Today's technology allows photographers an immense amount of control over their images. Since the earliest days of film plates the holy grail of photography has been creating images that contain detail in both the brightest parts of the image and the deepest shadows. This gave photographers the most control in the darkroom, and now the digital darkroom, to bring out the depth and emotion that we saw and felt when we went "click". The job of the camera is to take an accurate picture, properly focused and properly exposed. Great photographers must take a perfectly exposed, tack sharp picture and retouch it to give it the feeling and emotion to turn it into a beautiful photograph.
Before After
The above pictures are not a simple case of converting an image to black and white. In this case I felt making it a black and white photograph gave it a more timeless quality. Notice in the picture on the left your eye wants to go back and forth from the boy's face to the trees in the background. You're probably not sure where to look. That's in part because your eye immediately wants to look at the brightest part of the picture. I retouched this image by darkening the trees somewhat in the picture on the right so your eyes settle on the boy's eyes. The picture on the right puts the emphasis where it needs to be and is much more visually appealing. Understanding and executing the steps needed to achieve a heightened level of emotion is what custom prints are about.
Before After
The first picture of this strikingly attractive family is straight out of the camera. It is properly exposed, there is detail in the highlights and shadows. By formula this is a perfect picture. In this case the client specifically requested an 11x14 print for framing. I cropped the picture, gave emphasis to the family by brightened them, then darkened and desaturated the grass around them all with the goal of making the family stand out from the background.
Before After
Again, by formula the 'before' picture is nearly perfect. It is properly exposed with detail everywhere. In this case I felt the family needed to be almost as bright as the sun peeking through the clouds behind them. I retouched the family and brightened them just a bit, then darkened the sun a bit. I added a little more warmth to the sunset and intensified the "God beams" from the sun.
Real ● Sharp ● Personal
(updated 7/26/09)
(updated 8/3/10)