Defining Photography

Edited on 3/13/2009 at 8:55pm

I love taking photographs of just about anything. I'll take pictures of stray clouds wafting by, an old barn in a field, an animal doing something interesting (or not), people doing interesting things(or, again, not doing interesting things), etc. I enjoy taking lots of shots of bolts and nails and ordinary things, but I also enjoy taking shots of things you just don't see everyday. Sometimes a picture I took starts off as ordinary, and then transforms into the extraordinary by the time it gets uploaded.

But what about after the picture has been taken? Is that all there is to photography? Some would say that all we should do is take the picture - and do nothing more - no post-processing, no nothing - to do so is to alter - to violate - the original image. Somehow the post-processed image is less than the original. Others, however, post-process like crazy - rendering some truly mind-blowing scenes, while others try to aim for what their own eye thought it saw.

I suppose I'm planted firmly in the latter camp. Rarely does a photo make it online or in my portfolio without some sort of work. Occasionally an image is perfect out of the camera, but when it isn't - or, when I want to evoke a mood or emotion, then I resort to post-processing.

Bench with a View

Some of the post-processing work I do on a photograph is similar to what one would have done in a darkroom - adjusting, tweaking, etc., to get the result as close to the way my eyes saw a scene. For example, the blue out of the camera may not be quite blue enough, or the contrast may be off, etc. These kinds of tweaks are really just that - they do not alter the result in any significant way, except to render it as I, the photographer, saw it.

Distant Clouds

However, another type of post-processing I do is to significantly alter the image from reality. This might entail converting from color to black and white, significantly altering color balances and hues, removing items that may have actually been in the image (but were distracting), and, in extreme circumstances, totally creating a new image from the photograph that is barely comparable to the original. For example, the image above has been heavily post-processed. In reality the sky this day was bright blue, and the clouds soft and puffy - nothing as austere and contrasted as this image displays.

The first method I simply call "reality post-processing". It's just getting something to look as I remembered it. The second, though, I call "art". Photography records a moment in time, yes - but an artist can take that moment in time and further work it to create something new. Both are valid approaches to creating interesting images, in my opinion, and neither violates the original photograph.

Looking At You ("Reality Post-Processed")

Stones in a Field ("Art")

Perhaps I am, to some extent, wrong in this - perhaps I should call myself an artist instead of a photographer, but truth is - I am both - and sometimes I wish to render an image as it was, and sometimes I with to render it artistically.

Given that I post images I find interesting, I am not as beholden to a certain standard of post-processing as others - especially those in the photo-journalistic world. In that world one must be as faithful to the original scene as possible, but outside of that world, we are free to express images in any number of ways, both realistically and surrealistically.