If you are like me, and like going out often and taking lots of pictures, you might have hundreds if not thousands of photographs sitting in your memory cards or in a hard drive. In this video, we'll see how we can go from hundreds of images to just a handful of ones, our very best photographs.
lightroom
Working From the Car
I watched with interest the recent presentation of Apple's AR/VR headset, Vision Pro. I was hoping for a use case that wasn't playing games, watching TV, or pretending to be a legless avatar.
While Vision Pro seems to be a device geared towards consumption for the most part, I can see huge potential on the productive side of things as well.
I was very happy to see that the headset can work as a portable, private, and pretty big monitor to a Macbook. As someone who doesn't have a permanent home, much less an office, this can be a big deal for me. Especially when I'm on the road.
During photography road trips, I spend most nights in my car, where space is... well, very limited. I still haven't found a way to work on my computer for long periods of time that is comfortable and doesn't break my back.
An AR/VR headset could solve this problem. I can't wait for the day I can have a 27" virtual monitor (or two, or three) to work on Lightroom and Final Cut Pro in the back of my small SUV.
I'm still a bit skeptical (is the resolution of the headset going to be enough for this use case?), even more considering the price point of this thing, but I'm excited for a future where I could work from anywhere as comfortably as I would in a proper office.
Using Color in Black & White Photography
Black and White photography might lack colors, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use the colors of a scene to improve our images. In this video, I show you some examples of how tweaking with the colors made some of my photographs better.
My annual rant on post processing
This is a topic that keeps coming up. How far can we go with our editing? When does it stop being photography to become "digital art"? Is the digital darkroom different from the analog darkroom?
So many question, and so many different answers.
How I use masking tools in Lightroom to make better images
Editing is a very important step in the creative process. And masking tools are some of the most powerful instruments we have in our toolbox to improve our images and bring our vision to life.
Creative ways to use editing tools
Today, editing software offers us more tools than we'll ever need. Some of them can be used in ways they might have not been intended too, expanding even more the creative possibilities of today's photography.
On post-processing: photography or digital art?
How far can we go with photography? When does it stop being photography and start becoming something else, like digital art?
I discussed this topic in my newsletter a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it'd be interesting to make a video about it.
iPad only for photography and video work, 6 months later
For the last 6 months, I've been using nothing else but an iPad as my only computer to do all my photography and video work. The experience has been great so far, but there are some significant downsides you should be aware of, should you try to do the same.
How I edit my Black and White images in Adobe Lightroom CC
In this video, I edit one of my black and white image as I guide through some of the most important tools I use on a daily basis.
Editing 5 black and white images in Adobe Lightroom CC
A short video of me editing 5 of my most recent images in Adobe Lightroom CC.
How I made "The Night is Dark"
I got quite a few questions about how I made my latest movie, "The Night is Dark". I hope to answer most of those in this post and video.
TL;DR
The short version is: I took a lot of shots and put them together in a video.
This is how I did it.
Read MoreComposition after the shot
I try not to think too much about composition when I shoot: I point the camera at whatever I saw, I move around, and press the button whenever it feels right.
It's when I'm back at home that I can see more clearly if the image works or not. Although rare, there are cases where I'll find an image I had not seen in the field, an image I can still make by "re-composing" the original negative or file.
Most of my images are square, as you know. If I'm shooting digital, that means I have to crop the files to that format. While I'd rather shoot square natively, having that extra room for editing has proven to be very useful.
One example is this image of a couple of swans I took in Lago di Garda, in Northern Italy, a few months ago. It was only when I looked at it on the computer that I saw how it could work with a heavy cropping.
Another example is this image of the Badlands National Park, in South Dakota. I'd taken the original photo almost 2 years ago, but it wasn't until recently that I "saw" the panoramic image in it. It was not my intention when I took it, I wasn't thinking about a panorama, but it works.
These are extreme examples, though. Most of the time, all I do is small adjustments to the composition I did manage to capture in the field. For example, take a look at this image of a tree in the italian Alps, and compare it to the original square crop. I decided to place the tree a little bit further to the left, giving the branch a bit more room to grow to the right of the frame.
There's no shame in creating a completely new image after the shot. As I said many times, photography is not a competition, there is no prize for those who get it right the first time. Legends of photography like Ansel Adams kept playing with old negatives for decades, coming up with new edits and interpretations.
Photography is a creative process, inspiration can hit you at any point in your workflow. Embrace it.
Editing 5 black and white images in Lightroom CC
On Editing
A few months ago, I decided to start calling myself an artist, instead of a photographer. After all, I create art. Or I try to.
Artists aren't trying to represent what I see in an accurate and truthfully way. We try to express ourselves.
Instead of capturing nature with proper exposure and focus so it resembles as much as possible the original, we try to use it to express an idea or emotion, to add our own character.
This approach to photography is less about what's in front of the lens, and more about who's behind it.
In order to make an image able to convey our message from a realistic representation, often times we have no choice but to edit, in software or the darkroom, our negatives, RAW files, whatever it is, so creation can happen.
Many dismiss this as unethical or unnecessary. I say, this is how art is done.
How I select my best images
I take a lot of pictures. A lot. That means I'll have to go through hundreds if not thousands of photographs after a trip, which can be overwhelming and take a lot of time.
I've developed a process over the years that is relatively fast and painless. This is how I select my best images.
How I select my best images
Going through your photographs to select the best ones can be a very daunting task. Even harder if you take a lot of photos (like me).
Over time, I've developed a workflow that makes this process relatively fast and painless. The basic idea is to split the decision making process in a few steps to make it easier and ensure you are selecting only your best images.
I use Lightroom CC to organize my photos, but you could use any other software or even regular folders.
Read MoreSnow, faking film and why there are no rules in photography
Finally got to shoot in the snow this winter! I take you with me on a short trip to the mountains, and then we take one of the images I made there, we edit it and we talk about what we can and can't do with our photos in post.
There are no rules
"Photography is not a sport, there are no rules, everything must be tried and tested" - Bill Brandt
Bill Brandt is one my greatest inspirations. I love his landscapes, portraits and even the nudes (not a big fan of the genre, but the way he did it was just genius).
I think what I like the most about him is his approach to photography. For him, it was all about creating something with the medium, avoiding silly self-imposed rules.
He died in 1983, 5 years before Photoshop was created. That didn't stop him from completely changing his images in the darkroom. Actually, he admittedly did most of his work in the darkroom.
The image of the seagull is a good example. He added the bird afterwards, and the morning Sun years later.
He was brilliant, and we'd be wise to follow his advice to experiment and try everything.
PS: If you want to know more about Bill Brandt, I strongly recommend watching this interview from 1983 for BBC's Master Photographers.
My hard drive broke with 4TB worth of data in it: lessons learned from the disaster
They say you don't know how good your backup system is until something bad happens. Well, that something bad happened to me a few days ago, and I regret some of the decisions I made about my backup strategy.
Don't get me wrong: I didn't lose any data. But the process to recover it is taking much more time and effort than I thought.
Read MoreDownload AOWS B&W Red Filter preset for free
This is the preset I usually apply to my snapshots from documenting my life and the places I go to, images that are meant to be for me and don't require much farther editing.
This preset transforms your RAW files into a gritty and contrasty black and white image. It uses the Red Filter profile from Lightroom to further increase that look.
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