Cameras are the weakest link
How easy is it to just point, shoot and print?
Thanks to new technology advancing rapidly, it’s becoming easier and easier to take pictures and create usable images.But what technology can’t do are the 2 most important parts to make an amazing image.
1) Know/create what you want to shoot, compose it and light it. (the bit before)
2) Once you have your image, post-process it properly to maximise it’s impact (the bit after)If you have your camera in auto mode like most point and shoots then it’ll try to figure out the right exposure and white balance for you. This is almost never the creative’s option (at least not for me) as you have virtually no control of the results.
What it will do is make a guesstimate and give you something to look at, although it may not be what you had in mind.Below is an example of a point and shoot image which I processed into something usable
Image courtesy of Andrew Winton This image was taken by my dad on a recent winter holiday. Not a bad way to spend Christmas Eve 🙂
He requested that I print it for him on a large canvas for his birthday (via Canvas My Art) and on initial viewing it looked like I could make something of it. It had interesting compositional elements, but it wasn’t lit so well (nothing a reflector couldn’t fix) and the JPG file I was given was big enough to work on to minimise loss of quality during editing.
It’s easy to see the difference that my simple changes made in post-production. It’s often the area that people overlook or assume it’s not important, but as you can see it can really make or break an image.
As a professional image maker I’ll try to get it right in-camera so that the (sometimes hundreds of) images I edit only require minor adjustments. The quicker we can edit the quicker we can get out there and make more images.
But, no matter how far advanced or (in)expensive our camera are, only having skill and vision in all areas will consistently return quality results.
Photographer’s Vision
Just a quick mid-week post to illustrate how a photographer’s vision takes place beyond the camera. There’s the design and concept stage of an image, but this post is more on the execution and processing.
As an example, below you’ll see one of the images from my recent trip to Colonsay which I blogged about earlier in the year
The left image was as it came out of the camera. The right image is the image once I had finished post-processing it.
I knew when I saw the scene how I wanted the final version to look well before I set up the camera to take the shot and I took the picture with my camera set up to suit the post-processing I had in mind.
I was aware I already did this, but the recent photowalk I joined really brought it to my attention and it made me realise how much I think about realising the final shot before I’ve even gone near my camera.
It’s just as well it’s disposable 😉
Colonsay – Panoramas
Following my trip to Colonsay, I have finished editing some of the panoramas I took.
They are a combination of 3 to 15 images depending on the image and how wide I went with a couple being a complete 360deg sweep….They range in sizes with the biggest ones being around the 5ft mark, so they could easily be blown up to 20ft and beyond.
Pictures this size are a huuuuge amount of data which are slow to put together and edit, but now they’re complete they’re ready for action.All the images are available for licensing and I’m in discussions with a few companies as well as the Scottish Tourist Board.
Here’s hoping they like what they see and can make use of them.Feedback or comments are welcome.
Colonsay Video
I recently spent 9 days rattling around a small Inner Hebridean island called Colonsay, waiving my camera around and trying to shelter it from the sand, sea spray and rain.
The result is a lot of pixel pummeling that I’ll be doing this week making some (hopefully) pretty pictures of which I’ll make some limited edition prints.
In the meantime, here’s a small video from a time-lapse sequence I did on the Colonsay Port where the ferry comes in once a day (6/7 days in summer, 3/7 in the winter).It’s my first time-lapse so I hope you enjoy
