When I was in high school I became interested in photography, so I started taking a photography course. It was just an introduction course and where I only learned the basics, but ever since then I sometimes like to pretend I'm a photographer. I also used to dance competitively, so I would often use the girls on my team as subjects. Now let’s be honest, an introduction class will only get you so far. I don't care how many pictures you take, sometimes I can't make my camera capture the image I have in my head. That is where Photoshop and Photo editing come in to help me mould that image until it resemble the finished product I am aiming for.
At a competition I was at, I took a picture of some of my team when they were performing a dance called “Colour Blind”. The song they used was very dramatic as were the costumes, so I wanted a dramatic picture to represent this piece. However it is hard to capture the perfect image when people are not posing but moving around (in this case dancing). So I waited until the dancers where suspended in a moment in the piece and I finally capture the image I was looking for. Later when I went to look at the photo I felt like something was missing, it wasn’t quite the dramatic image I was trying to get a cross. By playing around with all the features on Picnik I created the image I couldn't get my camera to capture.
At a competition I was at, I took a picture of some of my team when they were performing a dance called “Colour Blind”. The song they used was very dramatic as were the costumes, so I wanted a dramatic picture to represent this piece. However it is hard to capture the perfect image when people are not posing but moving around (in this case dancing). So I waited until the dancers where suspended in a moment in the piece and I finally capture the image I was looking for. Later when I went to look at the photo I felt like something was missing, it wasn’t quite the dramatic image I was trying to get a cross. By playing around with all the features on Picnik I created the image I couldn't get my camera to capture.
(Thank you Picnik)
Although sometimes tools like Photoshop and photo editing can be what save a picture, there is such thing as too much editing. For example, I have a favourite baby picture of myself. I'm in my crib about to make my escape ( you can tell by the mischievous smile ) I am clearly trying to escape because my parents for some reason thought it would be ok to terrorize their daughter by hanging clowns above her bed. Also I had always liked it because of how the bright baby blue colour in the background stood out, but I wanted to see what it would look like if I played around with it on Picnik. First I tried the camera tool called “1960’s” to make it look older and more vintage, to show it was a moment from the past.
Although the “1960’s” camera tool definitely made the picture look older, it removed one of my favourite parts of the picture, the vibrant baby blue background of the room. So then I tried to bring the colours out in the photo by using the “Vibrant” camera tool to make the colour of the background really pop out.
The result is an a bit messy, I definitely was not the colour of an orange as a baby. So really, not what I was going for. Although it looks kind of cool, I felt like it was still missing something. So I left the picture in its original state.
There are definitely imperfections in the original. It's not exactly focused and the colors don't pop as much as they should, it's the imperfections that photo editing would make perfect, that make this picture perfect to me.
Photo editing tools are definitely awesome and great to use. They can completely change your picture and make the picture tell a whole different story. But as with any good thing, there's such thing as too much. Sometimes the imperfections make a picture perfect!
