HCW & a question

[sunrising]

I'm a n00b here, and as far as an intro goes, I have issues calling myself a photographer.  I'm a novice at best, and I just use a point and shoot with no attachments, and I've had no training.  A "photographer" to me is someone who has received an education in photography, uses the best equipment for the shoot, and has a great eye for the final

Comments

[kylecassidy]

a photographer is a person with a camera. that's it. there are good photographers and bad photographers.

and no professional photographer would ever think that a photograph is done when hits the film. all professional photographers alter their images. ansel adams famously wrote five books about how to alter your photographs starting from choosing the film before you even put it in the camera.

[sunrising]

Thanks for that. I don't know if it's a common thing to elevate the title of photographer like I have or not, but your comment is quite helpful.

As far as the editing goes, it's a bit of a relief knowing that most of the great shots out there have been altered in some way (big or small), and they're not just instantly perfect. :-)

[kylecassidy]

the "completely unphotoshopped" discussion pops up occasionally, we should start tagging them because it's pretty much the exact same discussion every time. people who are not manipulating their images, film or digital, are either lazy, lucky, or simply don't know how to do it yet.

in "ye olden days" photographers hired master printers to get the most from their negatives. photographers still hire photoshop artists to fix things (as does every fashion magazine on earth) but a lot of that type of work has moved to the photographer lately.

[sunrising]

Good point on the tagging. I've added tags for this one and feel free to edit if you like. I won't take it personally. :-)

[punk_peanut_]

For someone who sees themselves as a novice, you're very good.

I agree with the above comment. I don't think it's like a doctor when you have to be educated and pass exams and get a degree for it to be considered your profession.

I didn't consider myself a photographer (when people asked what I was) until I got my first pay cheque for a shoot.

In terms of your question, I like my pictures to be good enough to not have to edit them if I have to. But I often do, just bring out a color, crop them - change them to black and white. Although I don't have have photoshop.

For me, I want my picture to be a good picture without having to do this or that... if in needs to be photoshoped to be a good pictures, it's not a good picture. If it's photoshoped to make it from a good picture to a great picture that's different.

It's all about the story, the moment, the angle and the mood you capture as well... and that changes my views on editing too.

BLAH big comment!

Thank you

[sunrising]

Thanks for the compliment. :-)

Big comments are good! I can understand what you mean, and maybe I'm really in the same frame of mind about the getting paid thing. I don't think I'd offer my services for pay though. I have a feeling that would suck all the fun out of it for me.

Also about the editing, I don't like to have to tweak mine either. The one above may have had levels adjusted in Photoshop - I don't remember. I'll sometimes take an image into Photoshop and play with things just to see how it changes the image. If I think it looks better, I'll keep it, if not, I stick with the original.

[sunrising]

Thanks - I've only worked with digital images/Photoshop and frankly, I had no idea that negatives could be retouched. I think that's simply because there was just no money before digital so it was a question of timing and means to experiment ... well, that and the whole lack photography classes thing. ;-)

[kylecassidy]

i remember after printing images you'd have to sit down with a freaking paintbrush and five bottles of paint from the "spotting kit" to fix every one of them. long live the healing brush.

[sipperphoto]

I'm in total agreement with Kyle up there.

Photoshop is a tool, not unlike the camera, itself. Every decision you make, whether it is film speed, aperture, shutter speed or whether to shoot black and white, or color affects the final image. It is all a giant tool box in which to work from.

I know there are "purists" out there that believe that you should NEVER alter your photographs, just shoot them, and throw them online without ever touching Photoshop, or any other program. Good for them. I do beleive it is all a personal choice. However, believe this, they are in the minority, historically speaking...

[sunrising]

Yes! That's exactly how I felt about Photoshop - part of the tool box. I started to think and overthink it which lead me to question the use of it.

I think in any craft/profession there will be the purists and the extremists (or whatever the other end of the spectrum would be). I couldn't say if one was better than the other, but what's more, I think it's just a different way of expressing art through a chosen medium.

[cp]

I think the line between a photo and an altered photo is basically just that--when the edited image shows something that wasn't there when the photo was taken. Tweaking colors, contrast, exposure, etc. via software isn't all that different than what a film shooter might do in the darkroom to enhance an image. In fact, whether film or digital, in my experience very few images come out of the camera without needing a bit of tweaking to make them reflect what I saw or wanted to capture when I pressed the shutter button.

I like your shot very much, by the way--awesome subject, and the lighting was superb! My only suggestion would be to crop out the cable railing at the bottom--it's not all that distracting, but it's certainly unnecessary.

[sunrising]

Thanks. Your explanation of altered v. not makes a lot of sense ... especially now learning that making adjustments with things like Photoshop aren't the taboo I thought they might be.

Ya know what's funny about that railing ... I didn't notice it until I decided to post the pic here and then you confirmed my mild annoyance at its existence. I'll be going back to crop it soon.

[cp]

Agreed, and I come from much the same mindset. I never really edited my shots much at all until I got Lightroom, which makes the process so easy and has the added bonus of not changing the original image file. Now I use it to weed out the keepers from the no-good shots, and can then very quickly apply a few choice adjustments to bring the shot to life. Such a nice, simple workflow!