[Critiquing Skills and Issues] About how critiquing, composition and shooting link together

[[Geoff Slocock]]

I am beginning to appreciate just how beneficial it is to carry my knowledge with my camera and apply it when shooting. I know stuff about how to alter the image from the camera. I know too that aspirational shots that I earlier went for could and should be improved.

Ansel Adam's perfected his position of shooting, knowledge of time of day and lighting conditions as well as the dark room techniques for "The Tetons and the Snake River", shown below.



My idea is for us to create a discussion of instances where we have gone out and taken a shot and successfully made our decisions and our plans for processing, based upon the knowledge that we have acquired. For one thing, I think a few case histories being set out could help everyone to develop their photography.

I know that in my case I will judge how much to underexpose in order to keep skies and other light areas from being blown away. I will also consider what rules of composition could be applicable and allow sufficient margins at the edges of my shots if I need to rotate the shot and lose parts of the edges, in that way.

But, anyway, I will look for a suitable case history to write up.

[[Geoff Slocock]]

Working in RAW is I think quite a lot about making planned improvements in your work, in the light either of experience or in the search for ever more more impactful results.

Creativity is best encouraged by way of stretching out for this or that. In my own case, working in RAW lets me adjust the tone curves so that I have highlight areas of the shot safe from being overexposed and yet I have the basis to a pleasing distribution of tones.

It is possible to tackle this issue by way of recovering highlights and shadows; and I used to use that methodology.

HDR is not always possible and practical. And I am using Tone Mapping more and more for the purposes of playing with the dynamic range within my pictures. Admittedly these are more advanced skills and there is stuff that needs to be considered in contradistinction, too.

Tone reproduction is part of the theory of photography. And I guess I am learning more and more about the application of such aspects of theory. It is possible to write how tos on on doing RAW processing; but I think this is must be done in tandem with acquiring an underlying theoretical appreciation.

Dodging and burning techniques applied at the post processing stages is one way to differentiate the intensity of tone across the picture. And, here again, working in RAW can help in the production of your "starting" image.

In my taking a shot I am often planning ahead in these sorts of ways. But others will plan for different considerations and I, too, will shift my focus of attention, as I develop.

Finally, in this GIF from Wikimedia, we can see quite dramatically what difference in mpact, tone changes can make. The Golden Gate Bridge: