I am the type of photographer who is afraid of showing his pictures on camera. When people ask me to take their pictures, they expect to see a nice shot right out of the camera. That frustrates me because I feel that I am not good enough at taking pictures. What is photography anyway?
What is photography? I think you need to find that answer for yourself mate. Be honest and up front. Customers like intelligent answer with an outcome focus attitude that makes them feel happy to come back to you again. Managing expectations will always be there.
Use what ever opportunities that comes your way as a leaning experience until you are confident in your own work.
Or join a photographic club, work for another established photographer and learn how they conduct themselves so forth and so on.
As for image. If you are not sure, convert the image into black and white and crop off the left, of the woman that is, and see how it looks.
Thanks for your advice, Elan. I appreciate your words. I've come to the conclusion that I enjoy retouching my pictures more than taking them. It's like I feel that a picture must be made rather than taken.
OK, go with your gut feeling. Take care.
Thanks, William. I often show the subject the before and after of one of my previous pictures. It is just then that they understand that the camera is just the initial part of their pictures.
"But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths...are mine the same as yours?" Pontius Pilate, "Jesus Christ--Superstar"
I look at "truth" in photography (where "truth" is even an issue at all) in terms of whether the image accurately displays MY experience of that moment.
Painters do this all the time. They start with a blank canvas and the paint only what they experienced of the moment. If they don't experience a part of the scene--if it not reach their consciousness, or if their consciousness tossed it out as irrelevant, that part of the scene does not make it to the canvas.
Photographers look at a scene and capture it with a device that is not guided by the experience of the brain. It's the task of the photographer--if the intent is to present the photographer's truth of the experience--to make the camera produce what the photographer's mind experienced.
Jorge did not EXPERIENCE an exceedingly bright red bracelet--that was a factor of how the camera and sensor reacted to a specific spectrum of light differently from the human mind.
Jorge did not experience an extremenly ruddy skin tone in the subject--again, that was a factor of the mechanical camera reacting differently from the human mind.
Jorge's experience of the subject totally overwhelmed his experience with the door on the right, and the impact of the subject on Jorge's mind completely overwhelmed the impact of the detail in the grating behind her head.
So if Jorge forces the image to display what he experienced, how is that not a "truth?"
I completely agree with you. As photographers, we have a scene in our minds that we want to create. We know the potential that an image has to become what we have envisioned before the shoot. Unfortunately, most of us don't have the resources to create the scene in real life and just take a picture of it. We need to digitally manipulate reality.
photography is not a lie. But it is not "reality" either. The only thing that is real is data captured in the RAW image. When you view that RAW image in a RAW image (lightroom, etc) app or in photoshop with Adobe Camera RAW you are looking at an image rendered from the data. with adjustments (at a minimum, a gamma curve imposed on the image to make it look correct for your eyes/perception.
And the image becomes less close to reality with each processing step.
A correctly exposed (for digital capture) RAW image view on the camera or viewed in a processing app with no processing applied (SOOC) is not necessarily a nice shot. The image becomes what you want or what is latent in the image after the application of tonal adjustments, color correction/adjustments, sharpening, etc.
This reminds me about makeup. When women wear makeup, isn't that a way of hiding or manipulating the truth?
I don't know that photography is a lie, however over the last 40 years I have contended that photographers are liers. Now, before everyone jumps on me, the reason I say that is we capture what we want to be seen. Some of the most famous "street photography" scenes, or even war scenes that have been captured show violence in the shot, but in the uncropped version the whole image is absolutely nothing like the cropped version. In landscape we get to show what we want the viewer to see. A storm? We can capture or show just the part of the landscape that shows the storm clouds. Ok, onward.
As far as your clients wanting to see a nice shot right out of the camera; the best way to approach that is to not show them the image until they are completely processed. I think someone else mentioned it is the same concept as we had back in the stone age... No one was ever capable of seeing the images until after film was processed, etc... Even when I use digital for certain shoots, I just let my clients know it will be like Christmas in July... They will just be disappointed if they look at the back of the camera or whatever manner you are showing them.
So to take the extra time to let them see their images when you have them processed won't hurt. If you have clientele that aren't willing to wait, you will eventually find those clientele. Remember that it is your reputation on the line. You can show them something that isn't processed and isn't going to look very good or you can show them a processed image that looks a lot better that they are going to be really impressed with. But you get to make that decision.
It is interesting how you can handle that type of customers. I tried to do that once, but the customer did not like some of the pictures after being processed. The reason was not the editing quality, but the way they looked.
Sometimes, depending on the situation I will not show them. It is rare that I do, but I ask for their trust and it usually goes well.
It should be easier when you have a reputation. :)
As someone who learned photography in the dark ages, on film, using a view camera and wet darkroom, before Photoshop was available to many other than professionals, I propose another view.
There is a school of thought that you should always aim for the most finished shot in camera that you are able to achieve. Certainly many would argue that a serious photographer does not often discover something unseen when they later see the result. These are ideal, not absolute standards, but pursuing them will be beneficial if the goal is to make fine photographs with a personal, original style.
Shoot slowly and carefully to develop your skills, and your vision.
When your aim is to create one photograph for your portfolio, you can spend hours retouching it and making it look the way you want. In that case, post production seems more important than having the best shot in camera. However, when you take lots of photographs (e.g. at weddings), you would prefer to have the best composition in real life and capture it with your camera. When I take pictures of my wife, I'd like to have the best dresses for her and the best places, but when I find that our financial limitations don't allow us to do that, I see post-production as our only way to achieve our aims.
I always show clients photos in camera - generally only a couple of times per shoot. I find it puts them at ease, takes the pressure off. Yeah, it isn't polished up perfect yet, but they can't see that on that tiny screen. Just get to a point where your exposure is right and you'll be good to go. =)
That's a good point. The funny thing could be when they like a picture in camera, and after you see it on the computer, you find out that the picture is not as technically perfect as you would expect. In that case, would you still choose the picture?
In my experience, they won't remember one specific shot exactly, it will be a hazy memory, so a similar picture will usually satisfy. But I generally take a lot of duplicates, refocus and keep shooting, just in case. With this method, I rarely miss a shot. And I always shoot manual mode, so I know what my shutter speed will be (so I don't lose shots to motion blur!)