Through The Lens: Cobian Sandals Redux

In 2007 and 2008 i did a a couple of shoots for Cobian Sandals, i keep all usable files on my hard drives in case i later see the photo again and get some inspiration and see it differently. Most of the time im working on my nature stuff but recently i have been working on organizing all my files and transferred about 4 terabytes of data from all my external HD's to one 8 terabyte Drobo unit. In the course of doing this i have been revisiting some old files and like the previous post have breathed new life into them. Inevitably the longer i do this the more i learn, and as the years go by new software comes out, new techniques are developed and and trends go in and out. When i 1st did these photos i fell into the whole using photoshop actions and adding textures bandwagon, while i think there is a time and place to use those things i believe that it should be sparingly. Of course with inexperience comes over use of everything, kind of like when you get a fisheye lens. The perspective i so cool and HUGE, you go gaga over the thing, but you find yourself in a dilemma. Instead of looking at a scene creatively and figuring out how to best shoot it you slap the fisheye lens on there and shoot a ton of what turn out to be crappy photos. You rely more on the special effect of the lens instead of growing your creativity and pushing yourself, in the end you become dependent on the lens because you cant see any other way and so all your photos start looking the same. Being a good photographer doesnt mean you shoot everything in front of you or that you can make everything look like gold, a lot of times its knowing when to walk away and not take the shot. Ok back to my thought, yes i was very prone to using things like photoshop actions and textures, something i didnt realize until about a year ago when i started looking at my work and just about died it looked so gross to me. I was looking at other peoples work and the overexposed surreal dreamy look was EVERYWHERE! So thats what i was doing, but in the end i was trying to be creative in a way that is not natural to me. What do i mean? Well im a landscape photographer pure and and simple, my goal always has and always will be to preserve detail as much as possible. Why i ever got into the mode of destroying detail in my portrait work i will not understand, but here we are many years after i 1st shot these photos reaching these conclusions. Knowing me though you will see these pictures again in like 5 years, because lets face it the blessing and curse of art is that theres always a new way to look and do the same thing. Plus i am never happy with anything i do, theres always a better way to do it, truly its never ending............i love this job. Enjoy!

Before: Just way over the top! in the long run the treatment really doesnt add to the photo. it looks dark and grainy, areas of the shirt look blown out and lost are the beautiful golden tones of the sunset.

After: A much cleaner image, theres still detail in the shirt and more depth in the image. there is actually separation between the cliff and the water. Alas the horizon is still crooked.....haha!

Before: This one isnt all that bad actually, it wasnt taken through photoshop. Still, i felt the image looked flat and lacked dimension and when we were shooting everything looked more saturated because of the sunset.

After: This one is much punchier, colors are richer a little bit more detail in her shirt and theres a lot more seperation between foreground and background.

Before: Same thing, looks flat the white shirt is really overexposed colors not as rich.

After: 2nd version im much happier with, one thing does bug me though. i think i brought out to much detail in the waves. seems a little distracting to me.........see im never happy!