It’s the picture

24 Aug 2011 2 Comments

by montanaphotographyworkshops in Photo Talk — Events and discussion topics, Photography Tips

 

The first edit of a shoot occurs when the photographer chooses to press the shutter. As photographers, it pays to be a liberal editor at this point. If this might possibly be any type of a good picture, then we prudently press the button. It’s the next steps when our editing process tends to break down.

A very common mistake is to confuse effort with results. Early in my career, I stepped off of a bus, pointed my camera where I was told, focused and held my finger down on my motor drive while a huge mass of earth was dynamited away to reveal a coal seam in Wyoming. People raved about the picture, but I pooh-poohed them away because all I did was focus and expose correctly. It couldn’t be great, I reasoned, because I didn’t work hard enough.

I’ve also gone to ridiculous lengths to get a picture — complicated lighting, strange point of view, lots of travel time, you can fill in the rest. And when I got back and looked at the picture I reasoned it had to be great because it was so damn hard to make.

Both times, I was dead wrong. It’s the picture.

Say that with me, “It’s the picture.”

It’s not the camera, it’s not the lens, it’s not the computer, it’s not the effort.

It’s the picture.

Spending 20+ years as a journalist has forced me to become a better editor. I’ve shot hundreds of thousands, millions maybe, of images and I’ve edited them and had them edited by others. And it was when my chief photographer at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle — whose work I had a great deal of admiration for and do still to this day — edited my pictures that I learned the most. He would look at the few pictures I had edited from my take and toned up and he would ask, “Where are the good ones?” Then we would both look at all of the pictures and he would find one I had passed by. He would crop it and tone it and suddenly I too saw that was the one. It was enlightening for me and to this day, I hear his voice in my head when I edit.

What does all of this mean to those of  you out on a photo island all by yourself with no one to edit your pictures? Find someone. Get together with colleagues from time to time and show work, but be honest with one another and tell each other what’s not working in addition to what is. Show your work to someone who isn’t a photographer and don’t tell them it’s your work. Be prepared, that could be painful. But no pain….

Or call us. We’ll not only tell you what is and isn’t working, we’ll help you get better faster because chances are, we’ve made the same mistakes.

— Thomas.

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