Bay Area Photographers
02-10-2008, 11:07 PM
#106
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well that is very true. ever since the digital cameras came out and everyone has one, the wedding photography business declined. many photographers went out of business. many people use their digital cameras and take snap shots at weddings. some others who claim to be photographers because their mom got them a digital camera for christmas now have a business. i used to be a wedding photographer during the film days and you can't make a mistake. you have to pose the poeple the right way. you have to plan for light and know what needs to be done. so it is a sensitive subject to old folks like me who don't use photo shop.
i use ACDSee as a file manager, file conversion, and adding the signature on pictures. i am using HDR just to play with colors, but don't really use anything else. i understand that PS is a great product to adjust pictures and fix things, but as i said before, i am very critical of my work and ever since i got a digital camera, it is crap. i hate my work. i produce the best results in film because i know it is not cheap to shoot.
i use ACDSee as a file manager, file conversion, and adding the signature on pictures. i am using HDR just to play with colors, but don't really use anything else. i understand that PS is a great product to adjust pictures and fix things, but as i said before, i am very critical of my work and ever since i got a digital camera, it is crap. i hate my work. i produce the best results in film because i know it is not cheap to shoot.
02-10-2008, 11:09 PM
#107
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Yeah and if you continue further south on 395 past Bishop you can head east on 168 to Bristlecone pine (great photo op) http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/about/ and then my all time favourite road 266 which is like driving your own roller coaster! 
02-10-2008, 11:17 PM
#108
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No. I did not stop to take photos on that particular trip. I just did a quick drive in and drive out. I was returning to the East Bay from a racing event in Vegas and was more intent on checking out a route I'd wanted to drive for a couple of years.
Bristlecone Pine is high on my list of places to visit and photograph.
BTW, I'm green with envy about your trip to Banff this year! I passed through on the train last September and so want to retrace the whole route by car with the camera. Realistically the earliest I'll get back there is 2010 ...
Bristlecone Pine is high on my list of places to visit and photograph.
BTW, I'm green with envy about your trip to Banff this year! I passed through on the train last September and so want to retrace the whole route by car with the camera. Realistically the earliest I'll get back there is 2010 ...
02-10-2008, 11:23 PM
#109
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As far as the whole Photoshop thing is concerned...if you are shooting for yourself, you can still get away without digital retouching. But if you are trying to shoot for commercial or advertising purposes...everying these days sees Photoshop at one point or another and it is not always up to the photographer. Clients, and even more so Art Directors, these days love the digital side of things because they can contract a photographer to shoot what they need in the morning, and by the evening the same day, they can have thumbnails to chew over. It is all about turn around time now because everyone knows time is money. The Fine Art side of photography is keeling film alive...that and the die hards that love large and medium formats...but still most people will be scanning their negs once developed, mainly because the clients have requested the images in digital formats.
I commend those who still do it ALL IN CAMERA. It is a dying art.
I personally don't view Photoshop as cheating, but rather another creative tool in the photography arsenal. That being said, it takes a steady hand, good eye, and most of all restraint to use Photoshop well, it is very easy to overdo it. Many people Photoshop images to death, creating a heavy digitized look and feel, not to mention deteriorating the overall quality their images because every time you use the program to make a change, it kills pixel data, and with digital, it is all about how much information you can maintain in the file...hence the reason for shooting in RAW.
Now there are those out there that have fully embraced this digital side of Photography to the point of building complete images from seperate files. It takes a well thought out shooting style to make this sucessful and people will actually go out and shoot specificly with compositing in mind, rather than shooting a specific subject and having that be final. This has opened up a whole new world in Photography, as well as a huge debate. When doing this, and shooting multiple images on different locations and different days with the intention of then digitally stitching them together, or inserting certain aspects of one shot into another that weren't there before, is it really photography? Or is it photo-illustration and is that acceptable in the photography world?
I commend those who still do it ALL IN CAMERA. It is a dying art.
I personally don't view Photoshop as cheating, but rather another creative tool in the photography arsenal. That being said, it takes a steady hand, good eye, and most of all restraint to use Photoshop well, it is very easy to overdo it. Many people Photoshop images to death, creating a heavy digitized look and feel, not to mention deteriorating the overall quality their images because every time you use the program to make a change, it kills pixel data, and with digital, it is all about how much information you can maintain in the file...hence the reason for shooting in RAW.
Now there are those out there that have fully embraced this digital side of Photography to the point of building complete images from seperate files. It takes a well thought out shooting style to make this sucessful and people will actually go out and shoot specificly with compositing in mind, rather than shooting a specific subject and having that be final. This has opened up a whole new world in Photography, as well as a huge debate. When doing this, and shooting multiple images on different locations and different days with the intention of then digitally stitching them together, or inserting certain aspects of one shot into another that weren't there before, is it really photography? Or is it photo-illustration and is that acceptable in the photography world?
02-11-2008, 06:21 AM
#111
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As far as the whole Photoshop thing is concerned...if you are shooting for yourself, you can still get away without digital retouching. But if you are trying to shoot for commercial or advertising purposes...everying these days sees Photoshop at one point or another and it is not always up to the photographer. Clients, and even more so Art Directors, these days love the digital side of things because they can contract a photographer to shoot what they need in the morning, and by the evening the same day, they can have thumbnails to chew over. It is all about turn around time now because everyone knows time is money. The Fine Art side of photography is keeling film alive...that and the die hards that love large and medium formats...but still most people will be scanning their negs once developed, mainly because the clients have requested the images in digital formats.
I commend those who still do it ALL IN CAMERA. It is a dying art.
I personally don't view Photoshop as cheating, but rather another creative tool in the photography arsenal. That being said, it takes a steady hand, good eye, and most of all restraint to use Photoshop well, it is very easy to overdo it. Many people Photoshop images to death, creating a heavy digitized look and feel, not to mention deteriorating the overall quality their images because every time you use the program to make a change, it kills pixel data, and with digital, it is all about how much information you can maintain in the file...hence the reason for shooting in RAW.
Now there are those out there that have fully embraced this digital side of Photography to the point of building complete images from seperate files. It takes a well thought out shooting style to make this sucessful and people will actually go out and shoot specificly with compositing in mind, rather than shooting a specific subject and having that be final. This has opened up a whole new world in Photography, as well as a huge debate. When doing this, and shooting multiple images on different locations and different days with the intention of then digitally stitching them together, or inserting certain aspects of one shot into another that weren't there before, is it really photography? Or is it photo-illustration and is that acceptable in the photography world?
I commend those who still do it ALL IN CAMERA. It is a dying art.
I personally don't view Photoshop as cheating, but rather another creative tool in the photography arsenal. That being said, it takes a steady hand, good eye, and most of all restraint to use Photoshop well, it is very easy to overdo it. Many people Photoshop images to death, creating a heavy digitized look and feel, not to mention deteriorating the overall quality their images because every time you use the program to make a change, it kills pixel data, and with digital, it is all about how much information you can maintain in the file...hence the reason for shooting in RAW.
Now there are those out there that have fully embraced this digital side of Photography to the point of building complete images from seperate files. It takes a well thought out shooting style to make this sucessful and people will actually go out and shoot specificly with compositing in mind, rather than shooting a specific subject and having that be final. This has opened up a whole new world in Photography, as well as a huge debate. When doing this, and shooting multiple images on different locations and different days with the intention of then digitally stitching them together, or inserting certain aspects of one shot into another that weren't there before, is it really photography? Or is it photo-illustration and is that acceptable in the photography world?
02-11-2008, 07:20 AM
#112
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I'm still gettin back in the swing of things photography wise since I've been out of the hobby for a while, but here are some of my first digital ones.
www.flickr.com/photos/mattbasile
