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 p.5 #13 · p.5 #13 · 'a Batis story...' - a photographic sketchbook for the summer 2022 | |
chiron wrote:
Very lovely portrait in which I imagine (not actually knowing her) that the person is actually present. What post-processing did you do on this, especially anything that would affect the lighting, colors, or contrast?
Thanks for the kind words Chiron!
Regarding editing, I’m happy to share anything I can, because this project is about sharing inspiration as well. So, when it comes to colors and editing, I'm very much 'a color-first-person'. I've contemplated/agonized so much about colors for years, but I think I’m getting there slowly – but never really 100% satisfied. I understand that there are photographers that pretty much pass by the colors in pictures and don't pay any special attention to them, but I'm likely at the other end of the spectrum. So take my thoughts with the grain of salt. 
For me the starting point is that I have lenses which are consistent and which don’t change. This would be the Batis lenses as I think they give me very good colors and contrast right of the gate (I shoot raw) and are very consistent from one focal length to another. This is kind of ‘a foundation’ as I think everything is built on basis that doesn’t change (the post processing, knowledge and taste). Developing your own look and post processing style is sometimes so much guessing and taking right/wrong turns that if I would change my lenses every six months, I would just be walking circle with post processing. I need to have things settled down to build on it, to have any sort of progress.
The other tool that is important for me are the Mastinlabs presets. I think film and its color aesthetics still presents a relevant legacy for today, but I'm not very interested to make my pictures look like film, if you get what I mean. Ie. I’m not interested to make things look nostalgic/old/shot on a film, but I think film color aesthetics has a certain ageless quality and it’s good to build upon it. To explore this kind of thinking I've tested all kinds of film emulations and the one I like the best is Mastinlabs. I've used Kirk Mastin's presets for years, but during the years I've also made my own versions of them (for example less contrast, different interpretations of greens and yellows, and so on). For all the summer pictures in my blog, I've used the filmpack which has the Ektar emulation (consistency). It's not the most easiest to use and requires a bit of work. Especially most newcomers understand the Mastinlabs presets wrong as they think they will get 'cool pictures' with 'the press of a button'. Instead it's more like bringing films color aesthetics as a baseline to today's digital workflow, and still requires quite a bit work, knowledge and taste to use them to your advantage. On top of that I do some final editing in Photoshop. Much of all this is adjusting contrast locally. I never touch saturation, vibrance, clarity or such as I don’t like how the often make pictures look ‘edited’ and ‘digital’.
So, there are tools that are important for me, like the Batis lenses and Mastinlabs film emulations. But all in all I think it comes down to question of (a) how I look colors in other’s photography, (b) what kind of taste I've acquired in the past and (c) how I can translate my preferred aesthetics to my own 'mental concepts/theories' that I can use like tools when I'm working. That's why it's so difficult to explain others anything related to aesthetics, because some of our thinking is more like 'sensing the subtle differences'. For example, in my work I often think about a subtle line between 'film look' and 'using film aesthetics as an influence', but it's only within my own head, a kind of heuristic tool, and others will think about something else. Also, understanding general color theory and its applications in photography is good and I have couple of books about it. The best part is that everyone will develop their own understanding and their own 'theories' which then guides them and makes their work unique - one just has to start working with his/her vision and taste to make it happen.
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