Gosh!
Its been a while since I've been doing my photography course but I'm here and ready to go!
I've started the Digital Photographic Practice course and really looking forward to getting the best of my images through the use of my computer.
Part One is about Workflow and these last few weeks I have undertaken the first two exercises around my own workflow.
The first exercise was around a short portrait assignment and I agreed with Sue, my wife, that she would model for me. I drafted the workflow process for this and this is below.
I had chosen part of my garden which, despite being February, was very green and I thought would provide a good location which met the criteria which was attractive but unobtrusive.
The first problem which I had not considered was the weather! It was raining on the day that we had chosen and I had to quickly rethink what Sue would wear as well as take into account her concerns around her hair! I prepared the camera in accordance with my flow chart and found this part of the workflow easy to follow as I was accustomed to doing this.
I had intended on only taking around 20 images - in reality, I took in excess of 50 which put pressure on the next phase which was around loading and editing down the images. However, I had also put into the workflow a routine that would involve reviewing, editing down, reviewing, editing down etc etc until I reached five images that I was happy with and which I then subsequently processed using Photoshop.
My favorite of these is below.
In terms of adapting the workflow, I need to add in some form of contingency especially around weather (but it also occurred to me what if my model was suddenly not available as well as other potential risks that needed mitigating against) and I also need to be more disciplined in terms of the numbers of images taken on the shoot so that the post shoot processing could be quicker and smarter.
The second, less structured workflow, was considerably easier to apply (although involved more time to both take and edit images as well as process them afterwards) and as as below.
This coincided with a trip to Canada. I found it easier to group the images into sections based on locations that we had visited and then enabled me to process them in manageable chunks. I had anticipated this prior to the trip and when I had drafted the workflow diagram and this worked extremely well.
Again, I took large numbers of images which took a long time to edit down and process not least because I had missed out on one issue which was to set the camera to take images both in JPEG and RAW formats. I had set the camera to take in RAW only which added time to review, process and edit. As a result, a change I would make to the workflow would be at the camera preparation stage which was to check the format settings as well as White Balance, ISO etc etc.
These were interesting exercises which helped me think through how I go about the whole process of planning, processing and organising my photography.
Mark (March 2012)
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