With the internet, it is quite easy to be exposed to many good photographers. For me, post processing of photos can really separate competent photographers from outstanding ones. As with every other aspect of photography, concentrating on only one part of the craft can eventually hurt the quality of your work. You can concentrate on things like – buying gear, social media, marketing your business, making new photos, or post processing. If you only concern yourself with one of these aspects of photography, the others will suffer.
Dance Photography
In being a ballroom dance event photographer, I get the opportunity to make thousands of photos at an event. Post processing takes a lot of my time after events. Looking back at some of my first photos, I can see that I really went overboard using effects and sliders in Lightroom. The effects were good at attracting attention to my images on social networks, and I really had a lot of fun making them.
These “cross processing” presets in Lightroom used color shifts to emulate purposely incorrect film processing in the darkroom to create the effects. Some also used heavy darkening of corners to highlights subjects. This was a cutting-edge way to create photos. Since then, the explosion of Instagram, and other photo editing apps on iPhones and Android has made these looks more prevalent online. (For the record, I have recently joined Instagram, and actually enjoy it!)
So with the change in styles that I am seeing, I have gone back to doing less to photos, and leaving them as close to in-camera capture as I can. This is just another phase until the next thing comes out. For photographers, the message is making your images as best you can in camera, then post process them as you like it at the time. It will make you happy with the creative process and will mark eras in your photography life. We are digital photographers now. We don’t have different film stocks, or film chemistry that will change with the times. The best part is we have RAW files that make the transition with us, metadata, and all. So, you can always revisit photos as they were and update them, or not!
Here is where I am today, and I hope you come back to see what comes next –
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