When Less is More - Photo Editing

Photo editing can be challenging.

Any software you use will display several sliders, numbers, colors, and terms you may not completely understand. Removing chromatic aberration and calibrating your primary colors is helpful and all, but at the end of the day, if you are unaware of the importance of such things you'd be spinning your wheels trying to re-create what you saw when you took the picture.

I personally use Adobe Lightroom for all my photo processing. At first glance, the "auto" button is extremely appealing. One click and all the engineering genius of Adobe takes what is a relatively flat image and makes it instantly brighter and more colorful. You'll see the sliders adjusted almost in every field and the combination of these makes your photos better. Or so it would seem.

There are many schools of thought on the topic of editing and processing photos. Frankly, I don't believe any are right or wrong. Photography is an art. We all have our styles, preferences, and personal beliefs. I'm not here to play up one and trash another. More so, my intent in writing is to show where I've grown in my thinking and development of this craft.

Boy, has it changed.

How I edit photos today is extremely different from 6 months ago, and even more so a few years ago. I'd watch a YouTuber show off their way of using Lightroom and immediately adopt those practices to see how they impacted my photos. Some with success, others just leaving my photos looking strange. I had my process dialed in, then I'd watch another YouTuber edit photos and everything would be turned on its head.

It took years, but I began to understand two crucial elements to editing photos; The limitations of the camera and the possibilities of Lightroom. Taking a photo with a DSLR, while amazing, does have its limitations. You can only take one exposure at a time (kind of), you can only focus one one item at a time (kind of), you can't go below a certain shutter speed without a tripod, and at some point, it's simply too dark without another form of light for added assistance. Meanwhile, Lightroom has the capabilities to bring out an impressive amount of light from the shadows, draw out colors you didn't know were there, and even remove items you never wanted in your shot.

With these things in mind, it is easy to return to the field and take shots that are under exposed, knowing that Lightroom will bring out the darker areas. Maybe you are more willing to have something in your shot that doesn't belong, knowing you'll just remove it digitally afterwards. And a personal pet peeve of mine, maybe you take an image that simply isn't straight, since the crop tool is your best friend.

All of a sudden I've become more reliant on the editing side to make a good photo. I have the bare bones of what I want in the initial shot. I know enough about the composition, the camera functions, and the lighting to capture the information. However, I've watched enough tutorials to know how to fix everything later.

I've become too dependent on technology.

I've begun realizing that I am less aware of the basics of shooting in the moment and more aware of all the shortcuts I can take afterwards. While it is important to know what is salvageable and where your limitations lie, it should never take away from the process of capturing your image.

Reflecting what I saw.

My goal in most photos I take is to accurately reflect what I saw and felt in that moment. This can mean a lot of things and has room to be more expressive than it appears. An example would be the image above. I clearly didn't see this image in black and white. What I saw was competing textures, monochromatic colors, and a tiny moth. I didn't see something stereotypically beautiful.

However, the expressive side of this is reflecting what I felt while taking the photo. Frankly, what I felt in this moment was fear and discomfort. I was starting to have a panic attack while out on a hike and was lost as to how to respond. This was a welcome distraction. A distraction that helped in calming my nerves.

I saw a tree and a tiny moth. I felt hopeless and sad. Thus, it is a reflection of my experience.

But this photo didn't happen in Lightroom. This wasn't created on my PC in my living room. This photo had to be dialed in, exposed for, composed, and shot in the way I wanted while in that moment. Sure, I changed it from color to black and white. Sure, I adjusted some sliders on Lightroom to bring out certain textures. But that was merely to draw out of the image what I wanted to display. The creation of this photo was on my hike, not through technology.

Create your image in the field, adjust your image with technology.

The order of this is where I went wrong. Learning to slow down and see the image I'd like to capture first is paramount. Nothing is more frustrating than to take 50+ shots of a certain landscape, only to see them on your PC and think, "Man, I wish I was standing 2 feet to the left and slowed down my shutter speed."

Reflecting reality.

There is an exposure topic that most photographers get up in arms about. That topic is "clipping." Clipping is when the shot is over exposed making the whites just straight white or an area is under exposed, making blacks, you know, black. I've heard many YouTubers warn against this. For years I tried to even out my photos in their lights and darks to eliminate any and all clipping. However, this picture above has clipping on both ends. Oops.

When you take a picture of a gigantic ball of inflamed gases otherwise known as the sun, you can expect to experience some clipping. Simply put, it's too bright. By exposing for this cosmic wonder, everything else will likely be too dark. So what do you do? I've allowed for my image to reflect what my eye saw.

In taking this shot, my retinas were likely damaged and I was unable to see for several minutes afterwards. The sun was over-exposed in my actual visibility. So in order for others around me to experience what I saw, leaving the sun as bright as possible was intentional. Aside from putting a 5000 lumen spot light behind every print, this is the best way I can showcase this scene in its truest form.

Creative licensing allows me to make adjustments to my photos. However, the goal never changes. My goal is that my images reflect what I saw and felt in that moment. My focus has shifted to composing the shot in the field to communicate what I'm seeing and feeling versus snapping hundreds of shots and relying on Lightroom to re-create it. When I bring that image back to my PC, my hope is I only make minor adjustments.

It's a minor shift is thinking but has created a world of difference in how I shoot. I'm looking for that piece, scene, subject, lighting, and then taking time to capture it exactly how I want. That doesn't mean I only shoot it one way. If you've ever watched me take photos, it more mimics a 3 year old after downing a Red Bull. Capturing the same scene in several different ways is ideal and allows me to be picky with what I bring home.

Moral of the story. I've learned to rely on technology less and focus on creating the image more in the field. I've also learned that staring directly into the sun is bad for your eyes. Don't be me.