So I get asked a lot about my images and work. People wanna know how much of it is editing vs. what I capture in camera. While I'm not opposed to photographers editing their images, I do take great pride in what I'm able to capture and create in camera vs. relying on post processing wizardry. There's something so old school about creating it in camera. I personally feel it's more gratifying and is also a greater challenge.
Maybe I get this attitude due to the fact that my roots are based in being a landscape photographer. That's why I've always incorporated so much of nature into my work. So from time to time I'll create posts and videos where I not only show my finished work, but also my completely unedited raw and straight out of the camera work as well. Now for those wondering I won't be posting my raw files onto these posts. Why? Because I don't want other people taking my work and editing it for their use or pleasure.
Sometimes folks post raw shots for others to see. But those are for the viewer to get a look at how a lens or camera performs for example. Or the shot is posted so people can download it and try a certain photoshop technique. This isn't that kind of a post. This post is about showing how much I capture in camera vs. what I create afterwards and I hope it helps to shed some light on what I do.
To start off I pretty much use Lightroom for ALL of my work. This is largely in part to time. I'm not opposed to Photoshop in any way and kudos to those who choose to use it for their work. But with a full time photography company and full time Youtube Channel, I just need the streamlined workflow of Lightroom to get my work done quickly. The only times I would use Photoshop would perhaps be for images being submitted to a competition etc. The work you see on Youtube and on my website is all Lightroom only.
So I did this shoot with a beautiful model named Jazmen Parker in Oceanside, California. I used the Sony A7Rii with the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens. I used the Flashpoint Xplor600 in High Speed Sync for off camera flash.
To be able to illustrate how my shots look in Raw I did screen captures of select images from the shoot while open in Lightroom. These shots are seen in the gallery below:
I then exported these same shots as shown in the screen captures as completely unedited (SOOC) jpegs. This gallery is below:
And here are my shots that were edited using Lightroom only
I truly hope this post helps to shed a little light on what images look like out of the camera for a professional photographer. Links to gear are included below:
**Links to Gear:
Jason