Photography | Capturing The Moment is What Its All About
© 2011 Wazari Wazir | My Son HaiQal Peeking Through The Door
Is there such a thing as beautiful photography without photoshop editing? Just plain skills, experiences and good lenses to capture the moment? That was a question I received from someone from my email. Actually it is, I mean you really don’t need to learn anything about Photoshop in order to become a photographer or to captured a beautiful photography. Great photography happens inside the camera, by the moment the image is captured by the film or the camera sensor. By right the moment happens in front of the lens but it was inside the camera that the moment captured and freeze forever.
So back to the question, is there such a thing as beautiful photography without photoshop editing? My simple and short answer is, yes it is. Great photograph should happen by the moment you captured it not when you edit it. Editing is just a post production, maybe we want to crop the picture a bit, to level the horizon or simply to add a little bit of contrast to the picture or to brighten up a bit the picture if we think it was a bit too dark but then again, the moment captured is still the same. If we go beyond basic editing, that can be considered as manipulation. I did play with color tone when I do my editing but that is just my preference, I like to have a certain tone for my picture but then again, the content is still the same, If I don’t have a great picture in the first place, the editing process can’t help so much.
Photographers have been taking great pictures long before the invented of the Adobe Photoshop, their photograph still make people cry, people smile, and some of the picture did change the world or maybe change the perception of the people across the globe. They don’t rely on Photoshop to make their picture great or beautiful because there were no Photoshop back then, let alone a having computer like what we have today.
If we have seen a work from great photographers like Sebastião Salgado, Dorothea Lange, or the great Henri Cartier-Bresson, we know that their picture is great because they captured a great moment. They don’t even have a color film like what we have today. They rely so much on their skills to captured a great moment, by anticipating when the great moment will happen and always be ready, we should know that back in those film days especially during their times, during Henri Cartier-Bresson times, they don’t have a camera with powerful “film winder” where they can shoot up to ten frames per second, they shoot one picture at a time. They press the shutter at the right moment, usually a split second before the moment “might” happen, they press the shutter, because if they press the shutter when the moment happen, then they will lose the “peak” moment, those who have use film camera should understand what I’m saying here.
If we look at National Geographic Magazine, their picture is superb not because of Photoshop but because the moment captured is great, the composition is great and the lighting is great if we look at their landscape picture. They don’t rely on Photoshop and in fac tNational Geographic require their photographer to give them the unedit pictures, RAW files for submission. They don’t interested with your Photoshop skills but your photography skills.
In Photojournalism line, the use of Adobe Photoshop is very minimal and most of the times the photographers don’t even need to edit their picture, just add some caption and they’re done. If we are familiar with Boston Big Picture where they presented a work of Photojournalist around the world based on certain theme or what’s the current world issue todays, we can see that the quality of the picture is through the moment captured, the moment make the image stronger, other than that is secondary.
But then again, off course The Photoshop have its place especially in todays photography environment, but that depend on the genre of photography that we choose, if we shoot for fashion, most of the times, the photographers will try to use Photoshop to smoothen the model faces, to make their clothes much more beautiful, in term of colors and contrast. To wedding photographers, Photoshop is a must have skills, not because they rely on it to produce great picture but because to put their own signature, some award wedding photographers like Jeff Ascough like to add grain to his black and white picture, to get that film effect even though nowadays he shoot with a digital camera. That is his signature, black and white with grain like film effect. Some photographers like to play with different color tones to differentiate themselves, some of them like to add texture to their photograph to have a classic or vintage effect.
If we look closely at their picture, I mean the award winning wedding photographer picture, their picture still great even without the help of Photoshop, the moment captured is already great, it can’t be repeated. To captured a great moment, with great composition and just enough exposure require great skills and years of experience. Not all wedding photographers require heavy use of Photoshop editing, some of them only need just simple editing for their picture and depend heavily on their photography skills capturing moment more that their knowledge about Photoshop. Maybe some of you reading this does not aware that most wedding photographers like to use Photoshop Preset or Action for their editing, not because they don’t know how to edit their picture but because their time is priceless, they simply don’t want to wast their precious time editing, it is better for them to use their time to do some other things like marketing or promotion purpose. Using Photoshop action or preset really speed up their workflow.
Photoshop does have its place in photography nowadays but we don’t really need it if we want to become a better photographer. Photoshop skills and Photography skills are two different things but it is a great advantage to any photographer nowadays to have knowledge in both of them. Great photograph will always be a great photograph, no amount of photoshop skills can turn a bad photograph into award winning picture. Back to the question above, my answer is YES, there is a beautiful or great photography without Photoshop editing.
*My son picture above is not sharp, a little bit blur, but it doesn’t matter to me, it’s the split second moment captured that really matters to me. The pure joy of childhood.
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