Category: editing
A writing adventure
The finished product
It started with a tweet.
Earlier this year, Amaa_Official tweeted some advice to creatives on writing an instructive ebook. Her thread broke down the stages into manageable chunks, from choosing a subject, through writing, to presentation, sale and promotion.
I’ve written books before as part of the NaNoWriMo challenge, but I had never thought of doing something like this, so I set to thinking of a subject to write about. Of all the subjects I considered, I chose photography: an interest I’d pursued for years, in which I had wide experience with cameras, shooting and printing.
On looking through my photos, especially the digital images on my computer, I decided to focus on landscape photography. I thought about subjects to cover and the images needed to illustrate them and set to work, writing the ebook on Apple’s Pages and editing the photos in Adobe Photoshop. While doing this, I uploaded old landscape images of mine on social media, with posts trailing the forthcoming ebook.
A little over 5000 words later, with each of the ten chapters illustrated and formatted, I used Canva to make a cover design, adapting a free cover, which I then reduced in size using a trial of Adobe Acrobat. Once I’d placed it on my product page in Gumroad, I linked to the sales image on my social media.
I hesitate to finish with, “and that was all it took!” The process took months: page formatting was difficult; I agonised over the cover. But on the first day I launched the book, it began to sell.
This has been an extraordinary creative venture and one I’d like to repeat: I’m currently thinking of subjects to write on. Thanks to those who have bought the book so far, Amaa_Official, AlyssaColeLit and all those who tweet advice on ebook writing and promotion. Sharing this book has been a pleasure.
A deep dive
Over the past few years, I’ve learned to use Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom Classic to edit my images. My use has been rudimentary, but has served me well so far, but I wanted to take a deeper dive into these programmes, especially Photoshop, so I’m following some tutorials.
The photographers I really admire have all encouraged photographers to learn about lighting and post-production: I start into the former when I finally acquire my first lighting set up; as to the latter, I need to be using post-production more effectively.
Up until now, I’ve used Photoshop for tweaks such as exposure, white balancing and little else. I have done the odd experiment, normally following a tutorial from Amateur Photographer magazine to the letter, but little on my own. All the while, I have looked at other photographers use post production to manipulate their work into art as well as representation. I’d like to try this.
The tutorials I’m following are a deep dive into post-production. At the moment, I pay for Adobe’s photographer package; this may change in future as I learn more.
Some tutorials have touched upon making a “vintage look” on new photos. I have family photos from decades back that are vintage: they were taken to the best of their photographers ability to represent the event depicted. I feel the same way about the photographs I take now, but I am inclined to use post-production more effectively for interpretation as well as representation.
I dare say that I was reluctant to try any new techniques as I was trying to get my images as “in camera” pure as possible. But I realised that I made choices on how I photographed something on film and once in the dark room, I definitely made choices on how to print it. What I’m doing now is simply the digital version.
I’m three tutorials in so far. Whether I use all I’ve learned is yet to be seen, but it would be a dreadful waste of this resource if I didn’t have some idea of how to use it more fully.
Experimenting
Finally, after collecting articles from photography magazines and websites, I’ve been working through various tips and hints to advance my photography, both in image capture and post-production.
I haven’t quite mastered the Breziner method, but I’ve made some architectural collages that I like:
Twin focus combinations have been fun:
Solarizing has been great fun:
Most recently, I’ve been experimenting with long exposures:
The aim is to apply every technique that interests me in my usual photography. Hopefully I’ll be discovering new types of images in this process.
Technique: SXSW 2014
I use Photoshop often. I use roughly the same tools on every image: levels and curves; but while I can be quite conservative in my use, I have been both learning to use other tools in the Photoshop toolbox and experimenting with my usual techniques.
Editing some old performance images from the South by South-West festival at Austin, Texas in 2014 showed what I’ve learned and how far I need to learn, especially with editing dark images.
The red hues burnt into orange with this shot of East Cameron Folkcore performing at ATX Music.
Arthur Beatrice at Haven had some highlights burning out.
Burnouts continued with my shots of The Preatures that same night: this is one of the less distorted images.
I have the most regrets with Banks: my record of her stunning performance is filled with these pushed and distorted colours.
I had more luck with the highlights at Pure Bathing Culture‘s performance at the Paste Party in Swan Dive.
Although quite a distance away, the impeccably-styled Ski Lodge came across well at the same event.
One image from the Planete Quebec showcase [can anyone help with the band name?] was very much the type of image I wanted to be making.
My shots of Ume at Brazos Hall had a mixture of post-edit distortion and more muted colour.
I loved the look of the singer in White Sea that same night, but I’m gutted about those hot spots on her beautiful dress.
This was more like it! Deborah Harry stood out with Blondie later that evening.
With all these colour blotches and the like, I started experimenting on levels with my London Grammar shots from Hype Hotel. A little tweak with a slider brought out the faces, grain and light beams with a lovely glow.
I loved the light show for No Joy, which had as much distortion as their music. This was the least obscured shot I got of their enigmatic performance.
Like many digital tools, Photoshop is an endless source of versatility. Maybe too much: after all, how many tools can one use? Still, the deeper and wider my editing experience gets, the more adventure I’ll have in making images.
Burning Details 
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