A Stone's Throw

Just a picture from the West Coast of New Zealand. I straightened the picture when I realized it was crooked but I like it that way and so crooked it is.

Morning Glory Unedited

Unfamiliar Skies

Sand Beneath My Feet

A peaceful day interrupted by a 3.8 magnitude aftershock. The title is labelled rightly so as the sand on the dunes began to move and tremble as I took this picture.

Photoshop

Before

After

So as I mentioned previously, I recently took photographs for my good friends Mary-Beth and Matthew. Now as I was editing these pictures, the great debate came into play: to photoshop or not to photoshop. Now I shot this wedding without any real equipment. I had my SLR camera with an 18-55mm lens and a 70-300mm lens, and also a crappy 220ex flash with an off-camera cord. I didn't have any umbrellas or reflectors or diffusors etc to manipulate light, so a lot of effects that are normal with wedding photography simply couldn't happen. Not that the pictures turned out bad or anything but it was difficult to be working with natural light in places that didn't have a lot of natural light or places to reflect artificial light. It was difficult because I couldn't face the wedding parties into the sun because of all the squinting, and couldn't really face them away from the sun because I didn't have a powerful enough flash to fill them. I could place them sideways but then didn't have anything to reflect the sunlight in order to get proper lighting.

Anyways, all that to say...photoshop or no photoshop? I want to be able to say that with most of my photographs I do not photoshop. I want to learn to be a good photographer without having to spend an hour manipulating a photo. But the thing is, when you are processing with film, much of the picture is manipulated with the chemicals used to "print" the picture. So what's the harm in adjusting hues and saturations and contrasts in photoshop in order to give the same effect? I don't know, not much harm I suppose but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I do like some of the effect you can get with post-processing.

Here is the results. I realize it's not perfect, it's my firsttime really playing with curves and levels in photoshop. There are some things I didn't like about the processed picture ie: you lose the texture on her wedding dress, any suggestions on how to fix that? But there are things I like as well is: the picture just seems more vibrant. Let me know what you think, no photoshop or photoshop?

November

I wish I could go back and be this young again.