[missbirdphotos] Thoughts on Photo Processing

From: "Judy Howle" <howle@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Missbird Photos" <missbirdphotos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2013 23:45:31 -0500
I posted this to my Canon Yahoo group expressing my thoughts on artistically
enhancing photos which was being discussed, but parts of it can apply to
normally processed/retouched images also. 

 

I think it's very limiting to hold your processing basically  to "just what
the camera captured", which some photographers call being a purist. First of
all, the scene you saw in your mind at the time might not look anything like
what the camera captured in terms of colors, detail, contrast, composition,
etc.  

I also find among my friends and acquaintances and my husband that there are
2 mindsets about enhanced photo art: I find that men and some women who are
engineers or have that type of "brain" don't care for it almost without
exception, if it distorts reality, and that includes my husband whose usual
comment on my photo art is "that looks weird".  On the other hand, people
who are artistic, even a little, tend to like it and a few local friends who
are photographers also enjoy doing it.  Most of my artist friends in Studio
206 artists co-op that I belong to are not into photography but they all
really like my work and say "I wish I could do that!" 

I think Jack Davis, Photoshop book author, great photographer and teacher
who taught several excellent classes on Photoshop and iPhoneography that I
watched at creativelive.com this summer, made some very good points about
retouching and enhancing photos. Here's the jist of it from my notes:  Every
image should tell a story, the most potent story possible; a memorable story
where people want to spend time looking at it.  Make artistic, not just
documentary, photos.  If there is a branch in front of a bird or a lamp post
growing out of someone's head, remove it! (He also included phone and
electric wires on poles. I try to always do that, plus I have removed MANY
contrails from my sunset photos since we have a nearby airport and a pilot
training base here.) If the background is distracting, crop it out if
possible, and/or add a slight dark vignette and consider blurring to help
hide it. Unless you are a photo-journalist, there is no reason to leave
distracting elements in the picture.  Do whatever retouching or enhancing is
necessary to tell the story and guide the viewer to see what you want them
to see. 




Judy Howle

 

Southern Exposures Photography

http://southernexposure.zenfolio.com

 

Digital Photography Class; photography information and resources

http://digitalphotographyclass.net
[missbirdphotos] Thoughts on Photo Processing

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