I have been off the blog for a while. My other job has been keeping me busy, but I did get to meet one of my favorite photographers this past week. It is a bit of a long story but I was able to arrange for Tony Sweet to come by and make a presentation to several of the local photography clubs here in the Portland Oregon area (in cooperation with Lensbaby). The first blog image is of Tony and I at the event. I did get to talk to him and bit and learn more about the state of the photography business – that was good.
At his presentation Tony emphasized that professional photography today is at least 50%-60% about having some understanding of the image software available to us and being able to apply it. Tony chooses to use a variety Photoshop plugins because they are powerful and often very easy to use. Ideally we experiment and play with the software tools enough that when we are in the field shooting we can previsualize the image with particular post processing applied.
In keeping with this, I have included an image I previsualized. I ran across this building in Astoria Oregon this past weekend. I knew what I wanted to do with the image when I got home. There were multiple ways to do it, but I choose to take full advantage of Lightroom’s capabilities – reduced clarity, added saturation and a vignette. I think it came out pretty “sweet”.
By the way Tony and Susan are very nice people should you get the chance to meet them or take a class through BetterPhoto.com or one of their many workshops.
