Weapon of Choice: Nikon

December 2, 2015 / winterSmith / Leave a comment

Predator

March 6, 2015April 17, 2019 / winterSmith / 1 Comment

Every picture tells two or three stories. At least.

If you aren’t a photographer, you may not think about processing. But I have learned, over the past two and a half years, just how important those decisions can be. Everything from the basic choice of how to crop all the way to what kinds of heinous digital fuckery to employ – trust me when I say that it isn’t the picture that tells the story, it’s the decisions that get made once the picture has been taken.

Let me illustrate. I took a pleasant little shot of an orchid not long ago. Here’s the final photo:

Continue reading →

RAW

July 13, 2013July 13, 2013 / winterSmith / Leave a comment

The other day I posted several versions of the shot below. In each case, I began with a three-shot bracket (one over-exposed and one-under-exposed) and used Photomatix to generate a High Dynamic Range (HDR) composite. Then I pulled it up in Adobe Camera Raw, made some color and balance adjustments, then used Nik’s Viveza and Color Efex suites to produce the final versions I posted. This is how most of my shots are processed these days.

However, the technology can make us lazy. When shooting, we might shoot wider than we need, knowing we can crop in Photoshop. We might not worry about getting the white balance right because Camera Raw fixes that. And so on.

I don’t want to be lazy, though, and am constantly doing what I can to improve at getting it right in the camera. How good does the shot look without any processing at all?

So I dug back into that Denver Garden Railway set and opened up the RAW shot I used for Iron Horse. Continue reading →

Gateway to the Old West: a composition comparison (poll)

May 30, 2013May 30, 2013 / winterSmith / 6 Comments

I’ve recently been learning more about some of the principles of composition, and in particular am thinking about symmetry and motion through the shot. Last fall I took some pics in and around Taos, and one I took over in Angel Fire has become one of my favorites. But now I’m wondering if a second treatment, which approached the subject from a different perspective, might be better. So what do you think?

Here’s the alternate shot, which I just processed.