how do you like your photography?

[nighstar]

Comments

[chochajin]

Good question. I don't know myself, honestly. I'm still experimenting, too!
For now I leave the photos as they are, although I LOVE to play around with Photoshop afterwards, but I'm too scared to use RAWs, they take too much space.

Guess I'm not really any help. I'm just a beginner anyways, if at all XD

[nighstar]

thanks for your reply, i figured no one would. :]

i wasn't really expecting help from anyone, no worries. it's all really just preference and stuff. ^^;

so the photos that you've been posting on lj (your everyday photos, not the travel ones) are straight out of your old camera...? :o

[chochajin]

Well, I don't do anything to my travel photos. My everyday photos are OFTEN photoshopped, though only a little bit ^^;

Sorry, I wanted to answer earlier, but ran into trouble while formatting my computer and all x_X blah XD

[nighstar]

oic. :]

reformatting sucks. :/ sorry that you had to do that...

[hibernaldream]

I try to keep post processing to a minimum. But at this point, my only camera is a 2-3 year old Canon PowerShot that leaves a lot of photos looking unfocused, dull and often grainy if it's dark. So I usually wind up enhancing the natural colors (most of them are of nature, so I enhance the green) and turn up the contrast to sharpen it as much as possible without it looking fake. And if a color picture really just can't be salvaged, I'll make it black & white so I don't have to scrap it altogether.

Here's an example: This picture was straight out of my camera. It's so bright it's almost obnoxious. So I had to tweak it to turn it into this.

But there are some photos that really shouldn't be touched. I didn't do a damn thing to this picture and it came out perfect. As a general rule I try not to do anything to it unless I make it obvious.

[nighstar]

it's sad that a camera that's only 2-3 years old (and a Canon at that!) often produces such bad photos. :/ the example photo that you gave was strangely bright; the edited one looked much better. i'm glad i'm not the only one who tries to avoid editing photos.

thanks for the comment. :]

[maikeru_desu]

Maybe this answer is cheating, but I'm going to say it depends on the context. For artistic purposes, I don't think there is such thing as excessive post-processing. Like you say, it's part of the process, even if the finished product can't truly be considered photography. For photojournalists, however, any touch-ups beyond cropping or color correction are plain WRONG as they compromise the integrity of the image.

Personally, I guess I'm closer to the artistic side. Part of it is because I can't afford professional camera gear to take photos as clear and rich in color as I'd like. Photoshop can be a kind of substitute for expensive equipment. Also, I see my photos as a diary, or a way to record my life. I'm happy to touch up the memories to remember things more beautifully, but I'll always keep a copy of the original too!

[nighstar]

:] @ seeing your photos as a diary/record of your life

i like to think of mine as that too.

also, i agree on it depending on context.

[jinxyboi]

composure is king

=3

[nighstar]

and that is to say what? :P

are you still doing photography?

[jinxyboi]

lol framing and focus are the only important bits to a photo to me. everything else is just math, and with shit like .CR2 and RAW and all that, getting the perfect exposure isn't necessarily all that difficult anymore

[nighstar]

i dont agree, but eh. :p

so, why aren't your videos on youtube? or are they?