I’ve been a photographer since the mid-1970s. That makes me a dinosaur. In the early days, you shot the photo and then went into the darkroom to make the final image. If you wanted an odd sized print, you had to print on larger paper and trim to final size.
Digital skeps a lot of steps – processing the image in a lab, using chemicals, but photographers STILL process the images. It’s just easier.
Let’s take a look at my image of the Congregational Church of Amherst, on Church St, Amherst Historical District, New Hampshire.
First image, the raw, unprocessed image straight outta my camera.
I was able to capture the deep blue sky, the shadows were nice and open due to the reflectivity of the surrounding snow. This is how the image would look if I had shot film and looked at the resulting 35mm slide.
Here’s the initial edit. I had adjusted the sky, removed the power line, and cropped in slightly. Huh. But I can do better. (Note, with film, it would have taken DAYS to remove those power lines…)
Now, I have replaced the sky with one that has some high level clouds to provide some texture to the sky. Then I also cropped in more, and adjusted the perspective caused by using a wide lens and aiming upward. It’s subtle.
Then, for variety, I created a B&W version, how it’d look if I had been shooting B&W film that morning.
Just because one is shooting digital, doesn’t mean you don’t process the images (tho – I see a lot who just post straight out of the camera)
