Shutter

I wrote a post a little over a week ago (read: The Laptop Incident) about how I spilled wine into my laptop.  Well, as the weekend came around, I thought I was in the clear.  The laptop was working pretty well and I was fairly certain that I might be able to avoid having to replace it. But alas, fate has won yet again.  Last night, my laptop would make popping noises and then completely shut down.  It did this several times before I realized the battery wasn’t charging either.  While plugged into the wall, I removed the battery and the system lost power.  Normally, a plugged-in laptop doesn’t need the battery.  That tells me that the laptops electrical system is probably fried.  When the battery officially runs out, I fear that there will not be any way to power my laptop.

Having reached my conclusion, I prepared to shut down.  After all, whatever time I have left (about 7 minutes) may be necessary to do any quick backups.  Figuring nothing more could happen, I started the shutdown process.  Then my power pack started to smell.  It was incredibly hot to the touch - so hot I couldn’t hold it.  It was even a little soft as if the plastic were melting.  Now that is scary.  What would have happened if I wasn’t there to unplug the pack?  Would it have caused a fire?

So aside from the obvious moral (Back Up your hard drive often), I now learned a new lesson:  Never trust your power packs.  From now on, if I’m not in the room, my power packs will be unplugged.  Maybe I’m paranoid…but I’d rather not replace more than my laptop.

In my quest to learn more about flash photography (my self-proclaimed weakness), I have read a lot of articles and watched a lot of videos.  None have explained the basics as simply as Paul Duncan’s video (below).  In a short 8 minute video, he has provided enough information to get you started.  I found it useful, so I wanted to share it with you (also available on YouTube):

Many point-and-shoot and compact cameras list two types of zoom:  An Optical Zoom and a Digital Zoom.  Most often, you’ll see these advertized with the Digital Zoom in bigger letters, but the optical zoom is much finer print somewhere on the box.  There is a very distinct difference between them.

Optical Zoom is a quantification of the camera’s optical capabilities, or more specifically, the ability of the lens itself.

Digital Zoom is a software routine performed in-camera.  It takes a photo at the lens’s longest focal length then crops and resizes the photo to make it appear as if you’re getting a tighter zoom.  In practice, there is nothing that the camera does with Digital Zoom that you can’t do with your favorite photo editing software.

My advice…you may as well ignore the Digital Zoom data when buying a compact digital camera.  You want a camera that has a better Optical Zoom.  Digital Zoom is a marketing gimmick that preys on a consumer’s ignorance.  Consumers are constantly bombarded with the idea that digital is better.  But in the physical world, that is not always the case, and this is one of those exceptions.

So remember:  Aim for a better Optical Zoom and ignore the digital number.

Most modern cameras have Program Modes - pre-programmed, automatic settings to help the layman take better pictures.  These modes may include things like Portrait Mode (mid-to-narrow depth of field), Landscape Mode (wide depth of field) and so on.  But you are a photographer - you have little or no use for these modes.  

Now I’m not preaching that you should be using full Manual mode - there are some semi-automatic modes that are appropriate.  Manual mode has its place when you have time to set up a shot, but that is not always the case.  I would content that the semi-automatic modes that every photographer should learn are Aperture Priority mode and Shutter Priority mode.  I would be willing to bet that you will find yourself using one of these two modes most often.  

But if you find yourself wanting to explore the depths of the pre-programmed modes, you should check yourself.  Are you taking photographs?  Or are you just taking snapshots?  (Note:  My feeling is that snapshots are for personal and family memories while photographs are artistic and appeal to a much larger  audience).  If you’re just taking snapshots, I’ll let you slide.  But if you’re trying to take an artistic photograph, you will not find the necessary amount of control of your shutter and aperture to get the shot that you desire.  

My main complaint about pre-programmed modes is that amerture photographers realize that they can very easily take decent pictures with these modes, but then they never grow as a photographer.  To me, that is sad.  On the flip side, a photographer that sticks with one of the Semi-Automatic modes (Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority) will find that they have just the right amount of control to truly grow as a photographer.  

Let your knowledge and skills grow.  Avoid the pre-programed modes.

My productivity is likely to be slowed for a little while.  I had an incident the other night where I spilled about half a glass of wine into my laptop causing it to short out.  Unfortunately, my laptop happens to be the only machine I own that can handle Photoshop CS3.  So that seems to be putting a damper on my work flow.  I’ll probably be without a new laptop for a couple of months, at least.

I will continue to update the site with new tips.  I will even try to process some of my images on my lunch breaks at work.  But I know my productivity will drop for a while and I wanted to warn you guys of it before you started to worry.

Thanks for your patience.

First of all, I have to give credit to a post at Wired for bringing this shot to my attention.  Allegedly, it has been floating around the ‘net for a while but has escaped my eyes.  There isn’t any credit, but whoever did the shot is quite clever.  This is what you would call a creative photographer.

If you havn’t figured it out from the photo or this post’s title, this is supposed to be Photoshop as if it were a real-world desk space.

It’s been a little quiet here the last few days because I’ve been feeling a bit under-the-weather.  I’m still a bit ill, so you won’t be seeing any production from me for a few more days.  But I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you a lesson from an Art Professor I had in College.  His rule:  Don’t trust your eyes when you are sick.

Now he was speaking about painting, but the same rule is very appropriate for Photography.  To some, this may seem like common sense.  But to many, it doesn’t seem that logical.  The reason behind this rule is two-fold; it is both a psychological issue as well as a physiological issue.

First, lets look at the psychology behind it.  Regardless of what type of photography you are preparing, your mood ultimately impacts your decision making process.  Sickness does not render a good mood.  Illness can make a person depressed, impatient, frustrated or even angry.  Even in photography, this will come through in your work.  Patience probably has the greatest impact to your work:  Be it with the camera or in post-production - both require a great deal of patience.  But your emotions will impact the way you view subjects as well.  Bottom line, you are rarely going to be in the right frame of mind to conduct your work.

Physiologically, illness can do a great number of things to your body.  The physical impact varies depending on your illness, but even a common cold can severely impact your body in ways you may not be aware.  Dehydration, sinus pressure or fever will directly impact your eyes.  Your eye may not be able to sense color like it can when you’re healthy.  It’s subtle, but when it comes to photography, such an impact will have a dramatic effect on your work.  Your perception is also impacted by illness, but not just the things that affect your eyes.  Your perception can be altered by ear aches or nausea.  For that matter, did you know that your eyes can be distorted by illness?  Even an infection on your leg will cause your lymph nodes to swell forcing you to favor the other leg - as silly as that sounds, it impacts the way you perceive space.  But what about post production?  Aches and pains are magnified by illness, so you may lose some of your precision with the mouse.

There are a great number of things that will hurt the quality of your work when you are sick.  Professionals may have to work through it, but the awareness of such problems will help you to overcome them (then again, professionals are likely not reading my blog for advice).  So if there is any way you can postpone your work until you are feeling better, I would suggest that you do so.  Besides, you should be sleeping instead of messing with your photography.

Just a reminder to all Americans to go out and vote today.  It’s going to be a close election, your vote really does count.

If you live in or near Salt Lake City, or if you’ll be nearby on November 21st and 22nd, you will want to check out the SparkArts Digital Arts Festival.  Its focus is fairly broad, but there’s a little bit of something for everyone, especially photographers.  There will be photography competitions and a few seminars presented by Professional Photographer Eric Hamilton.  Best of all, the entire event is free! Here’s the official press release:

The SparkArts digital arts festival is coming to Salt Lake City this November 21-22. SparkArts is a free event which teaches participants how to create art with a computer, and is particularly geared toward people who want to make digital art and video games but don’t know how.

The festival gives younger participants a chance to meet professional game developers, musicians, and artists in an informal, casual setting. Teenagers and college students who dream of making video games but don’t know where to begin are invited to come and bring their computers.
SparkArts will provide free, legal software for creating games on-site. It will also hold question-and-answer sessions, tutorials, and bring together hobbyists and professionals from the game, music, and digital imaging industries. There will be many “just-for-fun” activities, including games, scavenger hunts, and competitions inspired by the quirky digital-arts culture.

The organizers of SparkArts have been setting up similar events for over five years, and have had hundreds of participants come and enjoy the experience. “Utah had a thriving digital arts scene among teenagers and college student in the mid-90s,” says Adam Helps, one of the festival’s founders. “Unfortunately, much of this has faded away in recent years. SparkArts is our attempt to revive and even expand on this culture, which helped capture the imagination and inspire the previous generation’s computing professionals.” Most of SparkArts’ organizers are software developers and IT professionals working in Utah.

Major focuses of the festival include video game programming, computer-aided music composition, digital painting and 3-d modeling. Festival organizers will provide necessary software and instructions. Attendees will create projects during the course of the festival, and the results will be displayed in a fun and colorful closing ceremony.

SparkArts is run by a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, and is sponsored by the Salt Lake Library. The event will be held in the Salt Lake Library all day Friday and Saturday, November 21-22. There is no charge for attending or participating. The general public is invited to come, optionally bring a computer, and enjoy the festival!

For more information, check out the official website:  SparkArts.org

Winter Photography - I’ll be honest, I never really made an effort to do much in the way of winter photography, except to capture obvious winter aspects such as ice, snow or the like.  After reading an article written by Andre Gunther for the Digital Photography School, I am now convinced that I should take winter photography more seriously.  The article is written mostly as a persuasive article, but it also outlines a few good tips.  Definately a worthwhile read.

Read the article:  Photography in the Winter Season

This photo has been sitting in my workflow for a little while now.  I think the photo has a lot of merits and I was on the fence about whether or not to add it to my portfolio.  Since it is now the subject of my Educational Failure column, it goes without saying that the image ended up in the rejection pile.  The following is a brief disclosure of what ultimately led to its dismissal.

First and foremost, lets talk about a basic flaw:  Composition.  The original of this image was actually framed fairly well - the building was positioned more to the left and I had some open space to the right.  The trees in the background served as a nice subtle balance to the photo.  Unfortunately, the image was not straight and I had to rotate it a few degrees counter-clockwise to compensate.  This forced me to crop the photo tighter than I would have liked resulting in this image.  I feel that the cropped image places the building too close to the center and too close to the bottom edge.  Now, in my defense…I took this photo while I was conducting a site inspection for work.  I did not have the aid of a tripod, nor did I spend much time shooting the photo.  I honestly never expected this photo to fully make the cut.  If composition were the only issue with this photo, I may have taken some artistic license and let this one slip through.  But as you will see, it’s no my only concern.

The two real issues can be attributed to the type of lens I used.  This is my kit lens, a Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom.  It is not the ideal lens of choice for this shot.  The first problem is the bokeh, or lack-thereof.  I would have liked for the background areas to have a nice even bokeh, so I would have liked to have a much narrower depth of field.  At this focal length (27mm), this lens is incapable of achieving an aperture any larger than f/4.5, yielding a much larger depth-of-field than I would have desired.   The other problem is the slight lens flare that is visible where the foremost corner meets the roof (you may need to click to view the full-size image).  With the black-and-white conversion, the flare appears as a discolored circle which is - in my opinion - more displeasing than its full-color counterpart.  The view angle of this lens isn’t that wide, but its enough to be influenced by the sun.  This may have been a simple field correction - the lens came with a lens hood that would’ve blocked most, if not all, of the lateral sunlight.  Something so simple could easily have prevented the flare from occuring. With these two issues in mind, in addition to the composition issue I mentioned above, this image isn’t worthy of inclusion into my portfolio.

The bottom line is that this photo would not have been on the cutting room floor had I used a more appropriate lens.  I certainly should have been using a lens hood.  But the shot would have also benefited from a faster lens capable of a wider aperture.  I don’t have a more appropriate digital lens in my bag right now, but realizing that a need exists is the first step to correcting such problems.  It just so happens that my very next photography purchase will be a lens that will address these issues well.

In closing, I must once again remind you of my old photographic instructor’s advice:  “…you will learn far more from your failures.”  Analyzing your own works, as I did for you today, will only help you to grow.  I would highly encourage you to evaluate your failures regularly.

My wife and I got into a short discussion yesterday, but I feel that I got a lot out of it.  I am one of those guys that carries my camera around with me most of the time (aren’t we all)?  I think for the most part, my family and friends don’t really mind.  I don’t drag it out for an evening out, but I often have it with me around family gatherings (as my candid/portrait gallery will attest).  But I need to remind myself sometimes when I should just leave it at home.

Yesterday, for example, was my daughter’s baptism.  Like all other family events, everyone ended up back at my mother-in-law’s house and the kids would once again be together again.  Whenever the kids are together, I often find a lot of opportunities for some great photos.  But before we got off to the church, my wife asked me if I was bringing my camera.  I didn’t catch the special phrasing at first, but after a short discussion, it was implied that maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to bring the camera.  As I said, it was a very brief discussion and it wasn’t at all heated, but let’s look at the situation for a moment.

It was my daughter’s baptism.  So even though we were at my mother-in-law’s house, my wife and I were essentially the hosts of the party.  I will admit, photography can be a distraction - it maybe pulls me away from interacting with some people.  So in all fairness, etiquette would dictate that I should not be distracted at my own party.  My job would be to make sure I spend a little time with everyone and to make sure that everyone is comfortable.  If I am doing that job well, there isn’t much room for photo opportunities. So, why risk offending anyone (especially my wife)?  That is a time where the camera stays at home.  And to think that the thought didn’t cross my mind until my wife brought it up.

There are any number of similar situations where the camera does not have a place.  You may have a need or a desire to remember the event, but the time is much more appropriate for a point-and-shoot camera as opposed to your semi-professional camera.  If you’re unsure, ask the opinion of your significant other or close family member.  They’ll tell you whether they think you should leave the camera at home.  Just remember to be considerate of others.

I keep statistics on the visitors to my site and I can definitively say that 33% of you are still using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).  You will notice that my site (and others) don’t look just right in IE6.  As much as I have tweaked my template for readability in IE6, it will at times break because of an javascript element or any number of documented flaws in IE6’s rendering engine.  It is suggested that you upgrade to a more current browser such as Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 7.

If you are viewing this page in IE6 - it will appear messed up.  This is not due to problems with my page - it is a problem with IE6’s inability to properly render XHTML, HTML and CSS.  But don’t take my word for it, do a Google search on ‘CSS for IE6‘, and you will see hundreds of pages and tips targeted at tricking IE6.

Now, I feel that it would be unfair of me to suggest an upgrade based on readability alone.  But there are a number of security flaws that exist in IE6 as well.  For that matter, did you know that Microsoft has already stopped support on most version of IE6?  That means that they are no longer doing security updates for many of the versions available.  Even Microsoft wants you to upgrade to IE7 (a free download) for security reasons.

Security aside, there are a number of reasons to upgrade to IE7.  Usability is first and foremost on that list.  With tabbed browsing and an easier interface, your browsing is much smoother.  It’s rendering engine is also a lot faster than its predecessor - which means faster page loads.  And as I already mentioned, it’s rendering engine actually follows the latest HTML and XHTML standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (they set the standards).

Finally, if nothing else, IE6 is out of date.  It was created in 2001, almost 8 years ago.  IE7 has been around since 2006.  They’re even working on IE8 already.  Don’t you think it’s time to upgrade?

Here are some browsers that I would recommend instead of IE6 (in order of preference):

• Mozilla Firefox 3
• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer 7 (I don’t recommend the BETA of IE8 yet)
• Opera Browser

Download one of these and try it out.  Among these, you will find something significantly better than IE6.  You will thank me for it.

Some more experiments in night-time photography.  This is a picture of an early moon rising above Lake Naomi (Pocono Pines, PA).  Don’t let it’s appearence fool you…the glow is merely a result of a long-exposure time.  There is some room for improvement here, but I love how the stars and the water appear in this shot.

Ahh…album covers.  With digital download methods more readily available these days, many have lost the true meaning of an album.  Albums today are merely a collection of tunes which, we home, all relate to each other in some way.  They sit on your iPod, and the only reason to have album artwork is for the iPod to display its cover as a song is playing.  How silly.

Album covers have always been the artists playground.  Musicians, like many artists, have a significant appreciation for many forms of art, including the visual mediums.  Album art has seen everything from Jackson Pollock to LED (Pink Floyd’s “Blink” album).  But the photographic artwork is some of the best work you’ll see around.

Album art is actually one of the things that brought me into the photography world.  The Who’s “Who’s Next”, Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled album or U2’s “War” - all great examples of photography in and of itself, yet they are tied in harmony (no pun intended) with the music they represent.  They become pop-art icons, easily recognized branding that symbolizes not just an album, but a stage in the musician’s career.  For example, U2’s early works look as great if their album covers were in color?  Or what if Radiohead’s front-man, Thom Yorke, didn’t lose the original artwork - a picture of an iron lung - requiring him to use the Yorke-like test dummy that ended up on the cover of “The Bends” (pictured at right)?

Real pop-art can be seen through Album Photography.

100 Best Photo Album Covers (pophoto.com)

I don’t know why, but I always love architecture on private properties from the turn of the century (1900, not 2000).  Its simple.  It’s warm.  And frankly, every single aspect of the architecture is completely functional.  This, for example, is a pully mount for a small out-building.  The pully has been replaced, but the charm has been completely restored.

Sadly, the only reason I find sites and buildings like this is because my company creates land development plans.  Unfortunately, this building will be knocked down and replaced with a veterinary hospital.

Pop Photo has a great regular column called Your Photo: Our Critique.  They take submitted photos and offer their honest thoughts about the photo and rate them on a 1-5 scale (5 being the best).  I submitted one of my own photos, Spire to the Dark Sky (also shown at right), to see what they would think.  Here’s what they thought:

D. Travis North submitted this photo shot with a Nikon D80 with an exposure of 1/125 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400. He adjusted the settings in Camera Raw. I think the adjustments made were too much that the photo no longer looks real. The sky is too contrasty and bright and the photo is over sharpened. Remember to use editing software such as Photoshop to enhance your photos and don’t over do it.  (2/5 stars)

As you can see, they were not a fan.  My intent was to create a surreal aspect to the photo, but she brings up a valid point.  I guess I pushed the limits it a little too far.  That said, I guess you may find it odd that I share this with you.  Well, I learned something from the critique.  It’s only fair to share it with you.  Maybe you can learn something as well.  Besides, the column is a great source of inspiration and knowledge.  You can learn a lot by the work of others, especially if its attached to a critique.

Article Link:  Your Photo: Our Critique - October 13th

Living With Your Photographs

The title of this article has a bit of a double entendre.  This article is really about making proper decisions about your work before it’s shared with the public.  But second edge to this sword is that these decisions, good or bad, will affect the public perception of your work.  Your goal, of course, is to have a great portfolio.  But to do so, you have to think long and hard about your work – spend some time thinking and analyzing your work.  I refer to this as Living with your Photographs.

Building a great portfolio will require you to rethink the way you do things.  First and foremost, as a photographer, you need to learn to separate your art from your snapshots.  One of my big beliefs is that there is a big difference between the two.  Photographs are planned, composed, formatted and processed.  Every little detail has been thought out from the shutter speed to the depth of field to the lighting through the post-processing effects.  A lot of time is (or at least should be) spent on each photograph.  On the other hand, Snapshots are quick shots that preserve your memories.  These of course have an emotional connection to you, but they don’t necessarily have any bearing to an observer that has not made your acquaintance.  These are shots that you snapped quickly (possibly on auto mode or with a point-and-shoot camera) to catch a memory:  Your son blowing out the candles on his first birthday, your daughter’s graduation and so on.  There’s no reason why these shots can’t become great photographs, but chances are, most of them are important to you and your family and that’s it.  Knowing the difference between snapshots and photographs is the most important of all.  You need to separate the snapshots from your portfolio.  I would even recommend having completely different albums for each.  For example, you may post your family snapshots on your Flickr account, but you may want to keep your portfolio on a dedicated website separate from your snapshots.  If you have a business that depends on your portfolio, you may not even want to allow public access of your snapshots, and certainly don’t link it from your business’s website.  For the remainder of this article, I’m going to discuss my own workflow as it relates to Living With Your Photographs.  I’m going to assume that your snapshots are now completely separated and we will disregard them moving forward.

Now let’s talk about your photographs, the planned high-quality images that you hope to incorporate into your portfolio.  If you’re like me, you dump the images from your camera into a collective folder.  You may organize them in some way or another, but the point is that you should keep your unfinished works separate from your finished works.  Again, if you’re like me, you probably have at least couple of dozen shots that you’ve dumped into this folder (or a subfolder) every time you return from the field.  The first thing I do is go through all of my photos (not just the new ones) and immediately eliminate any photos that have no artistic merit.  I don’t yet delete them, because I could change my mind (though my initial reaction is usually what I end up sticking with).  I use Adobe Bridge, so I can simply flag the photos as “rejected”.  But before I had that wonderful program, I had a sub-folder specifically for rejected files.  Do whatever works for you.  Anyhow, as I said, I make an effort to go through all of my unfinished photos.  Some of them will have rejected flags from a previous session.  If I view them and still believe they aren’t worthy of being part of my portfolio, I’ll delete those.  I’ll also evaluate each photo again and determine if they’re worth saving.  When I get to my new photos, I’ll spend a little more time with them.  Some will get rejected off the bat.  Some I’ll leave for a second opinion down the line.  Unless one or two of the latest shots stands out as exceptional works, this is typically all I will do after my photo dump.  I find great importance in letting my images sit a few days before I format them.  It’s always good to have fresh eyes when post-processing your work.

So let’s talk statistics for a moment.  Assume, after a photo dump, I end up with 200 files in my incoming directory, 100 of which are brand-new.  About 25 of them were probably flagged as rejected from a previous review.  I’ll re-evaluate those, and likely will end up deleting all of them (I’m down to 175 now).  I’ll probably flag at least 50 of them as “rejected”, most of which will be from the latest dump (Down to 125 good images).  I’ll probably end up post-processing 10 of the images (if I have enough time), only two of which are from the latest dump.  That leaves me with about 115 images left in my workflow.  Remember, there are still 50 additional images that I flagged as rejected – but I leave them until my next session where I will probably delete them.  I end up tossing out about 30-50%.  Does that sound high?  Considering my current skill-level, I would say not.  A more experienced photographer will probably delete or reject far fewer images than I, but I would expect his ratio of good to bad images would be much lower.  That is, of course, a goal I’m striving for.  But I have a lot of failed experiments.  I truly believe you learn more from your failed photographs than your best work, which is why I don’t delete them flat-out.  If I reject a photo, I will likely analyze the photo and try to understand why it’s failed.  It’s a good way to learn.

Many amateur photographers have trouble tossing out their works.  This was something I always struggled with myself (still do, to some degree).  To make things easier, I devised these list of questions that I ask myself about each photograph:

1. Will I be proud to share the photograph?
2. Are the subject and the intent clear?
3. Can I live with and defend any technical flaws that the photo might have? (very important, not every great work of art is technically perfect, but some flaws hurt your intent)
4. Will complete strangers be able to connect with the photograph?  (This is especially important in portraits and candids as you must assume a stranger doesn’t know anyone in the photo.  That said, will they be able to appreciate the image?)
5. Is the quality of the photograph an improvement over at least half of your previous works?

If the answer to any of the above questions is No, then I will reject the photo.
So now I’ve cleaned out my incoming folder.  I make an effort to format at least five images during that work session, focusing more on older items.  The intent, of course, is to make sure that my workflow is constantly moving.  But processing from older works helps to ensure enough of a buffer between my field session and my studio session that emotional attachments are temporarily severed.  I personally feel that I can better evaluate and format an image if I can separate my field work from the studio work.  Others may have differing opinions.  I will reconnect with the image through the post-processing of that image.  If I don’t, the image is yet again a candidate for rejection, but that rarely happens by the time I get to this point.

During my post-processing, I am constantly thinking about intent and it is constantly evolving.  For example, I shoot entirely in color, but may convert to black-and-white during processing.  I will make any changes/tweaks that I need, such as cropping, color and level tweaks and so on.  Then I will stop.  In my opinion, the image is not finished.  This is where my process will differ from others - I will export a few proof copies, but I will save the Photoshop document at this stage so I can tweak later, if I choose.  I will send copies of my proofs to work so I can view them on those monitors.  It’s not that they’re necessarily better monitors – just the contrary.  My monitor at home is a great monitor, which sometimes spoils me.  I often end up with images that are a little dark.  So I double check at work.  This could all be avoided if I had color corrective hardware at home to verify and manage my monitor’s color accuracy.  But until I can afford such a solution, this is what I do.  At that point I will once again ask those five questions to myself.  If I’m satisfied, I will release the image to the public.

My process is long and involved, but it works for me.  My real concern is that I do not want to regret releasing a photo for public consumption.  As I gain experience, I become more sure of myself and the process shortens slightly with each photo that I process.  As I make hardware upgrades down the line, I can expect the process to get much shorter (like I said, once I get a hardware color correction system in place, I will probably save myself a few days on each image).

The main take-away that I want you to have from this article is that you have to live with the influence each of your photographs will have on your portfolio for the rest of your life.  It doesn’t hurt to live with your images away from the public eye for some time, even if it’s a few months.  Since I adopted this involved process, I truly believe the quality of my work has improved tenfold.  Hopefully, a similar process will help you as well.