Monday, November 9, 2015

A LATE HYDRANGEA


 Experiments in Editing 

I've never been one to edit any of my photos, save for a judicious crop here and there. My rationale is that I want my photos to speak for themselves as a moment captured in time. While lighting is critical along with composition, some of what I consider my best photos are a result of "happy accidents"--that is, being at the right place, at the right time to take advantage of the light and the subject matter in front of me.

These photos are some of my first experiments using the editing tools on Picasa. While I am pleased with the results so far, I must admit I still feel like I am "cheating" by altering what the lens originally captured. Yet, I'm determined to keep experimenting and posting my results on this blog. Please feel free to comment--good or bad--as that's the only way for me to learn.

 The original photo

 Use of color tools and border

Black and white

3 comments:

  1. Sometimes the camera doesn't do justice to the object of the photo, so we need to do some 'adjustments'.

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    1. Thanks for your feedback! This is something I am really struggling with. Yes, I crop to get rid of distractions and focus on my subject. And I sometimes re-align my image to make it straight when I wasn't. And I do lighten an underexposed photo from time to time when I've not done my job And of course, when I change a photo to B&W, I enhance the contrast. I am playing with color filters in B&W, but need to learn more. But I do have a hard time altering my color photos. What it all boils down to is when does a photograph become more than a photograph? That is, when does a photograph morph into a piece of art that can be touched up, tweeked, or outright changed? It's these questions that have me thinking.

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  2. The original really stands out to me. I've never really been one to edit my shots.

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I enjoy reading your feedback, so feel free to leave a comment.