Photographer Clay

Tag: Lightroom

  • It’s all just an illusion.

    So many times, photographers are overly obsessed with copying or recording reality, but what is reality? Is it the way nature truly exists or is it constructed in our minds. If you’re inclined to read article to help understand this phenomenon, go here.

    This visual interpretation of reality truly comes into play with our visual art, photography. What some see as reality may be quite different than what others see as reality. This is why I have become a huge fan of post-processing my images. In many cases it may be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remove distractions from a scene. Sure, I could take time and move trash, trim the brush and leaves but then the light may be different. If we set up additional light sources, we have altered reality. If we setup a backdrop, we have altered reality.

    In my view of the world, I see light, shadow, and vibrant colors when looking at a scene to photograph. In my reality, the camera does not always record the scene the way I viewed it at the time, therefore, I must re-create the scene in post-processing. Is it altering reality or is it bringing my reality back for others to view? I like to believe it to be the latter.

  • Artificial Intelligence and the artist

    Artificial Intelligence and the artist

    Artificial intelligence or AI is being built into photo editing programs more and more. Additionally, this AI is getting smarter, faster, and more intelligent. While the software may never be able to read my mind to completely fulfill my vision it certainly speeds up the process.

    New releases came out yesterday for Photoshop and Lightroom. With each new release of these programs in recent years, I am more and more impressed. Selections are faster and easier to make. The programs are doing a better job of recognizing faces, and now they can recognize facial features. Where this helps me is that often the software can help me make selections of people, objects, or backgrounds more quickly.

    Lightroom AI made all these masks from an adaptive preset. I’m impressed. I know that Adobe isn’t the only photo editing software developer utilizing AI technology but their software is what I have used for years. While there may be some people who believe that it’s getting to “easy” to edit. I say, awesome. Let’s utilize technology and give everyone the opportunity to do this work.

  • Where is your dream photography location?

    Where is your dream photography location?

    Yesterday, I read a social media post on a well-known photography store asking followers what their what was the dream photography location. As you can imagine the vast majority were the iconic locations. Yosemite, Iceland, Patagonia, Antarctic, and so forth. This got me to thinking, all those are awesome places and I’d love to photograph them but are any my dream locations. My answer was no. I’m not sure of my dream location but I am pondering it as a result of the question.

    My dream location isn’t going to be the iconic area that has been photographed ad nauseam.

    What about the back roads of Kansas, Missouri, or Nebraska? We rarely see the landscapes of those areas. We see loads of Yosemite, mountains, waterfalls, the ocean. We see lots of locations of what many of us think of as exotic.

    All of this reminds me of a couple of trips. One my wife and I went to visit our son when he was stationed at Camp Lejeune. We were going to the beach one day. The bartender at the hotel where we were staying said she hadn’t been to the beach in years. The beach was only a mile away from our hotel. Then the time in Colorado where my wife was admiring a view of the mountains and the local said, “yeah it’s always there.”

    My dream location is maybe my local area with time to spend just cruising the backroads finding what I can find.

  • Lightroom Remix

    Lightroom Remix

    I made a discovery yesterday evening! There is a feature in Adobe Lightroom that allows you to edit an image and submit it to the Adobe Lightroom community to allow them to remix your edit. It is interesting to see how others would edit your original image. This is a wonderful way to get a fresh look at how others would develop your image which, to me, can enhance creative thinking. I mean think of it, people from all over showing you their creativity with your image.

    This isn’t like sharing with a social media group. There isn’t really a way for them to “critique” the image. So far, I haven’t seen a single issue with people being a jerk about photographs or edits. It is just creative minds giving their take on your image.

    If you’re an Adobe Lightroom user, give it a try. It just may boost your creative thinking.