemingly lost in translation between film and digital photography. Early in my work life, I was a photo processor at a photo lab called Wolf Camera and Video. There were automated features on our machine, but for the most part, I sat there and watched the negatives move through and manually adjusted the settings to get the best result out of every photo. Most customers had no idea I had done anything at all. They just thought they were brilliant photographers. I could make a mediocre photo look great and I could make a great photo look mediocre.
This has always been the case in photography. Ansel Adams, the world’s most famous landscape photographer, spent weeks in his darkroom dodging, burning, and adjusting every aspect of both his processing and finished prints to get his desired result.
Somehow, in the transition from film to digital, this process was lost in translation. In fact, the #NoFilter movement has caught on so much that we have an entire generation of people who somehow believe that if you edit your photo in any way, it’s not authentic. This is a million miles from the truth. [Granted, I understand that Photoshop blurs the lines. I do not personally agree with, say, taking the sky from one photo and pasting it into another. The integrity of the photography is gone at that point and you are left with what the professionals would call a “photo illustration.”] That said, every single photo that I actually post on social media or send to be printed has the following adjusted in some way: brightness (exposure), contrast, saturation, and sharpness. EVERY SINGLE PHOTO! This is not cheating. It is compensating for what your iPhone doesn’t have: your brain and your eyes. The camera isn’t perfect. It’s simply a tool in your hands. The combination of the tool and the artist’s brain…that’s where the power lies.
SO.
Tip: Spend time editing every shot you use for anything. Yes, there are some shots that really work well right out of the camera. But most require at least a tiny bit of post-processing to get them looking their best. And in general, I agree with #NoFilter. Using built-in preset filters is lazy and a lame way to get a result. But #NoFilter does NOT mean #NoEditing.
This has always been the case in photography. Ansel Adams, the world’s most famous landscape photographer, spent weeks in his darkroom dodging, burning, and adjusting every aspect of both his processing and finished prints to get his desired result.
Somehow, in the transition from film to digital, this process was lost in translation. In fact, the #NoFilter movement has caught on so much that we have an entire generation of people who somehow believe that if you edit your photo in any way, it’s not authentic. This is a million miles from the truth. [Granted, I understand that Photoshop blurs the lines. I do not personally agree with, say, taking the sky from one photo and pasting it into another. The integrity of the photography is gone at that point and you are left with what the professionals would call a “photo illustration.”] That said, every single photo that I actually post on social media or send to be printed has the following adjusted in some way: brightness (exposure), contrast, saturation, and sharpness. EVERY SINGLE PHOTO! This is not cheating. It is compensating for what your iPhone doesn’t have: your brain and your eyes. The camera isn’t perfect. It’s simply a tool in your hands. The combination of the tool and the artist’s brain…that’s where the power lies.
SO.
Tip: Spend time editing every shot you use for anything. Yes, there are some shots that really work well right out of the camera. But most require at least a tiny bit of post-processing to get them looking their best. And in general, I agree with #NoFilter. Using built-in preset filters is lazy and a lame way to get a result. But #NoFilter does NOT mean #NoEditing.
