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JACK LARSON PHOTOGRAPHY
I'm finding that I like many of my red rock photographs better in monochrome.
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PHOTOGRAPHIC GOALS - Yesterday Don Smith said this, "If our images are to make a statement, we as photographers have to be clear in our mind what that statement is prior to attempting to make the image." Ansel Adams spoke of the importance of pre-visualizing. I agree with this in principle. However, I also find that the sophistication and complexity of digital darkroom software often open me up to quite unintended possibilities. Sometimes I like these possibilities better than my original intended statement. For me, photography is a journey in progress. I want to remain fluid and open. I delight in being surprised by unexpected beauty. It is for this reason, among others, that I am not of the school that believes that superb photographs that require no processing are "better" than those that may involve extensive post-processing. Creativity comes in many and diverse ways. Although I may be curious about what a photographer did with a given photograph, it is the end results that ultimately matter. Creativity in all of its forms is to be celebrated.
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"Luck is the attentive photographer's best teacher." John Szarkowski
@Toni: You LensBaby folks get to go crazy in the capture stage.
@Peggy M.: Hugs.
@Betsy Barron: Thank you, Betsy.
@xavier cardell: Absolutely. If you look at a straight print from one of Ansel Adams' negatives, it is awfully drab; his main creativity was in the darkroom.
@zOOm: It was a matter of a simple conversion to B&W, and then moving a few sliders. Most of the post-processing had already been done when I worked on the file in color.
@Craig: My personal workflow is to first get it the best that I can in camera. Then in Lightroom, I make some modifications in the Basic panel, followed sometimes by modifications in the Tone Curve and HSL panels. I finish it off with Sharpening. I send it to Photoshop if I want to do any important cloning or third party plug-in work.
@Don: My philosophic statements from time to time come from my attempt to clarify for myself what I think and feel. I welcome disagreement and certainly find my position and my workflow being modified because of the input of others.
@Scott Schilling: Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, Scott. One thing is for certain, if you don't do any post-processing of a RAW file, you have a pretty blah photograph; plus, the sharpening that digital images require is clearly best done in post-processing. We, I think, need to dump externally imposed quilt and do whatever we need to do to create the best photographs of which we are capable.
@bluechameleon: Thanks, Sharon; I have been having great fun seeing how my photos from our SW Utah 2008 look in monochrome. Some, including this one, look better.
@Barbara: Hey, Barb; welcome back; I've missed you. Thanks for your kind words.
@dkc: Thanks, Dimitris.
@taffer: Agreed.