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First of all, I would like to apologise for the long absence from my blog. It's been quite a while since I last updated this blog though I have been visiting a lot of my friends' blogs. Things have been a little bit out of sorts for me lately especially at work. Everything has been worked out though and I'm back to me ol' self again. I haven't been doing much shooting in the last month (bad Alvin!! bad! bad bad Alvin!!!) although I did second shoot a wedding with George Yong a couple of weeks ago and I got my own shooting to complete over the long weekend. What photo-shoot did you say?? I'll just leave some photo clues for you (big grin...)
Excited??
A friend photographer once told me,"I don't want to edit my photos. I want it to be perfect straight out of the camera. I think photo-editing is cheating." Sigh...I respect the opinions of my fellow photographers who agree with the statement above and by no means, I would also like the photos I take to be absolutely perfect straight out of the camera. Who wouldn't?? However, I still do take good photos (well, I'd like to think I do), with good exposures, interesting angles and so on. Yet, I still edit my photos. Why?I've read about many photographers who are really good at what they do. In fact, they are so good that they do not need to edit their photos... that much. The fact is, almost all commercial/lifestyle photography i.e. portraitures, weddings etc. use some measure of photo editing in the completion of their final product. Some use more and some use less, but, the editing is still there. Is it necessary to edit? Maybe not but being creative individuals, artistic photographers would want to spin their own twist to the photos to achieve their vision of the final product. The touch-ups done on the photos are what makes the photos jump out at you, adds that punch, provides impact, directs your attention and sometimes gives you an emotional stir.Here is one true fact about photo-editing in my personal opinion. You MUST begin with good photos even if you are editing them in the end. The reason for this is simple; I don't like to waste too much time doing my photo-editing since I do have a day-job and I could mostly only do my editing after working hours or over the weekend. I try to be as simple as possible when it comes to my editing which usually involves colour/tone adjustment, B+W conversion, dodge/burn and some contrast tweaking using non-destructive layering technique which I learnt from reading about them in magazines. That is as far as my knowledge in Photoshop goes. I tried learning photo-manipulation for the heck of it but it gets too complicated so I abandoned the idea. Now, I go with the K.I.S.S. principle in my editing. Below are some examples of edited and unedited photos that I have done.
Top: Original
Bottom: Edited
Top: Original
Bottom: Edited
Left: Original
Right: Edited
Left: Original
Right: EditedI know that my style will not be able to satisfy everyone's taste in photography but that is life in arts I guess. With that in mind, I always try my best to appreciate what other photographers try to create in the photos that they produce - edited AND non-edited. As for my art,I guess I'll still be shooting first then ask questions later. :D
