Get it Right

The sun is too strong, even for the cat.

The photo season is over for the year except for the odd phone snapshot. It's usually too hot to go out and anywhere interesting will be overrun by tourists anyway. Most of the pictures I'll be posting for the next month or so will be from the spring.

A few weeks ago I received the scans from two rolls of film. Scans from the lab are always hit or miss (auto roll scan) and this time the white balance was difficult to correct. I dislike making adjustments to photos and it took me a while to adjust colour, exposure, contrast, and sharpening. I don't like doing it and I'm not very good at it. I have a couple of rolls of film left but I'm not sure when I'll use them. In addition to the nuisance of post-processing, film is expensive to purchase and get developed.

Digital photos are easier to work with because Lightroom 'understands' them better and there are many convenient tools for adjusting raw files. But I still don't like messing around with the pictures. There are so many choices that it leads to analysis paralysis and the ease of messing around with sliders easily leads to the over-manipulated look.

Maybe I should take a Lightroom course to improve my skills. But many of the courses I've looked at teach how you how to use the controls but not how to use them judiciously depending on the photo. I think my time would be better spent setting the camera to JPG and one Picture Control and getting good results straight out of the camera.

The photo in this post was made with Hipstamatic on my iPhone. One of the things I like about Hipstamatic is that all the adjustments and effects are added by the program. There's nothing for me to do. When I check a photo in Hipstamatic, it's either a properly done picture or it's not and it gets deleted. I should apply this (lack of) workflow to my regular digital photography. And use slide film when I want to use film. Well, maybe if I win the lottery . . .

I'm not sure if I made sense or just rambled. Anyway, enjoy my relaxing cat.