I came back to this image of Lou this morning after having posted one version yesterday. I didn't like the automatic colorization of the background in the last image so I selected my subject, Lou, made a duplicate layer with a layer mask, selected the background layer and reduced the color saturation of the background. By eliminating most of the color in the background I think the background is less distracting, and without the color contrasts it also looks smoother. The smoothness of the background accentuates the foreground/subject detail without requiring an increase in subject contrast or sharpening.
Once I got the image in the ballpark, for me, I also pulled out some of the saturation from the foreground subject/Lou.
There is sometimes a misconception here that I operate the blog as an art gallery. A place where I show final images to an audience that is here to ruminate together solely about images. It's not. It's really a place where I discuss the nuts and bolts of making photographs and, by showing the progression of post production on an image, I also talk about how perceptions of style change and morph either when my tools change or my tastes change. My idea for the blog, from the very beginning, is that the thoughts and the descriptions about how I work and what I'm trying to accomplish; the words, are more important than the photographs. The photographs exist here because I like them but also because they are examples that reflect what's covered in the written ideas.
A reader of another blog took a stab at VSL today/this morning by implying, in comments appended to another off topic post about tennis, that the bulk of what I show here is photographs of mannequins in store windows. I wondered if this was statistically true so I went back and checked at my VSL Google Photo Archive that's filled to the brim with images I've posted over the course of the blog's life; since, actually, 2008.
Turns out that I've posted nearly 20,000 photographs over the course of writing the blog. Of those fewer than 100 have mannequins showcased in them. You can do the math. 20,000 images means you have a lot to choose from besides fun photos of mannequins. Some are work photos, some are from hundreds of live theater shoots, many are portraits done for both myself and my clients, while some are personal images. Travel photos. And yes, some are of mannequins.
Traditional photographic blogs are few and far between these days. I'm still trying to deliver meaningful content about the real working life (and hobbyist pursuits) of a commercial photographer working in Austin, Texas. Not London or New York City but certainly not the sticks either. We still discuss which cameras and why. I post images to show concepts and sometimes, as in the image above, just because I like the way the photograph looks to me. I'd hate for the VSL blog to decline into a review site for bidets and a showcase for bowling.
Yes, you have seen this image in one form or another 9 times over the course of the blog's life. In each showing there were either small or large changes to the image, or both. My work has nothing to do with hewing to straight documentation. The work here is rarely, rarely journalism. Rather it's constructed unreality made to please me or you or clients. Or all three.
Today's iteration is a case in point. I made a few subtle changes in addition to the colorization and subsequent toning down of the background. I also removed a small skin tag from Lou's right/lower eyelid. It may change the feel of the image for some and maybe not for others but it caught my attention this morning and I used Photoshop to remove it. Were I a strict journalist and if this image was to be presented as "fact" I would not have done so. But it's not. So I did.
My firm belief, once again reinforced by quotes from the Avedon bio book I discussed earlier in the week, is that progress in the quality of both seeing and of also hitting technical targets comes from constant practice. Constant photographing and by extension the frequent revisiting and modifying of the results of one's work. Everything is a work in progress. Everything.
If you ask a swim coach how to get better the short answer is: time in the water. But the long answer should be: time in the water + the constant practice of correct form (technique). It's one thing to get wet every day but quite another to concentrate on continuing to improve a mindfulness toward, and practice of, your best form. Why bother to practice bad form?
I'll slow down on posting next week because I will be engaged then as a working, professional photographer. We start in earnest on Tuesday. Over the course of the three days of photography I'll have the opportunity to have a constant feedback loop of images going right in front of my eyes. I'll photograph, assess, improve, photograph, assess and so on. And I'll write about it after I get back...
One would think that having done hundreds of similar projects over the years that there's nothing more to learn. But that's a dangerous way to think about a discipline that's always been a moving target. The exercise of photographing hundreds or thousands of photographs in a week is just one more layer of experience in the bank. And it gets mixed with previous understandings about work.
The post production I'll do on the new images from the event will incorporate new capabilities delivered in the past year. Things like A.I. Denoise, new presets, improved firmware in cameras and lenses, new selection tools in post. Everything informs everything else ---- if you let it.
If you walk into a project cold you have to cover all your potential bases. Be ready for an unknown mix. But if you come back to a project having done the same event structure for the same client before you get to fine tune more. You look to refine the project this time around instead of inventing it from the ground up.
Seems like fun to me. Like revisiting this older image of Lou. It's a time to overlay new capabilities and to see how it affects your work. Both commercial work and personal work.
Personally, I prefer seeing your photographs of Austin, mannequins and all, to reading about lawn bowling or billiards. Thanks for the interesting, thought provoking posts over these years, including the thinking behind the edits to the picture that accompanies this post. I thought the first version a little bit harsh, though I couldn't really describe why. But the current version is much more pleasing - and understanding how you changed it is a lot better than "yup, here is another pretty picture"
ReplyDeleteKen
Thanks Ken. Appreciated.
ReplyDeletecurious about how processing the image before the auto-color would affect it, I don't use photoshop etc any more so haven't seen this "in action" so to speak, I suppose different LUTS could be placed on after as well, fuji have been running a free shipping promo on prints here, so I've been getting 100 5x7's at a time done for the price break, tried almost all fuji sooc jpeg's last time, some of the film simulations are a bit dissapointing printed but some look really good, one thing about panasonics is that they often look very good printed, maybe I'll try a panny set as well, I had this theory that since fuji made the LUTS the paper and the mini-lab it would all work beautifully together, I think the prints I have from another lab look better, they use fuji machines and paper too, but colour correct each image, maybe even by a human, and I think print straight from the TIFF file wheras fuji convert everything to a jpeg, it's the horizon mini labs, I think they do some auto correction, I printed two images from the same sequence, shot a few seconds apart and one is much darker than the other. the prints do look pretty good, don't get me wrong
ReplyDeleteYou're being too defensive; nobody cares about that stuff, when it goes in either direction.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I just went back and forth between the two versions of the portrait about twenty times, trying to figure out which one I liked the best. It's mostly a matter of personal taste, of course, but if I were doing it (if I knew how to do it) I might have landed somewhere in the middle. I like the subtle touch of modeling on the right side of her face in the first version (our right side, not hers.) I do agree that the color in the first one is a bit distracting, but it does chime with her colors, so that makes it a difficult call. If I had to put words to it, always dangerous with photographs, I'd say the first one is romantic, the second dramatic, both of them are good.
I have long held a belief that if someone came up with a cure for cancer, there would be somebody complaining about it and insisting the inventor came up short. Clearly, Kirk, most of us here “get” what you’re doing. Otherwise we wouldn’t come back. Who cares about comments from the peanut gallery by those who don’t? Besides, at least you’re not wringing your hands, whining about how mean the world is to you and demonstrating how resistant you are to change.
ReplyDelete"The dogs bark but the caravan passes". (Arab Proverb)
ReplyDeleteWas he inferring or implying?
ReplyDeleteLate to the post here, but just wanted to say.... I very much appreciate hearing about and seeing your process. I've learned things I incorporate into my own practice.
ReplyDeleteI revisit old work all the time. As the old saying goes, you can never step in the same river twice - it has changed, and so have you. When I look at old work, I have changed since I made it, and often I bring those changes to a new interpretation. Doing this is useful as time in the water, as you say.
Thank you, as always.