Nope, I’m definitely not into messing around with pics. Straight out of the camera, that’s me.
I distinctly remember saying so. So it must be true, mustn’t it?
Yeah. Right.
But I don’t remember actually saying how long I wasn’t gonna mess around with pics for.
Did I? Well, did I?
No. I thought not.
However, I’ll try not to make a habit of it. After all, its not as though I’m hooked on it or anything.
Ho hum.
Edit 12 November 16:59 In reponse to Maggie’s question in comments, here are the originals for comparison…
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Those are amazing pictures and the coloring is mind blowing. Did the sky and house actually look like that or did it just turn out that way? If not, how did you get those color combos. The sky in the top picture looks striaght out of a scary movie.
No, they didn’t quite look like that
They started out as what were to me fairly uninspiring shots that normally I would have just binned, though I might have been tempted to keep the trees one as is had I not already uploaded to Flickr a different and (imo) preferable version of the same scene. I’ve now included the originals (straight out of the camera with no processing) for you to compare.
But I tinkered with them both in Lightroom (mainly saturation and tone curves) to try to pull something a bit more interesting out of them… just to see if I could sorta thing.
The one of the building has a rather cinematic quality to it. Like from a movie made in the 1960′s or early 1970′s.
Ooh… its just clicked… Hammer House of Horror type film!?
You got it.
You made this post even more interesting by adding the ‘Before’
Amazed at the changes, esp since you say you’ve only altered saturation and tone. Such a marked change in feel.
I wonder if it will feel more real (to the photographer), by using a filter on the lens? I ask this, because I too am very averse to post production alterations except fixing minor things like exposure or color temperature if they’ve gone askew.
Speaking of saturation…have you tried multiple exposure on your dig camera? I plan to play with that this week!
Hey Juicer! How’re you? Good to see you back again. Really enjoyed those “football in the rain” pics of yours. A great sense of “being there”. Hope your camera survived its encounter with the elements ok?
Well, post-processing’s a funny thing. My original aversion to it was something I sort of inherited from the majority of photog-types I mix with and the type of photography we do. Briefly its photojourno type stuff that has its own “ethics” (for want of a better word) that, amongst other things, covers what’s acceptable in terms of photo manipulation.
So it became ingrained for me to adhere as closely as possible to the “straight out of the camera” approach.
However, as I’ve gradually become more… er… “adventurous” with my pic-taking, and whilst not moving away from the photojourno type stuff but extending my repertoire sorta thing, so I’m beginning to enjoy a greater freedom in exploring the whole range of effects that can be achieved. And, I have to say, I’m finding it quite fun. Well, for the time being at least.
Multi-exposures eh? Hmm. Not really tinkered with it although in the early days with my original point’n'shoot I tried it a few times. In the sense, that is, of bracketed shots to get different exposures of the same scene.
Is that what you’re after doing? Or going the whole hog and trying your hand at HDR?
A bit more on photo manipulation, and filters.
I’ve not really used any filters apart from UV/Skylight (and that’s to protect the lens rather than for an effect), and a polarising filter. The latter is a strange and quite exciting gizmo: it seems (when adjusted by the right amount) to give a richness and vividness to pics, somewhat akin to over-saturation yet, to my eye at least, looking more natural. Works best on sunny days.
Sunny days of course are where a polarising filter really comes into its own for, aside from whatever impact it may have on colours, its an absolute whizz at reducing reducing (or even eliminating entirely) reflection and glare from metal, water, glass etc (excellent for shooting stuff in shop windows!).
Not having used any other type of filter I can’t really speak of their effects or how the photographer would feel about such pics, but I’m guessing they still wouldn’t provide the subtleties of change that can be achieved through post-pro via software.
And certainly I don’t feel that any heavily processed pic is less real (unless its truly extreme of course!)… just different. Bringing out different features and generating a different atmosphere to the pic.
Oh yeah..my camera survived, I think. I hope the damage does not show up later! Phew.
Thanks for taking the time to explain- you are so right. A journalistic training, or an eye would definitely deter one from tinkering with anything at all. I tend to fall in that category I think. Even when I am taking pretty pictures (smile), I just cannot bring myself to play post clicking much.
But yes, I do love viewing others work, a created mood, or a story, as they wish to tell.
Multiexposure- yeah…I was referring to bracketed shots, not HDR.
Filters- me too! Haven’t tried anything except the UV filter for protection. But read quite a bit about those, and raring to experiment. Polarized, on top of my list now.
What’s up your sleeve next Mike?:)
Back to the bracketed shots business. As said, the only thing I really used it for was to get a spread of different exposures but I don’t even do that now. What I tend to do nowadays is take the shot then check for blown highlights or underexposure on the LCD and if it doesn’t look right then I’ll take it again. About the only thing I’ve found the LCD useful for in fact!
As for what’s up my sleeve next, well, giving my mate a good thumping for dragging me over a load of muddy fields seems quite attractive at the mo’.
Oh… and polarising filters are fun