I’m maturing as a photographer
I’ve been taking and editing photos for over 15 years now. A lot has changed for me in that time, and I find that my photography, and my overall approach to shooting and editing, has changed and matured in several ways since then. Here are a few examples:
One of my first business trips that included a camera was back in June 2010. I remember coming home with about 400 photos (mostly bracketed images, because I was mostly shooting HDR at the time) and thinking that 400 was a LOT of photos (even though when you merge the brackets, the actual finished images was way less). I don’t think it’s that many photos any more, but back then it felt like a ton. I was new, and trying to blog every day with a new photo, so I felt like I came home with quite a lot of potential blog content. I was excited about that.
I still shoot a lot of brackets when I am out, especially when I am capturing landscapes. But I do not create HDRs from them nearly as often - maybe only 25% of the time or something. I would rather have the bracketed images just in case I decide I want to create an HDR at some point, or blend exposures. And storage is pretty cheap so I never worry about having to back them up etc.
I used to judge the success of a photo outing based on the volume of images. I didn’t think twice about whether they were good or not - just whether I captured a lot of images. (I know, that’s dumb.) The ratio of keepers to losers was terribly low I’m sure, but I always felt good if I had taken a lot of photos. This goes back to point #1 above, about me wanting to have content for the blog. Now I don’t care if I take a lot, because I want to capture good photos, not just a lot of photos (although admittedly I still take a fair amount of photos when I am out, most of the time).
I also used to fire blindly and quickly whenever I got somewhere. I was so hyper that I didn’t always slow down enough to really think about the composition and framing, etc. I just started shooting. I didn’t study the scene, or examine various angles. I just shot, immediately (and often later realized I needed to adjust settings, like ISO), and moved around and shot more. While I still shoot a lot and move around a fair bit, I’m a bit more measured with it and actually spend time thinking and planning my shots vs just the old “spray and pray” approach. And I focus on composition a lot, although I don’t always get it “right” and have to adjust. Keep learning, right?
Very closely related to the above points is that I tend to be a bit slower nowadays when I am out shooting. I used to get so hyped up that I would try and “see and shoot everything” on a trip, even in a large city like London. I would run around like a ferret on a double espresso. Now I am more content to take it slower and spend time getting good shots, and focusing on a few key locations. I’ve essentially become more intentional. But yes, I still want to see and shoot it all. Some habits die hard, amiright? But I have learned that you can never see and shoot it all. Heck, I’ve got plenty of ideas for shots here in Austin that I still haven’t been out to take.
When I am out shooting, I also spend more time visualizing what I am trying to achieve with the shot. This means I am intentional with my settings to capture the desired effect. This could be related to HDR, long exposures, depth of field, etc.
While I still create some HDR images, it is not my default approach when editing. For the first few years of my photography, that's what I did, nearly 100% of the time. It never crossed my mind that I didn’t need to do that most of the time. It was just a very addictive habit. Luckily, I learned it well from so much practice, which still pays dividends when I go out and shoot today.
Speaking of practice, a big part of HDR is learning how to use various software programs to finish an edit (you couldn’t really do it all in one app back then like you can now). This was a huge contributor to me getting where I am today in terms of photo editing (though I am always looking to learn more - I just love this stuff). I’ve simply put in a lot of editing work over the years, and it’s taught me so much. By trying different products and different techniques, I learned a lot.
Any HDR that I create now is much more reserved in terms of stylizing compared to what I did back in 2009-2012. Sure, there are some images where I push it a bit, but I’ve gotten away from those over-cooked images that we all did back then.
I edit slower and spend much more time thinking about what I am trying to do with the edit. I used to just move sliders until I thought it “looked cool” (which normally meant it was super-saturated), without a lot of regard for what I was actually doing to the image.
I pay WAY more attention to the light when editing. This includes the direction, intensity and how/where it lands on the subject in my photo. This is why I use and talk about masking so much. I am always manipulating the light in my edits.
I actively want shadows in my images. In the old HDR days, I nearly always created a perfectly-exposed scene with an even distribution of light across the entire image, but now I prefer to have some shadow and nice contrast, which feels more realistic and is more pleasing to my eye.
I still love big colors, but I restrain myself more often these days (or at least I try to). I used to create big, over-saturated, punchy HDRs - and sometimes still do, haha - but generally go for a slightly more subdued look with a nice pop of color. It’s always a work in progress, though.
I mask repeatedly on every image. I never used masking back in the old days. I didn’t know how, and I was afraid of it for some reason. But once I learned how, it opened my eyes to a whole new world. It literally changed my processing, and improved it immensely. I never knew what I was missing until I started doing it.
I don’t use the Saturation slider any more. That was my go-to back then but now I know so many more ways to control color, with various tools. Saturation is usually not a good idea, because it increases every color equally, and that rarely looks good. I find an image looks better when just one or two colors pop and the rest are a bit more subdued.
When editing, I think a lot about complementary colors in the image. I try to emphasize that with my edits. In the past, I just pushed Saturation and loved it, with no real understanding or interest in whether the colors were helping each other or competing with each other. I didn’t even know about complementary colors.
That’s all that comes to mind right now. The bottom line is that I spend more time getting it right in the field, and more time controlling the edit in post. I feel like my results are much improved, but honestly I feel I can always do better and learn more. That’s part of what makes photography so interesting to me - there’s always more to learn and new things to try. And I love that about photography - it keeps my creative wheels turning and continually challenges me. It forces me to grow, learn, and develop new skills.
Do any of these old habits sound familiar? What’s been your biggest change over the years?
