Lots of articles are written about gear, editing software, and training for both. Lots more are written about composition – rules and tips. Lighting, time of day, angle, selecting the subject – all of these receive wide commentary from writers, vloggers and trainers alike.
I can shoot an image, I can even stage a scene. But more often than I would like, I completely blank out when I bring the raw image onto the computer. I ask myself – now what? What’s the final look I want to achieve with this image? How should I present it?
To those photographers who always know what the result will be, even before they shoot, I applaud you. I’ve listened to photographers speak of their work in exquisite detail, outlining every capture and adjustment decision and why they made it. I envy them.
I have friends who deliberately do minimal edits. I have others who retouch to the point of the original piece serving only as a framework for a piece of art. Frankly, I rarely like either extreme. So I guess I’ve made my first decision – establishing a boundary around my edits.
Why is it so hard to know what to do next? A few random thoughts come to mind. Continue reading “Knowing What To Do (with an Image)”
I’ve just returned from a two week trip to Newfoundland. If you have not been to the east coast of Canada, make a plan to go. It is an amazing experience – socially, culturally, but also photographically.
My colleague then said: “I’m bringing this flash back. It doesn’t fire consistently.” He demonstrated the problem, with the unit set first on TTL mode and then on manual mode while attached to the hotshoe on his mirrorless camera. He was right. Without changing camera settings, sometimes the speedlite would fire and sometimes it wouldn’t. He returned the unit. But it got me to thinking about how the speedlite and camera work together and how to make sure they always work when needed. 
