gwytherinn.com

Thoughts on Taking Photos

Gwytherinn | July 8, 2008 | 10:35 am

I lost my photo gallery in the move to a new host. I suppose “lost” is the wrong word to use, as I intentionally did not restore it. I actually forgot about it completely until a friend mentioned it to me one day…. in realizing it was still there, I decided that it would be one more thing to renovate on the site. It was a relic, and an oversized, bloated one at that.

I’ve been alternating between researching new options to display pictures and looking through the first batch of pictures I’ve taken in years (yes, years) while on a hiking trip the other day.

I go through a lot of mental wrangling when it comes to taking pictures. (But then, don’t I with everything?) I switched to a digital SLR a few years back and I feel as though I lost something important in the transition. I don’t think I’ve ever been strong on the technical aspects of photography, but this has really allowed me to slack off. So while the camera has more than made up for itself in the volume of pictures it allows me to take, it allowed me to completely let go of the understanding of the way things work. There was a finite amount of tries to get the shot right with a manual SLR. I had to calculate to get the shot the way I wanted it. I’d like to get that back with my digital.

Another thing is, I adore color. I’ve always found that the pictures taken on my digital SLR have been lackluster in comparison to what is in front of me. I’m being pretty harsh on myself as I look through these shots and recall how deep the colors were when viewing them in person and the comparison to what I captured. I’ve always been frustrated with the idea that one needs to “retouch” the shots in a photo program to get them to look their best. I’m trying to move away from that… Reading through a photo retouching thread last night on Flickr, I came across someone commenting on “purists.” It’s not that you’re doing anything different from the way it used to be with the darkroom process - there was certainly retouching going on there - it’s just that the tools are now different. And you know what, he’s right.

So, I think one of the things I’d like to tackle in the near future is relearning the technical aspects of photography and sharpening my understanding of them - learning to work with my DSLR rather than letting it dull my abilities.

The 27 that made the cut.

I’ve also opened a Flickr account.

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