{"id":3163,"date":"2009-12-29T08:04:09","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T15:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/julieharrisphotography.com\/blog\/?p=10545"},"modified":"2013-01-24T10:21:35","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T17:21:35","slug":"to-otto-and-paul-and-the-folks-at-photo-net","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/julieharrisphotography.com\/blog\/to-otto-and-paul-and-the-folks-at-photo-net\/","title":{"rendered":"To Otto and Paul and the folks at Photo.net"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m\u00a0 sitting here, still completely stunned that there was even a thread about my work and post-processing out there on Photo.net.<\/a> I was contacted yesterday by a client of mine who thought I might be interested in the online discussion, and then again by Bill Morgan today, asking if I could respond to this thread.\u00a0 It\u2019s funny, really\u2013If anybody actually knew the way that I worked, both as I shoot and how I post-process my images, they\u2019d be totally uninspired and quite frankly, disappointed. \u00a0 I am a purist with my work and no technical genius by any means, my whites are sometimes blown out and it\u2019s true\u2014my tux\u2019s tend to have a bluish cast to them.\u00a0 My work is often out of focus and sometimes my compositions are completely unorthodox. And the truth is, I don\u2019t even use photoshop, except to re-size my images and to sharpen them for the web (Magic Sharp\u2013which is the only Kubota action I even know how to use).\u00a0 That being said, I do owe you, Paul and Otto an apology\u00a0 for never responding to some of your questions.\u00a0 Quite frankly, I didn\u2019t even know how to answer some of them. \u00a0 Honestly, I don\u2019t consider myself strong enough,\u00a0 technically to be dishing out advice.<\/p>\n

So, without further ado I will share some of my secrets\u2014you may be surprised, and please\u2013if you have something bad to say about me in response please don\u2019t say it here.\u00a0 I\u2019m still reeling from some of the comments on the forum.<\/p>\n

1.)I shoot jpeg.\u00a0 I know, I know<\/em>\u2014the biggest sin of a \u201cprofessional photographer\u201d.\u00a0 This statement right here will probably start an entire new thread.\u00a0 However, I shoot jpeg for 2 reasons\u2013one technical and one practical.\u00a0 I find jpeg color to be truer to reality and easier to manage.\u00a0 I will sometimes shoot RAW if I know that I will be working with impossible lighting situations, but jpeg usually gets the job done for me and I attribute my \u201ccolor quality\u201d to the jpeg.\u00a0 That being said, when shooting\u00a0 jpeg, one needs to make sure that her exposure is pretty dead on.\u00a0 It is true that RAW has much more \u201cinformation\u201d and\u00a0 it is certainly more forgiving.\u00a0 But ahhhhh\u2014the color right out of a jpeg is just yummy.\u00a0 And practically speaking, RAW is just too large.\u00a0 I save all of my original files and already have 2 1TB drives totally full of jpegs\u2013think about how full my shelves would be with over 250 weddings shot in RAW.\u00a0 Shooting jpeg is simply more economical.<\/p>\n

2.)Depth of Field.\u00a0 I touched on this a bit in a post last fall.\u00a0 I almost always shoot all the way open.\u00a0 Even when I\u2019m doing family portraits I will rarely shut down to anything larger than 3.2.\u00a0 This may explain the very soft background and sharp focal points in my work (and also some of the botched up family portraits).\u00a0 My very favorite lens is the 50mm 1.4.\u00a0 It\u2019s what I was using when I photographed Hannah\u2019s headshot\/bridal portrait.\u00a0 You can shoot a portrait with this lens and only the eyes will be sharp.\u00a0 I have never used a tool to blur some things and sharpen others.\u00a0 This is all done with lenses and depth of field.\u00a0 I\u2019m too lazy and have far too many images to edit to use photoshop tricks that can be achieved in camera.\u00a0 For those who are reading this and are not familiar with aperture, the smaller the number on the aperture ring, the more selective the focal point.\u00a0 It is this that creates the creamy depths of field. If somebody wants everything in the frame to be sharp, one would shut down the aperture to a higher number on the ring. \u00a0 The other lenses that I use at weddings are the 70-200mm 2.8 and the 24mm 1.4.\u00a0 Other great lenses are the 80mm 1.4 and the 24-70mm.\u00a0 Prime lenses tend to be my favorite.\u00a0 I shoot with a Nikon D3 and use a D300 as my back up.<\/p>\n

3.)Backlight.\u00a0 I backlight a lot of my compositions.\u00a0 It\u2019s how I get an even exposure on my subjects\u2019 skin.\u00a0 I rarely\u2014and I mean, rarely use a fill light and did not use one in any of the images posted on Hannah and Eric\u2019s wedding post.\u00a0 I absolutely hate artificial light unless one is using it for a more stylized\u00a0 shoot.\u00a0 It looks pretty hokey to me and I\u00a0 prefer my work to look\u00a0 journalistic. Place your subject between yourself and the sun.\u00a0 Be careful though\u2013 the key to beautiful back light is an amazing lens hood, or standing in a shady spot.\u00a0 Otherwise, one can easily blow the entire background out\u2014a mistake I make probably every time I shoot.\u00a0 I also overexpose a bit when doing this to ensure that my subjects face isn\u2019t too dark.<\/p>\n

4.)I do all of my editing in lightroom. Like I said earlier, I never use photoshop or Kubota actions.\u00a0 I find them over-used and often cheesy.\u00a0 And again, I\u2019m too lazy to spend that much time on a computer.\u00a0 I like to shoot\u2013not edit.\u00a0 The one thing that I do in lightroom (and have overdone in the past) is black clipping.\u00a0 On that little histogram, I generally drag the blacks up which tend to pop the colors without making the image over the top contrasty.\u00a0 However, you will lose details in your blacks when you do this\u2013to me an easy sacrifice for beautiful skin tones and colors. I never saturate my colors.\u00a0 To put it frankly, when I sit down to edit my work, I aim to make the images look like film.\u00a0 I like contrast, black blacks, white whites and as many midtones as I can have.\u00a0 I often use the \u201cfill light\u201d tool in lightroom to bring back some detail after I have clipped the blacks.\u00a0 I love this tool!\u00a0 I shot film for years and I studied Fine Art at CU in Boulder and learned how to print\u2013never in the 5 years that I attended class, were we sat in front of a computer and taught how to \u201cpost process\u201d. I was a pre-digital art student.\u00a0 Making the switch from film to digital was hell for me\u2013hell. It took me years to hone my style, and I honestly think I found it by mimicking the look of film.\u00a0 It\u2019s still surreal to me, that people are asking me how I edit my digital.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty ironic, actually.<\/p>\n

5.)This isn\u2019t a secret to my work, but the fundamental way that I try to live:\u00a0 Everything I do, I do because I like it for me.\u00a0 I never took workshops, never stalk forums, and try to keep myself from obsessing over other photographers work.\u00a0 There are days that I\u2019ve spent hours looking at other photographer\u2019s work and then wanted to throw myself under a bus.\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 I can\u2019t compare myself to others.\u00a0 My work is my own.\u00a0 I am an artist and have found a style that works for me and that my clients like.\u00a0 There are a lot of people who don\u2019t like my work\u2014hell there have been some days when I check my stats and see that \u201cjulie Harris Photography Sucks\u2019 is an actual search string.\u00a0 I don\u2019t claim to know more than anybody, and I\u2019m certainly not technically driven, but I will say that I absolutely love the art of photography and am inspired by all sorts of photographers\u2014not just the perfect, \u201cby the book\u201d ones\u2026\u00a0 Nan Goldin in actually one of my favorite photographers and if her work were ever posted on a forum and people didn\u2019t know that she was famous and respected, I believe that her work would be shredded.\u00a0 My advice to anybody trying to learn some tricks is to keep it simple\u2014do what works for you and keep your work pure.\u00a0 One of the posters on yesterday\u2019s thread, said: \u201cone\u2019s eye is the finger print to her work.\u201d\u00a0 And that pretty much sums it up.\u00a0 The camera is an extension of your soul\u2013it\u2019s how you see and interpret the world.\u00a0 Focus on this, and the technical aspects will follow.<\/p>\n

peace!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m\u00a0 sitting here, still completely stunned that there was even a thread about my work and post-processing out there on Photo.net. I was contacted yesterday by a client of mine […]<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTo Otto and Paul and the folks at Photo.net - Julie Harris Photography Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/julieharrisphotograp1032.live-website.com\/blog\/to-otto-and-paul-and-the-folks-at-photo-net\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To Otto and Paul and the folks at Photo.net - Julie Harris Photography Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m\u00a0 sitting here, still completely stunned that there was even a thread about my work and post-processing out there on Photo.net. 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