Day 138 (July 27) - Post Processing

Working backwards today, just for the hell of it.

Photography is a funny art form. Inherently, it lends itself to arguments about purism, since you can just take a picture and print it. Done. Only two steps: push the shutter button, and push the print button.

Some people would say that the two-step photography is the only real photography. I tend to disagree.

Ever since I started shooting raw images (because, and this is a certainly a post for another day, they capture so much more detail, and they're much more flexible in terms of being able to change them after capture) I have to process them. They are by their very nature, by their very definition, unfinished. They need my post-processing input to be complete.

I would argue that in no other kind of art would people view a piece as 'better' because it only took 1/100 of a second to complete. But in photography, post processing is often a dirty word.

"That image looks soooooooooo Photoshopped."

You've heard it. We all have. Hell, I've even said it myself. So I'd say there's a boundary, between enough PP and too much. Where is too much? That is so debatable I will not even touch it with a ten foot pole. However, I will point you to this article, which I feel has summed up a lot of the main points pretty well.

Anyway, the image above has had a significant amount of that devilish post processing applied to it. Do you want to see how I got there?

This is the image out of Lightroom, below. In the (gasp!) Photoshopped image above I added some more sharpening, darkened the background a little, and then added a curves layer to create some more contrast where I felt it was lacking.

In the image below, I took my raw file and decreased the saturation of the colors almost (but not quite) to zero. Then I played around with contrast and making the image a little darker, and darkened the blue of the shirt so it wouldn't pull the viewer's attention away from my beautiful subject's face.
The image below is what would normally come out of Lightroom. I took my raw file and just made it look a little better. I did no major edits, just adjusted exposure, brought up the color, and did a little sharpening. Nine point eight times out of ten, this is what I use Lightroom for. But today I thought it was a little boring and decided to see what else I could come up with.
And finally, this is my raw file, straight out of camera. You can see that it needs some processing to make it look good. Although, it's not bad.
So, which version do you like best?

Be brutally honest. Brutal honesty is the best kind.

Day 137 (July 26) - Windows

Nothing exciting today. We spent the weekend at home, which was nice and relaxing, but not full of photo opportunities. Also, as is common during the rainy season, it rained all day.

So I went out in the rain to see if I could catch one or two photos, and ended up with this view of our windows, which I kind of like for its abstractness.

Tip - Shoot from the Hip

I always have trouble taking pictures of people. I hate it. I feel awkward, I always wonder, am I stealing a piece of their soul? (Not really. I'm pretty sure people keep their soul regardless of photography.)

Even when I have express permission (which I recommend getting) I still often can't quite bring myself to take a picture. A good example of this was when Evan and I were in Myanmar, and being herded around like sheep, as tourists often are in Southeast Asia. We were taking a day boat trip on Inle Lake, and one of our 'stops' was to see a few ladies from the Long Neck tribe. Basically, the entire purpose of the stop was to take pictures of these women. And they invited me to.

But I couldn't do it. It still felt rude to me. As though by taking a picture of them I was saying, "Gosh, you look sooooo weird. I have got to show the folks at home a picture of this."

So, sorry, I don't have a picture of them to show you. But honestly, that's okay with me. Google Long Neck Tribe, and you'll see a ton of pictures very like the one I might have taken. It wasn't going to be Art.

Recently, however, I discovered a new solution to my shyness: shoot from the hip. People get self-conscious when you bring the viewfinder to your eye. What was a natural smile or pose turns a bit awkward.

So, instead, hold your SLR like a point and shoot. Or even lower. If you have Live View, this is a great time to use it. What I do is turn Live View on until I see a framing I like, then I turn it off but keep the camera in the same place, then use the shutter button to autofocus and take the shot. And if my subject's not looking at the camera, or can't hear the shutter, they don't even know I took a picture!

I used this technique recently to take the shots of the students in the classroom. And I ended up with a lot of interestingly composed frames that I might not have had otherwise.

It's not a perfect technique. And I usually have to take a few shots to find a keeper. But it's better than nothing, which is what I've often ended up with before. Try it! Let me know if you do, I'd love to hear how it works for you.

Day 134 (July 23) - Trash or Treasure?

Another photo of the students hard at work today. This is one of my favorites, but I can't actually explain why. Technically, it's not great. The camera was metering the wrong thing, and accidentally underexposed, so it's noisy in the shadows after I brought up the exposure, plus I cut off the top of the kid's head in front.

And yet, I really like it. So, what do you think? Trash or treasure? Let me know.

Day 133 (July 22) - Students

Went to work again today, as I'm feeling better. But fate had arranged a light teaching day for me, so I went and sat in on one of Evan's classes and took some pictures. The kids have no desks in our classrooms, so there is plenty of room to run around and play games. This means, though, that they have to do all their writing sitting on the floor.

Both of these are favorites, for different reasons. I think the top image is much better, photographically, but the bottom image is so much fun! I shot the kids through a glass door, so the reflections are a bit annoying, but you can see what hams they are. And so cute, too!
That's it for today. I stupidly missed the eclipse this morning (total solar eclipse, although not quite total here, 69%) which made me super angry at myself until I read that no one in Bangkok had really seen it, because it was cloudy.

So, a little bit of schadenfreude makes everything better.

Day 132 (July 21) - More Cat

I spent the day at home today, which didn't provide a lot of photographic fodder. But fortunately the cat volunteered to pose for me, and she did a pretty good job!