Image Quality is Job One

A few weekends ago my wife was invited to the baby shower of the photographer friend who I made the photo mobile for. Typically this is a ladies only type of event, but the father to be invited me over as well. It was being held at his uncle’s house and this uncle has a great little shop that all the guys were going to be hanging out in during the baby shower. So, while my wife was taking pictures of the main event in the big house, I was taking pictures of the fun happening in the shop.

Uncle Bob is a true renaissance man. Among his many abilities include photographer, mixed media artist (metal and stone), granite stonework (as in granite counter tops, tile, etc.), wine maker, mechanic, and I’m sure a number of skills I’m missing. His shop happens to contain a kiln that he used for aluminum metal casting. So, what else would a bunch of guys do while hanging out in a shop? Fire up the kiln, melt some aluminum and make something!

The above photos are some of the ones that I took during the melting and pouring.

One interesting thing that I noted while working on these over the past few days was the level of attention that each photo received. Even thought these were primarily for use by those attending, and their use would not extend beyond a few viewings, I couldn’t not give each photo my attention to detail. I went through the same process for these photos that I would go through for a client’s work. After selecting the “keepers” I spent at least an hour performing a high level of fine tuning for each photo in Lightroom.

Afterwards I asked myself “Why did I do this?” The viewers would not notice the slight changes that I made to each photo. Yet, I felt I had to make those changes. These are my photos and even if viewed just once, they reflect upon me and the quality of my craft. Not giving each photo at least some level of attention just wouldn’t feel right.

The other reason I do this is practice. Each time I process photos, I go through the same general workflow with the photos. This helps me to ensure that no important steps are ever forgotten. I have had a number of requests from photographers I know to document my work flow in order to help them improve theirs. Watch for this over the new week or so…

One Reply to “Image Quality is Job One”

  1. I can really relate to the need for practice, though I probably don’t do it enough myself. After a stretch of being mostly indoors this winter, I know there will probably be some type of creative ramp up required when my shooting becomes more frequent again.

    [Reply]

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