Thursday, March 10, 2011

Breathing new life into old files

one of the great things about being a photographer is that you are constantly learning something new, wether its a new technique to shoot, exploring different lenses, different ways to light things or growing in the way you edit your photos it really is never ending. At times it seems like a daunting task but it really can be a lot of fun, lately i have been working on improving my nature photos buy slowing down and paying a lot more attention to light, composition and thinking through what i want out of my photos. Along with improving my shooting techniques i have also been working on my editing techniques as well, this has made me go back to revisit a lot of old files that i look at now and just feel disgusted with what i did to the photos. My portrait work has been my biggest weakness, in an effort to keep up with trends and have my work be up to par with all the other photographers out there i was overusing things like photoshop actions and shifting colors and so on, while i do think that such techniques have their time and place i dont think that they belong on every photo. Its hard to maintain an objective point of view on a photo when youve added tons of filters and have been working on it for more than 10 minutes and when you 1st start out it easy to go to far because the changes from your original to the one with all the filters is so dramatic. I hope that those of you reading this and are photographers dont take this as a slam on your techniques, this really is all just my opinion and for myself i felt i was rallying way to much on photoshop and over editing my work. But i do hope that you will take away from this that no matter how long youve been shooting that the learning process is never ever done and there is always something new to try and to learn. Its an exhausting task at times but dont look at it as a chore, be thankful that you work in a field that never gets old dull and boring. For me right now simplicity is the name of the game, my biggest question to myself now is "how do i make a great image with minimal intrusion from me?" i could go on and on but ill stop and heres some images, some have before and afters others are ones that i had never worked before but all are from the same shoot. I will be posting more examples later. Enjoy!

Before: Sides are way to dark and the color shift is way to drastic and leaves it looking acidic.


After: much happier with this, the image much cleaner. the people are the real subjects not the processing, i like the brightness of the image and while there is a slight color shift its very subtle and isnt distracting



Before: similar to the 1st one, i like the warmth of the image but the softness of it is very distracting to me. i feel like im looking through a tunnel because i darkened the side to much.


after: much much better, simple edits and it took less than 5 minutes



before: tone is to cold and the overall feel of the photo is to dark. im not opposed to a dark feel in a photo but there is a time and place for it.


after: not the same photo but it was close enough that i used it. i like it in black and white it has nice warmth and not pushed to far.


2 comments:

Rodderlove.com said...

Do you think the 2nd round pics are overexposed?

Lorenzo Menendez said...

Nope I think they're fine, perhaps in comparison to the older versions they can look over exposed but other than that no I don't think they're overexposed.