'Filters" and Presets

I was on Facebook this morning and came across an app that was advertising “filters” to create an old film style look to your images. I’m not going to name the app because it doesn’t matter for my purpose. I clicked to learn more and discovered it was an app for your phone that simply applied filters from what I could see. I don’t use the camera on my phone so I didn’t look much further but it got me thinking.

I’ve commented on this sort of thing before. In today’s world many people want instant gratification with everything in general, but also in their photography. They want everything to be easy, they don’t appreciate working for something special. Take a picture, apply a filter and done!

Maybe I”m a dinosaur but I enjoy the act of editing my photographs, I find it a relaxing process and in the end I have achieved something that I can be proud of. As a lightroom user, I recognize that it can create that very same look and many more according to your tastes and styles. Once you create that look, you can easily save those settings as a preset and from that point on, you have a one click “filter” and you never had to purchase any further app to do it.

I always encourage people to explore and learn to draw your own vision out of your work. Don’t just click a button and call it done. Learn what you like and how to get there, you will be far more proud of your photographs.

Paring it down

Our new gear recently is aiming at a couple of different issues that, in my opinion hinder more than help. For one, in the past I had a nasty lens habit. I thought I needed every focal length. I have since learned that we don’t need them all, that really only complicates things while adding significant weight to my kit. I actually carried lenses with me that I almost never used!

Of the photographers I’ve met who were particularly creative in their work, I have noticed that not many of them seem to concern themselves much with gear. They can’t often tell you much about the specs of their camera, it just doesn’t matter to them. They are busy immersed in what they like to do, create beautiful art. Today, any camera made in the last ten years or so will have the features that most of us use. The brand or model of a camera body doesn’t matter, they’re mostly the same anyway, just a tool after all.

I’ve limited myself with three lenses and I think I can hold myself to that. I have one lens that does 90% of my shooting, then a wide one and a long one for those other 10%. That’s as technical as I wish to be at this point, I’m trying to push my creativity to new places now. The “perfect” technical image is just too rare so express yourself with imperfect but beautiful. :)

A Recent Outing

I participated in a club outing this past weekend. The light was terrible, middle of the day and hazy due to the smoke from out west. I went more to be social than to get any earth shattering photos. This is my favourite from the day. I did like the location and will return at another time to explore further.

Freedom in Art

I used to think of myself as a landscape photographer. As such, you would hold yourself to a standard of capturing a scene in front of you and using only fairly minimal post production. Getting it right in the camera was a mantra you lived by. You would never entertain the idea of swapping out a sky for instance, you worked with the conditions you were presented with. If you showed up to a location and the weather was not what you had envisioned, you would often leave and come back another time if possible.

A photographer I follow named Mark Littlejohn once described himself by saying, “I’m not a faithful servant of the truth”. He actually was speaking of his tendency to split tone his images and often deviated from the true colour palette in the process. What is actually holding us to “reality”? I began thinking years ago that when we go to places where iconic shots exist, we grab them just like we used to and very little of what we do is truly original. When I”m traveling and I find myself near one of those iconic places, you know I still shoot it like we all do but afterward it kind of leaves my feeling unfulfilled.

Lately, I have been working on freeing myself of some of those rules and allowing myself more freedom to mess with some stuff in the name of art. I no longer shy away from the editing that I used to. I might change skies now or use texture overlays to create a more original piece. If you think about it, Fine Art itself falls within this world. It is work that exists solely for it’s aesthetics and is often heavily edited to what you see. Total freedom and creativity at it’s finest. That’s what I am working toward now.

My New Camera

Well, I’ve been using my Lumix micro four thirds camera for a few months now, the experience has been for the most part positive. That said, I have had a couple of things that haven’t been perfect either. The Constant Exposure setting doesn’t work well. When you turn it on, it then lags extremely badly on the screen and when you try to set exposure in low light it acts glitchy and jumps around. You cannot shoot night work with it on for instance. The other thing that isn’t ideal is that if you want to turn on the histogram while you shoot it isn’t responsive enough to use for reference.

I never shot in live view on my DSLRs so I never had these functions available to me anyway so I’m not loosing sleep over it anyway. The overall experience is good so that’s the point, right?