post processing
let’s continue our discussion on the photographic edit and our intent on invoking feeling. i’ll explain my editing thoughts and steps using an image which i’ve named ‘spotlight’.
first I like to determine how i feel when looking at the image. then, i consider what i want the viewer to feel at the end of processing the image.
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the snowstorm
as snow began to fall i wanted to express the feeling of the falling snow in the forest, so i did so in camera using a technique called ICM, or intentional camera movement
well, it’s been a while. the suck is strong in this one. i’ve been busy and a bit burned out, so the blog has taken a back seat. but it’s time to get her going again, so here we go.
i mentioned i’ve been a bit burned out, and truthfully i’ve been a bit mentally fried from the election in the US and its fallout. i used to escape to nature in order to recharge and escape the mental crazy, but even the few trips into the mountains that i’d taken had resulted only in my viewing of the fires of this past summer - resulting in further mental degradation. and so i got away from photography altogether for a bit, and made a return to making of music. i have numerous musical projects halfway done or at least with a bit of a musical idea, so i escaped into a musical idea - one that was happy, a spirit lifter. after a few years of rarely touching anything musical other than the piano on occasion, i found a much more deft touch on mixing down a song and the use of effects. in the past as i’ve made music, (quite immature in that regard might i add) i would do my best to add as many “cool” sounds as possible - even at the expense of busying the song or at the expense of the feeling the song provided. i found myself this time using much more restraint, and i credit this to photography and my growth in that art form.
scorched earth
burned ground at the edge of the fire area of the east troublesome fire - the second largest in colorado history
i have a wonderfully horrible habit of starting a book, reading a few chapters and forgetting the book exists. sometimes i remember the book exists for another chapter or two only to again be hit with my anti-elephant-ness. other times, i have the horrible habit of reading through some lessons all the way through, perhaps outlining what i feel are key points - never to be read again. my last exploration into Guy Tal’s The Landscape Photographer’s Guide to Photoshop ended with him stating that before beginning an edit of an image to recall as best we can the feelings we felt when photographing the scene. if that’s not possible, we should instead concentrate on what the image makes us feel now, as we look at it on the computer. as we edit, take steps in the edit to further enhance those feelings. as was the case in music, oftentimes i would attempt to make the image look as “cool as possible” in my earlier days. i haven’t read any more of that book for one reason: i realized the importance of his statement, and i knew if i progressed in the book i would forget this point. so i made it a point to stop there and practice it with each image as i process them.
moustache
there’s one facebook group i visit with regularity - it’s a private photography group created by a photography book writer and class developer. i’ve taken some of his classes, gotten and received some great advice there. someone recently asked in that group, “is my image too X” where X can really be anything. i asked him if the fact it was so X helped evoke the feelings he was trying to evoke, but he wasn’t sure what feelings he was trying to evoke. so i told him to look up an emotions list on google and see if he felt any of those things when looking at his image, and if so did the X in his image help him or detract from his feelings of those emotions. if you’re struggling with expressing yourself in your photography - or your music, or any other art form, look at the emotions you’d like to evoke from the person experiencing your art and as you progress with your piece, ensure those emotions are being enhanced. but having a starting point or vision will help immensely.
i used to adjust a slider in lightroom or photoshop and ask myself, “does this make the image look better?” i may go back and forth with undo and redo, and finally i’d conclude one way or the other. but better is very subjective, and i’ve gotten away from that. i now ask myself, “how does this change make me feel? does it make me feel more happy or less happy? (if happy is one of the emotions i’m trying to express) if more happy, the modification was a success. if it made me feel less happy, i need to undo and go a different route.
if you’re looking to be more expressive in your art, then “cool” is not the route to take. to be successful in this regard, it helps to have a starting point or vision of what you want the viewer (or listener, etc) to feel. then as your art comes to fruition, make sure that the modifications you make are more fully causing that emotion to be felt by you.
devastating sunrise
first light hits the peaks behind a number of trees burned this fall in rocky mountain national park
a sign warning of a curve in the foggy mountains of wyoming
i’ve often found myself tempted to modify something about my art in order to appeal to a larger or new audience. and i recently heard of another artist considering making stylistic changes in order to appeal to a art show’s juror. this blog post is a bit about that conversation as well as my thoughts on making a similar change.
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lines
i’ve spent a lot of time making “art” that wasn’t a full expression of myself. i apparently needed to be given “permission” to fully express myself through my images, and now that i have, i realize something. it’s something that makes all of my exes incredibly happy! i was, as you may have guessed by now…wrong.
Read Morealong the same lines of the color filters discussed previously, many software packages have the ability to lighten or darken tonality of colors, which in turn darkens or lightens the gray tones produced when converting to black and white. one can use these tonal adjustments to add or remove contrast based on color tones in the original image. care must be taken as these tonal adjustments are global throughout the image.
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Sand Dune Shapes
this extended look into contrast focuses on the color filter(s) as a method of adding contrast to our images. a color filter in software is equivalent to adding a color filter to the front of your lens in the old-school (or current) film days. color filters disallow certain colors from coming into the black and white conversion and essentially lighten or darken certain colors. it is in this way we can wisely add contrast to our black and white images.
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Pilot in the Clouds
this blog post concentrates on what contrast is in an image. we’ll discuss what more contrast looks like in an image vs less contrast, and briefly touch on how to add contrast into an image. we’ll also get to see the tone curve in lightroom as an example of adding or removing contrast in an image.
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a grayscale version of a classic viewpoint of long’s peak in rocky mountain national park
in this blog post, i detail how i make a black and white image from a color image. this can apply to either digital or film images, but is the method i use most often for digital images.
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a golden aspen during the peak aspen colors in the fall in colorado
a common question i see is, “does this work better as color or black and white?'“ and my personal response is typically, what are you trying to say with the image? black and white is usually about shape, form, line, contrast and texture. color is usually about…well, um…color. this blog post digs into the details of black and white vs. color, and why and how i choose one or the other.
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