I enjoy being behind the camera and working as well as
exploring techniques by using myself as the model. Photoshop is and has always
been a massive piece of software that allows you to work in ways that the
commercial world needs to have images that have impact and sells something, and
allow the photographer to be creative in bending the original image in a way
that looks so different from the original.
Some may say that’s a bad thing and doesn’t make you a very
good photographer, because you need software to create for your final image.
Lighting, locations, and a studio can give you so much, and if you were working
in film, then it would be down to the darkroom and chemicals, light, shadow and
the tick toc of the clock that will allow you to make the image look as you
want. So either way a photographer uses some form of editing to come up with
the final image and I think both are just as time consuming as each other.
The original image was done in my studio with the help of a
backdrop and lighting, the lighting is the important part of the process of the
studio as it depends on the tools that you use with the light, like a softbox
or beauty dish for example. You may use more than on light to get the look your
looking for and moving the light forward or backwards and up and down will cast
shadows in different ways.
Working in a studio gives you an idea of what lighting can
give so you can put what you learn into practice when it comes to working with
a client or model. For instance with this image, my main thing was to not have
light reflection in my glasses, this is so difficult to get right, but by
working with the lighting, you get the right look.
Today this is such a small part of what makes the final
image as its ends up on the computer to be worked upon to give so many
different variations of what is decided to be the final image.
So this is one variation of the original image that has that
film and grainy look that’s done on purpose to give an effect that makes the
face pop out of the background, and that strong look of the hand clasped so
tight that the knuckles look almost white by the strain.
I am middle aged and yes I could of made my skin look smooth
and vibrant, but that’s not the look that I was going for, I think it wouldn’t
suit my personal look and would look tacky.
There’s no point in going through each layer that I produced
to the image as this write-up isn’t about that and there are plenty of YouTube
videos that can explain it better than me. What I can tell you is that yes I
did remove blemishes that stood out that I removed, but the rest of the work is
based on adding adjustments to contrast, exposure, adding what is called cures
that adds either light or shadow to different point in the image. Brightening
the eyes is a point that’s worked on to show a central point to the image. Then
playing with the colouring and adding graining to the image is what gives that
very different look the whole view of the image.
In total there are twenty-four layers to the
image and there is two stages to the image.
Stage 1.
Original image.
Stage 2.
Removing blemishes, working with curves, levels and vibrancy.
Stage 3.
Working with curves, vibrancy, selective colour and graining
is the final stage to the image. (see
image at top of page).
The thing I love about this kind of work is that you can do
one style on an image and then come back to a few weeks later or even months,
and then come up with a whole new style to the same image.
This took just over and afternoon to complete with a few
brakes in between, as you need to come away from the screen for a while to look
at something else before going back, its then that you may decide that
something you’ve done just doesn’t look right and can go backwards to a point
that you can begin work again.
Post editing is styling an image, and when
you’re doing it for yourself then you’re the only critic till you share it with
others. Some will love it, while some will hate it, but that’s photography for
you and you have to take others critique on board as it’s a way of learning.
