Why Editing Photos Matter

Before I started taking Graphic Design classes, I was the kind of person who would take photos and never edit them. I simply took the photo, saved it on my phone and moved on. But after taking a few classes, I realized just how important it is to edit those photos once taken.

Some people may think that because you edited an image it is no longer “real” and to that, I say it is not a matter of capturing an event exactly how your eyes see it. It is close to impossible to even capture an event exactly as your eyes see it because your camera’s lens will produce a slight distortion to an image. Your camera does not have the capability of reproducing what your eyes see because it takes more factors like what the person was feeling and thinking at the moment the photo was taken. This is where you or a designer steps in to try to come close enough, if not better, at reproducing what your eyes see.

Editing a photo will improve the overall quality, look, and feeling of the image. Let’s say you took a photo and it was overexposed, but you liked the composition and subject of the photo. That is where programs like Lightroom and Photoshop can help you edit an image that perhaps was going to be deleted, and turn it into an image you can keep as a memory.

In the end, photos are taken to create memories or document a moment in time. It is oftentimes a form of art as well. Editing those images will prevent you from having to do a lot of retakes and delete good memories.

Macro and Food Photography

This week is the final week of Digital Photography. For this week’s photography, we had to take specialty photos on certain photography topics. I decided to earn more about macro photography and food photography.

Macro Photography

Macro Photography involves taking photos of small objects and making them appear life-sized or larger than they normally are. This type of photography is more commonly used to photograph small animals like frogs, bees, butterflies, etc. There are various ways to take these kinds of photos one would be owning a macro lens that is specialized for macro photography. Another way would be having a longer focal length so that you do not necessarily have to get closer to your subject (especially if it is alive and moving a lot like an insect). And the final way would be getting as close as you can to your subject and then cropping the photo in post-production. Ideally, with these kinds of photos, you should use a small aperture to increase your depth of field.

For my specialty photo in this area, I got as close as I could to a leaf and then cropped it a little so that the water droplets become the center of attention.

Food Photography

Food photography is all about the presentation of the food. The presentation is important because the majority of food photography involves advertisements. Some of these photos may end up in cookbooks, restaurant menus, or social media. Because the presentation is a huge aspect of it, you need to keep in mind that not all foods are going to look the way you want them to on camera. Have you ever heard about the trick to photographing ice cream? It is not actual ice cream that they photograph, photographers take foods that mimic the texture of ice cream, like mashed potatoes, because the reality is that by the time you set up your equipment and figure out your settings and how you would like to take your photo, that ice cream would be a melted mess.

For my specialty photo, I decided to take a photo of vegetables that my mother was boiling in a pot. Originally I had wanted to emphasize the steam coming out of the boiling pot, but in post-production that steam did not come out as strong as I would have liked. The original photo was very yellow because the stove’s over headlight was yellow, so thankfully I had taken the photo in raw and I could edit the lighting.

Exploring Texture

This week’s assignment involved taking photographs of many different textures. I had taken a picture of a tree trunk, but I thought that is seen quite commonly, so I went exploring a little more.

I cropped this photo a bit, but I love the depth of field in this one, it was completely accidental. After taking this one, I realized I should’ve chosen this one for the aperture assignment, but this one works for texture as well. Not only do you get the smooth rock texture of the surface, but also the rough edges in between.

Texture is mainly for visuals, but it helps create the physical illusion of what the texture could feel like.

Exploring Color and Telling a Story

This week in digital photography we were focusing on color, contrast, and how photographs can tell a story.

Color and Contrast:

In photography, contrast is the visual ratio of different tones in an image. The differences between the tones create things like shadows and highlights (Skylum). Contrast is very important in design because it draws attention to the important aspects that people should pay attention to. In photography, contrast is important because it not only draws attention to the image, but it also helps convey certain moods the image may be portraying. A lack of color or black and white images can create a sad or depressing mood, while colorful images can express emotions like happiness.

For the first assignment, I took a photograph of nature and recolored it in different ways to see how the mood changes between the images.

Duotone

Full Color

Monochrome

Selective Color

Out of all the images above, I liked the selective color the most because the contrast between the black and white and the only bits of color catches my interest. Sometimes not everyone notices the small things in life that are oftentimes beautiful, you just have to take the time to find it.

Telling a Story

There is a very known saying that goes like this, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Photography is expressed differently depending on the photographer, but it can be said that each photograph has its own story. Photography is also a beautiful way of creating memories whether they be sad or happy memories. It is a way to document your life and history.

Therefore, the second assignment for this week was to capture a photo that tells a story. I decided to create a story for my photo because I was struggling with this assignment and I wanted to use this image for an assignment.

I liked the way the sun created the shadows of the screen door in front of my house because it reminded me of the leading lines of composition. The shadows lead me to the door and then look up at nature outside. I used a similar method to the first assignment, so I converted the photo to black and white and only had the green of the trees show through.

The story I took out of this is that sometimes you just have to get up and enjoy life. Go outside, relish the beauty of nature, take a walk, go for a run, do something beyond being stuck inside your home or just be on any form of technology all day. Take a break and go out with your loved ones, it doesn’t have to belong, but as long as you realize that there are many great things outside your door and that you can make a change happen.

Exploring Composition and Aperture

This month I started my Digital Photography class! This was one of the many classes I was looking forward to because the last time I took a class on photography was in my sophomore year of high school and that was at least 3 years ago.

Two of my assignments required me to post two photographs on my blog so I will combine them into this post.

Composition

The first assignment involved taking an inanimate object and taking 30 different photographs of it, all different to play around with composition. I decided to take photos of my stuffed llama I got last spring.

This assignment got harder for the last 10 photos because I was running out of ideas fast, but this photo captured my attention out of the many I took. Maybe because it adds this sense of mystery and questioning as to what the llama is looking at (even if it is a stuffed animal). I learned that composition is all about how you want the subject to be represented and to also never try to center your subject unless you are striving for symmetry. I found photos taken from the back to be more interesting than regular front photos of this llama.

Aperture

The second assignment involved taking 10 photographs of still life, all with different aperture settings (f/stop).

I had to choose one of the photographs who showed the best depth of field, sharpness, and dynamic range. This one is average in terms of the 3, it could still use some improvement, but as a beginner, at this topic, I would say it is passable. I liked the lighting cast on the gem tree which is why this one was picked over the rest.

The settings for this photo were as followed:

Shutter Speed- 1/50
Aperture- f/4.0
Iso- 2500

From this assignment I learned that the wider the aperture is, the more light will come through the lens; the narrower it is, the less light will come through the lens. This goes in hand with the depth of field because the wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field is. The depth of field is all about what aspects of your photos will be in focus.

I still have a lot to learn, but I enjoyed doing these assignments.