Photography and Artistic Vision

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | RAW File Unedited | Taj Mahal | Agra | India

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | Edited With Photoshop Tone | Taj Mahal | Agra | India

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | Monochromatic | Taj Mahal | Agra | India

First and foremost if you call yourself as a “purist” in photography, then you should leave this post, there is no point wasting your time reading my musings and rant here, it is better for for you to take the camera and shoot something rather than wasting your time reading my blog here. On the other hand if you like editing, then please stay with me, maybe you would like to know what I’m trying to say or simply just to kills the time.

There is no time for me to arguing about editing here, whether you should edit your picture or not is up to you, for me it is a personal choice and decision and based on your chosen genre of Photography, whether you like photojournalism, fashion photography, advertising, weddings, portraiture, landscape, architecture, hopefully you know who you are and know where to draw the lines when it comes to editing. As you already know, when it comes to my official government assignment, I rarely edit my photograph, in fact I don’t have to. I’m a photographer and my task is just to take a picture and maybe I was lucky because the editing part will be done through other department, our graphic department.

The reason why I don’t edit my official assignment picture is simple, I don’t know where my photograph will be used for, I don’t know where it will end up to be. My task is just to get the picture, my department will either use it for books, newsletter or turn it into poster and every picture that I took will be stored in our library where everyone will have access to it.

But when it comes to my personal job, or maybe it is an “Official Picture” but I wanted to put it in my blog, I will edited it according to my liking, according to my artistic vision, I want to have a total control on how I want my photograph will look like, whether you like it or not, doesn’t matter, I just share what I wanted to share. I know that whatever I put on the net will be subjected to criticism, everyone have their very own opinion whether this is the right way to do or this is not the right way to do.

Each of us have different set of skills and different level of expertise, different level of experience, what may appear right to me may not look right to your eyes, it is absolute impossible to satisfy everybody and it is not my duty to do that. On the other hand if you shoot for your client then, off-course whether you like it or not, you have to listen to your clients, they pay for your service and only they know what the image will be used for or where the image will end up to be. As a photographer you can give some ideas to your client, what may look good or suitable for the particular project but in the end, your client will have a final say. You may take or leave the job if you think that it is not your “style” but some photographers are lucky when some customers leave it to the photographer to make a decision, they hire you because they like your style, they hire you because they like your approach and they never ask you to imitate other photographers artwork.

Basically what I’m trying to say here is that, know what you do. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your creative artistic vision, just because your friends hate your style doesn’t mean you have to abandon your vision. Some of my friends suggested to me to use flash, playing with strobes but I don’t like it, some suggest I should try landscape or macro photography sometime but I don’t like it and I don’t have to entertain my friends request or suggestion just to be accepted, just to make someone satisfy, this is me and this is my artwork.

Just because someone say HDR is not good, doesn’t mean you should not try it but the truth is there is some good HDR work and there is some bad HDR work, same like tone color photo editing, there is good tone color picture and there is bad tone color picture, same also goes to “Dave Hills” style of editing, some does it better then the others.

For me I like to express myself with color tone, black and white, textures and most of the times, I just enhance the colors. Sometimes I just do it according to my mood. If I’m in black and white mood, I will do black and white but not every picture will look great in black and white, same goes for Textures and Tone Color picture, some may look better than the other, I like to experiment, and yes I love doing editing when I’m not shooting.

Sometimes your output or your end result is what set you apart. If you are familiar with great work from Ansel Adams you will know that his greatest strength lies in his expertise doing black and white printing or his skills in the Darkroom. I believe that if you stand or put your tripod next to him and using the same camera as he is using at that time, I believe both of you will get almost the same composition but when it comes to final output, in prints, only the works from The Truly Masters will be shine through. There is a lot of things going on his darkroom, his dodging and burning skills is second to none and  not just that, he knows how to process the film based on the situation and he is most famous with his Black and White Zone System.

But above all whether you like editing or not, everything must start from the right picture, you must get it right in the camera to begin with and then, the editing is up to your artistic vision if it is your personal work.

“In my mind’s eye, I visualize how a particular… sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.”

– Ansel Adams –

When I photograph for a particular subject, I’ve always have in my mind what the end result will look like and I know what  I can do with the RAW files. So it is a very good practice to have a vision on your mind, so that you know what you are trying to convey later with your photographs. Having the right image will make it easy when it comes to editing.

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”

– Ansel Adams –

Be not afraid to express your artistic vision, not everyone will agree with you, you will be criticize, maybe you will loose some friends but above all just be yourself and be bold enough to to express yourself.

‎”Too Many of Us are Not Living Our Dreams Because We are Living Our Fears.”

  – Les Brown –

*Since I don’t want to be a starving artist so that I can continue with my art, I will promote my eBook, so to those of you who wanted to know how I get the color tone for the second photograph of the Taj Mahal, you can get more info by clicking on the banner below, thousand of people have already bought it (it’s been two years now), Syukur Alhamdulillah…

Get The SecretHERE