I have taken a bit of break which I realize isn’t really that different from the norm. Coming up with a new blog post each week felt a little over whelming so I decided to Lazy Genius my posts and create somewhat of a schedule. Each week will be a category so you can know what to expect. The first week of the month is a tutorial focused on the technical aspects of photography. The second week will be focused on creative development, the third, a photographer highlight, and the last week will be about the enneagram and how you can utilize it in your creative development. My hope is that by having creative constraints, I will be able to come up with content easier and in turn, be more consistent.
This week is focused on a technical tutorial and in true adhd fashion, I did not plan for it which wouldn’t be a problem except that I am at the beach and don’t have a way to record an editing video! That’s okay because I have plenty of posts where I can show some of my own editing and I believe today is a great introduction. Every photographer approaches his/her craft differently. I am someone who prefers to get everything right in camera. I have taken many workshops that have trained me to do so. Each one has focused on getting the technical aspects the way I want them, in camera. If this is something you’d like to do, I recommend learning about the Exposure Triangle, about how to shoot in Kelvin, understanding strong compositional techniques, and how to utilize creative shooting like freelensing and double exposure.
Once you have learned your camera, and how to create images with it, your next step is to learn how to edit. This is probably the most overwhelming piece of it because there are so many ways to edit and so many applications with which to edit. In the documentary world, editing is minimal, the focus being on enhancing the photo through minimal changes. In the fine art world, editing is the primary way to create your image, editing skin, dodging and burning, composition, etc. Whatever genre you enjoy, knowing the editing process will allow you to develop a distinct style. There is a tremendous amount of pressure for an artist to develop his/her own style and I would say editing is a big component of that. In fact, by learning how to edit, it will help you with shooting simply because you understand why you make certain decisions and you can be intentional about the choices you make. If you’d like to learn more on being intentional in your photography work, I have 3 workshops to recommend:
- The Mindful Approach with Arielle Neubert via Click Photo School
- Visual Rhetoric with Courtney Larson via Click Photo School
- The Untouched Workshop with Ace Fanning via Unraveled Academy
These workshops were integral in my development as a photographer.
Back to editing. Here are some ways that you can learn how to edit your own work.
- Presets: I will confess that I have never been one to use presets. I feel too much like they’re someone else’s work and so it feels weird using them. THAT BEING SAID, they are a wonderful tool in learning how to edit and create a style. When you apply a preset to your work, you can look closely at the panel in Lightroom and see what steps they took to create that preset. Presets are also a great way to speed up your work flow but I would suggest learning why the artist made the choices they made just because you have more control over your work and how you can make it your own. Some important things to review include:
The basic panel: especially pay close attention to contrast, clarity, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks
The HSL Panel: there are 3 sections to this, Hue, Saturation, and Luminance. Most people use all 3 of these, especially when changing the color of greens
The Split Toning Panel: This is an advanced way to color grade photographs
2. Workshops: If you can afford it, I always recommend taking workshops, especially is it’s one where you can get teacher feedback. There are so many workshops on Lightroom, Photoshop, Color Grading, Frequency Separation, Dodging and Burning, etc etc etc. Some workshops I’ve taken are:
Lightroom Fundamentals via Click Photo School
Communication with Color and Light with Caroline Jensen
Unlocking the Magic of Photoshop with Mickie DeVries
Fine Art Editing with Gemma Woud-Binnendjik
Color Grading with Chris Knight
Color Grading with Lindsay Adler
*Lightroom Fundamentals is no longer offered at Click Photo School but Lightroom Bootcamp is and that looks pretty good
**I took Caroline Jensen’s class via Click Photo School but I think she’s doing it through a difference place now
3. YouTube: Figure out what you want to try and find a video on YouTube. For a long time, I wanted to learn about fine art editing and so I just searched fine art editing on YouTube. I found a lot of great videos of people editing their work. It got me started in terms of learning the process of how they create the looks they create and what more specific things I needed to learn like frequency separation.
4. Play: Lightroom is great because it’s simple enough to play around. You can move sliders up and down to see how they affect your image. I recommend going in and spend time with each panel to learn about what each slider does. If one seems confusing, search how to utilize that specific slider. It’s doing things like this where you will learn what you like, what you don’t, and develop your own style.
Editing is complex and takes years to perfect. Even when you think you’ve found the perfect flow, you change things up and being experimenting with other things. It’s part of the fun of photography and you can make it as important as you want it to be.
