June 21, 2007

• Before & After

  For whatever reason, I just lost my entire entry when I was trying to tag it.  Now I have to rewrite everything…this totally sucks!  I hope I remember what I wrote…ugh!

  Okay, so my before and after photos.  In an earlier entry, I talked about how I view editing programs like Lightroom and Photoshop differently because I now see them as modern day darkroom.  In this entry, I want to go a little further discussing why I grew fond of editing lately.

  So, when I first started photography, I started with film and I fell in love with color photography.  I know most people fall in love with b/w photography when they take their first photo class, but not me.  I couldn’t wait to take my first color photography because I love all the vibrant colors, the contrast not just between the tonality, but between colors.  It makes you feel alive!

  What most people don’t know about color photography is that when you print color, the dark room is literally a dark room.  There’s no little red light that helps you sort of see what’s going on.  It is literally pitch black!  You can’t even see your fingers if you held it up to your nose.  So you have to set everything up first, memorize where everything is, turn off the light, feel your way around, put the paper in the easel, turn on the enlarger to expose the film onto the paper, then put the paper in a black bag, walk that to another pitch black room, feed it through a machine that develops it.  It’s quite a long process to do in complete darkness I’d say.

  Although I loved color photography, I hated the printing of it.  I hated it so much because I’m scared of the dark!  I used to pray whenever I’m printing.  All these scenes from the horror movies used to pop up in my head when I’m printing.  So I would hurry up and do everything just so I can get out of the dark room.  That usually meant I’d forget to do a thing or do or turn on the light too fast, which exposed my paper.  So I would have to redo everything!  Sucked!  What was even more scary was I used to stay in the photo lab printing all by myself til 4am!  Okay, you know how the art departments on most college campus always get jacked?  We’re always on the very corner of the campus in a little annex, not even a building, just an annex with no bathroom.  So if you want to go to the bathroom, you would have to go to another building.  Either that, or you’re in the basement.  So yeah, that was the case for me.  I would be printing in a dark basement of the humanity arts building (we had to share it with socialogy, they got the top floors…ugh).  The dark rooms were located on the sides of this tiny little hallway with one flickering light.  Key work, flickering.  Does that not sound like a perfect scene for a horror movie?!  Yes, freakin’ scary!  A lot of times, I’d be in there printing all by myself until early in the morning, oh I hated those days.  Mind you, that basement was a dead end.  There’s only one way out and in.  So I was always worried what if some psycho killer came down to the basement and cornered me?  Anyway, good thing that never happened.

  So when I finally got my digital camera and learned how to post edit.  I was the happiest girl on earth!  I can do all the color photography I want and never have to be in the dark again!  Oh the joy of day light!

  I’ve been pretty experimental with my editing lately.  I’m really discovering the joy of editing.  As I mature in my editing, I grew more thankful that I started my art journey with painting/drawing/sketching.  Ever since I got into photography, I’ve always wondered why God started me with painting for years and years of my life (over 10 years, took all the Saturday High classes at Art Center in HS, had private lessons on how to draw…etc.)  When I was doing film, I had a harder time incorporating my talent in drawing into photography, but now with digital and PS, I have all the freedom to do what I want with my image.

  Now it’s all about my vision for the photo.  If I feel like adding a texture/design/tint/grain to a photo would create a more surreal, dreamy, of a different time look.  Then I don’t care how heavily that photo is manipulated, I’m gonna do it because that’s EXACTLY how I want my final image to look like anyway.  Sometimes I would take a photo with a final vision in mind already, or sometimes I would sit in front of my computer screen for a while and think about how I would want to perfect it.  It’s a long, creative, challenging process and I love it!  I spend a lot of time editing because that’s where the other 50% of my photography comes from!  That’s where I execute the other part of my artistic vision for a particular photo.  So now I’m extremely thankful that I had my earlier trainings in painting/drawing/design.  With the freedom of PS, I’ve really been able to put the best of 2 worlds together to create the image I want to create.  It’s so much fun!  I love the creative process of that.

  I don’t see how anyone won’t embrace post editing.  Why?  Back in the film days, you can choose different types of film and paper to create a certain look and feel to your photo.  You can also manipulate contrast by adding filters when printing.  Or dodge and burn to correct highlight and shadows.  I once went to an Ansel Adams’ exhibition.  There they displayed two prints from the same negative that Ansel Adam had printed.  One was much more dramatic because he added more contrast to the print, the other much more calm, like a tranquille forest.  So even though it’s from the same negative, he made them look like two completely different shots by manipulating in the dark room.  So if a master like Adams did it, why not do it with PS now?

  Another advantage that PS gives you is creating an aged look instantly instead of waiting 50 years for the photos to age.  lol, I love that part about PS.  I love the vintage look for certain photos because it really creates that moment in time feel.  There’s no way to get that with digital now unless you post process right?  I mean, seriously it doesn’t get any better than this!  You can now save 50 years of your life and get the same vintage look!  How great is that?!  Hahaha.

  Alright, I think I’m gonna stop here.  You get the point.  As you can see from my above before and after slide show.  I heavily edited some of them, some very lightly.  But even with the minor changes and touch up, it makes a world of difference to a photo.  Hope you have enjoyed my show and my little speech about post processing.  I will step off my soap box now. 

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