Digital Evils

I've often said that I don't think I'd be nearly as good a photographer as I am, were I working only in film. Either that or I would be just as good, but completely broke with how frequently I would be developing. The immediate play-back of images on my LCD screen after I've taken them has probably played the greatest role in getting beautiful images.

You would think that, since I look through the viewfinder, I can see exactly what I'm about to get, so what's the difference? But this is only partially true. Sometimes I'm concentrating so hard on where I'm placing the subject that I forget to run my eye around the rest of the image before snapping. Sometimes I am not holding the camera as steady as I should be, and the image is composed properly, but is entirely blurry. Sometimes my camera is numerically set to all the "right" values, but artistically, the image just doesn't work.* Especially when traveling far from home, it is great to see any of these errors in the moment, while I am still there to take another shot.

Still, I have found that there are two instances where I am pretty much powerless to tweak the image in anything but post-processing software. I almost want to create a sub-category of images called VSOTC, as in, Virtually Straight Off The Camera. I'll show you what I mean.

Look at this image.

There is a small, unnatural spot in each of the red circles, the left more obvious than the right. Often, these spots are not immediately obvious, and they're not always invasive, but trust me, once you see them, you can't unsee them. It's dust on my sensor. I know what you're thinking, "well, just clean the sensor then, Gina." Oh, believe me, I do. I am good friends with canned air.** I also have a sensor-cleaning kit for extra-stubborn dust. I've even had the camera cleaned professionally once. But I've learned over time that keeping the sensor clean is kind of like raking the lawn. You can get every single leaf, but eventually, another one is going to fall. ...You can get every speck of dust, but change the lens again, and eventually more is going to sneak in there. Sensor spots are the bane of my photographic existence.

Second thing. And this is one of the major reasons why I am not a photo purist, and am okay performing minor touch-ups in Photoshop.

Because this:

is just that much more visually appealing than this:

...I would love to know how much money Adobe makes off of people who buy Photoshop just to be able to get rid of cell phone towers.

Often times, people will look at a photo of mine, and ask if I Photoshop my images. I hate this question. Partly because I'm a horrible liar. My brain screams, "of course it's Photoshopped! Half my images are Photoshopped!" but what is harder to explain to the viewer is that by "Photoshopped," I mean I've altered maybe 1000 pixels out of the 10 million that make up the image. I prefer to think of it less as "Photoshopping", and more as "taking artistic license" to clean up a little bit of digital mess.

I am not a digital artist. I like to keep my images as true-to-the-moment as possible. Which is why any image I can get SOTC is that much more satisfying.

It's like raking up that last leaf.





* i.e. Correct exposure vs creatively correct exposure.
** If you are canned-air-phobic, settle down. I know what I'm doing.