Neil February 2nd, 2008

Tanya’s thank you card design:

When Tanya ask me for ideas for her thank-you card I recalled the sign welcoming her guests to her reception tent shown in unaltered form below and above cleverly pixel pushed to show a “Thank You” where it used to say welcome (and the pole disappeared).

I believe that the long-term value in my photographic services resides in their documentary strength. To expand that thought I believe that the images you will cherish in 12-13 years when your daughter finds your wedding album will be the gestures of love and tenderness your family extend, and the details captured at your event from every angle with those acts as the centerpiece of the stage. It’s somewhat funny, and somewhat depressing, but I often ask clients what their favorite image is from their wedding and it always surprises me! Every wedding I’m proud of a few images for artistic reasons, documentary reasons, and unintelligible reasons. But after a few years of entering contests, and winning, I quit entering for these last two years because I felt ’shooting for the contest’ was warping my approach, and could take me too far away from the images my clients hold most dear.

Out of this breakdown, came the new business and redoubled approach that I needed to re-build our business into “Make Love Real”. The pictures my clients love most are the simplest ones, the truthful ones. So is PhotoShopping an image truthful?

The above image graces the other side of the thank-you postcard who’s front was the sign altered by photoshop (above). Did you also notice how the light was enhanced in the photoshopped image? The light in this image makes a romantic flip side for this version of Tanya’s thank-you card. Her real favorite photo is described in this other post. But without Photoshop I wouldn’t have the control needed to make a delicately balanced photo like the one above.

What’s your take on Photoshop? …ask a bride considering hiring us…

Well, this is a convoluted topic. I’d be glad to discourse some art history and theory with you if that’s your style, but here don’t want to get too long winded. I already have ‘award winning‘ work that utilizes photoshop so I do understand what can be done, it just a question of if you want it done. My painting professor really wanted me to focus on paining, and keep me from graduating a photographer, but I was determined to make a living from my skills - ha, ha. In that core skill set that is an artist’s I think you’ll find that the ‘toning’ (which is a term used in newspaper photojournalism to describe the expressive alteration of tonal scale without rearanging pixels) in our work is extremely well developed to a consistent high quality throughout the entire wedding’s set of images. Most of the work we do afterward is to get at what is already there. To depart from toning and re-arrange the pixels of an image can have positive or negative effects - we’ll talk about momentarily. But most of the photoshop that we do does not change the visual accuracy of an image, only enhances the perception of color and tone.

What a difference a year will make!

Here is an image I posted in September of 06 from an Adirondak wedding’s preview website.

This is what the image looked like with my photo shop skill level that year. Can you see the clouds in the sky? Below is what the image looks like without any editing or color correction - straight out of the camera.

I would call this image, ‘machine perception’ and I would call the following image, processed after another year of detailed color theory study and advances in the software we use to handle images ‘artist’s perception’.

Neither one nor the other is more accurate, however the last image is clearer to see and I feel enhances the viewers experience of the photo. So I use photoshop to get at what is already there in the most expressive way possible. The best way to look at my work is the finished album, or the wall presentation. Sometimes the wall image can go fine art in a painterly way, sometimes the album should be left completely documentary. A single over edited image can ruin the flow and design of an album, whereas an expressively printed wall piece can significantly enhance the meaning in your wedding photography. Thus, I offer two packages for the two preferences.But in a very general sense, I feel the particular pendulum that herds the art world over the arc of art history is pushing photographers into photoshop. I think this is a bad thing unless it’s properly understood and thus this article for you to digest. I think I have come to believe that style is a crutch, a construct for the purpose of selling. And some photographers use photoshop solely to achieve a style. The general purpose photography has assumed in our lives and art history is telling, the general purpose of painting has assumed as a response is asking. Some photographers bring the ‘art’ of painting (asking) into their images, and use photoshop to help make the question obvious. I enjoy creating this work as well from a wedding but I document first, and manipulate second.This little passage from Tao 38 sums it up for me:

“Those highest in TE take no actionAnd don’t need to act.Those lowest in TE take actionAnd do need to act.”

So for my clients that I feel want a little enhancement, I do whatever is best…..I get a giant natural fog machine to fill a 400ft gorge with clouds, then just put my clients in front of it for a nice shot. Neither one is harder than the other! Photoshop helps me control the myriad of variables that connect to form an expressive picture. Other times, I’m working on a tight time line in Grant’s park and I pull elements from the surroundings into the picture in a painterly way to create a nice wall piece.

Some photographers push their work for artistic reasons and enter contests for manipulated images, and othes rally against the need at all.

I’d be glad to sell you a custom painted photograph as a compromise (-;