Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: fine art photography

  • So Big!

    So Big!

    Our modern cameras have lots of pixels. This is a great benefit for us, especially if we want to make large prints. But sometimes the files we are editing can get so big we have trouble dealing with them. Why is that?

    Sensors

    I have made the point before that our modern sensors are amazing. The camera I shoot captures 47 MPixels for each shot. That’s 47 million pixels. There are sensors that go up to 150 MPixels in some medium format camera bodies. I haven’t seen the need to move to that yet.

    Why do we need so many pixels? Some will state that we don’t. That it is just pixel envy that keeps us seeking more. There is a good argument that about 20 MPixels is enough for the vast majority of applications.

    That is for you to decide for your own needs and preferences. I can state that I believe the quality of our images has moved far beyond film days. Digital images produce the sharpest, most detailed, most colorful, most editable results that have ever been possible, except in some very niche applications. There is no going back.

    Raw files

    Raw files hold the information that comes directly off the camera sensor. There is minimal processing done. I have discussed Bayer filters and how we get color images. The Raw file is not really an image we can look at yet.

    But there are some great features of raw files we need to be aware of. First, this is the closest we can get to the exact data that was captured by the sensor. Little processing has been done. All the processing and interpretation of the resulting image is ours. Among other reasons, this is a reason to always shoot raw instead of jpg files.

    Second, the nature of the raw file is that it cannot be edited. The original data is always preserved. Yes, of course, I can go into Lightroom Classic (I will always call it just Lightroom from here on) and do amazing things to the image. All of the changes are saved as what are termed “processing instructions“. The original data is never altered. It cannot be altered.

    One of the things this means is that years from now when I have new tools or change my mind about how I want the image to look, I can go back and re-edit it. I can even reset to the original captured bits and start over. No data is ever lost. This is a great things.

    And thirdly, the raw file is relatively compact. My camera captures 47 million 14 bit resolution sensor values, each either a red or green or blue data. It is not yet “demosaiced” to expand the Bayer sensor data to full color data for each pixel. In addition certain meta data values are stored in the raw data. Things like the camera and lens information, capture time, my copyright information, etc.

    Raw file size

    My camera is set to do a lossless compression of the data before saving it. So no data is ever lost in the process. Looking at a randomly selected file I just shot, its file size is 58.08 MBytes on my file system. The size of my raw images varies because of the amount of lossless compression that can be done on each image.

    But think about this a minute. I captured 47 million 14 bit images. This should have been 94 MBytes of data, not counting the extra meta data. I am assuming they store the 14 bits in 2 8 bit bytes. I don’t know if that is true. This means the saved raw file is even smaller than the data that came off the sensor. As I edit it and add processing instructions, the file gets somewhat larger, but seldom huge.

    Photoshop bloat

    Now I sent this raw file to Photoshop and immediately saved it. No editing. The file size is 229.16 MBytes! It is about 4 times larger! And I didn’t even do anything to the image! Why is this?

    Well, Photoshop edits pixels, each a triple of (red, green, blue) values for each pixel. Photoshop expands the Bayer data to the flat grid Photoshop needs, This is what Photoshop works with and what is saved. That automatically makes the file at least 3 times its original size. The raw file was compressed, that probably accounts for the difference.

    Now to illustrate more of what Photoshop does, I added a blank layer and used the spot healing brush to correct a couple of blemishes, very little. Saving the file again grows the file size to 548.08 MBytes! It doubled!

    To continue the demonstration, I added a curves adjustment layer and saved the file again. Now the size is 632.72 MBytes.

    The difference

    It is clear that LIghtroom and Photoshop show very different behavior when editing images. This is because of their nature and design.

    Lightroom is called a parametric editor. It does not modify the image data, Rather, it keeps a list of processing instructions to tell how to change the look of the image when it is viewed.

    Photoshop is a pixel editor. It can add/delete/modify pixels at the most detailed level. You have to be careful that you do not lose the original data. It does not care. It will do any amount of change you request. And it has the power of layers to build of levels of modification. This can lead to huge file sizes.

    Did you know that there are maximum file sizes for Photoshop files? Standard Photoshop psd files can only be up to 2 GBytes in size. Tiff files can only be 4 GBytes. I exceed these limits a lot. The only choice then is to switch to Photoshop’s “big” file type, the psb. It can grow much larger. Actually, it can handle us up to 4.2 Billion GBytes. That will work for a while. 🙂 Unfortunately it is not a choice to automatically use it.

    Any solution?

    Well, there is the “if it hurts don’t do that” solution. Stay in Lightroom for most of your image processing. Only go to Photoshop for situations that Lightroom cannot handle. This is a good strategy and I use it.

    But if you have to do that detailed pixel grooming and you have to use many layers to process your image to your taste, accept it. The cost is much more powerful computers and larger and faster hard drives. I have both. It is a cost of doing business the way I want.

    Editing large files in Photoshop will lead to very large files on your disk. I have a lot of multi GByte files. That is, some of my files have grown to about 100 times the original captured file size! Ouch. I can’t do this routinely. It has to be for special images that are worth the time and file size to do this.

    When you have to call out the big power tool, Photoshop can do almost anything. But the cost can be high.

  • Don’t Rush

    Don’t Rush

    It seems most people rush to share results of any photo outing on social media immediately. But why? Does that make sense? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until you have a few great images ready? Let your work and vision mature.

    Don’t be a slave to social media

    I am freely admitting my prejudice here. I am not a fan of social media and I don’t participate in much of it.

    A lot of people I see feel compelled to post some of everything they do to social media as soon as they are within cell phone range. They put themselves under a lot of pressure. If you are dependent on the “likes” and upvotes you get online, you serve a very capricious master. And what if several people don’t like your work? What do you do? Change? Abandon what you are doing? Who is deciding your style and artistic interests?

    It’s not collaboration

    Is your art a group process or are you, the artist, solely responsible for your creations? “Collaboration” is one of those powerful sounding words thrown around in corporations these days. I’ve been there. I know there is a place for it in corporations where they’re trying to achieve at least an average result and wanting to make several special interest groups feel included. But I claim it is not appropriate for our art.

    Our art should be a highly personal expression. To a degree, it should not matter if it is not universally popular. Maybe we should not try to be universally popular. If it appeals to the masses and looks like “everybody else’s” art, is it a creative expression? My work is going to be my own total responsibiity.

    Ask why you are sharing

    If you are sharing on social media, I think it is important to ask why you are doing it. Likes feel good, but do these people actually buy your art? Sorry to be crude and talk about money, but isn’t that the grease that lets things run?

    If your social media strategy is well tuned and you have a good mailing list of people who are real customers and eager to buy your work, good for you. That is a reason to publish on social media.

    But, how fast should you do it? Conventional wisdom on social media is that you should show work in progress. This is where I tend to disagree. I believe we should never show our work until it is ready.

    Curating takes time

    A lot of my art has to mature. I may have an idea of something I want to pursue, but my first attempts are usually not representative of where I will end up. It is typical for me to have to work with an idea or a subject for a while to refine my view, to understand my underlying feelings about it. The ideas have to age, to mature some. This can take from days to years.

    So if I’m shooting a project, the first images I shoot may be scatter shots all around the idea I haven’t really “discovered” yet. After doing work on the project a while I begin to understand what I really want to say and what will make the best visual presentation. It could be that one or more of those original images actually work for the final project, but that is almost an accident. It usually means I shot an image instinctively even though I did not consciously understand where I wanted to go. But projects can last from weeks to years, so my vision likely evolves over that time.

    In a similar way, it is sometimes the case that I shoot an image, I like it, but something tells me it is not complete yet. Maybe it needs to be worked as a low key black & white image. Maybe I need to do some serious cropping to isolate the part that really interests me. Perhaps I need to composite it with some texture or other elements to complete the look. Or maybe it just isn’t as good as I originally thought.

    Be patient

    If you’re like a lot of photographers, you shoot a lot of images when working a scene. Sometimes it is not immediately clear to me which is the pick of the group. I often have to live with them a while to understand what I was really drawn to. It may take days or weeks before I can look at the set and say “this one” is the one that captures what I was feeling at the time.

    If I am under pressure to get a quick look out to social media, I would find that what I am publishing is not really representative of what I end up with. Maybe that is OK for you. But I do not want anyone to see what I would consider inferior work. A secret of most photographers is that they seem very good because you only see about 1% or less of what they shoot. They throw away or rework what doesn’t work before it ever gets out of their studio. What you do see is good.

    A line from a famous old Paul Mason ad said “We will sell no wine before its time.” I don’t know if this is still true or if it ever was, but the idea has merit. Don’t be in such a rush to get things out. Wait for them to mature. A few great images is more impactful than a bunch of mediocre ones.

    Today’s image

    This is a pano I shot earlier this year. At first it was a pick of the day. I really like the clouds and mountain shapes. After living with it for a while, though, I realized I do not like the foreground or the middle ground (the lower forests are too dark). And there is more visual clutter to remove than I wanted to do. So this went into the “eliminated” pile. There was another one that I liked much better.

  • Overcome Boredom

    Overcome Boredom

    I have written before that we should be able to find interest wherever we are, even if it is familiar territory. I still agree with this, but sometimes it helps to do something different. It is easy to get stagnant without a refresher. So what can we do to overcome boredom?

    Love the familiar

    There is a comfort and special knowledge that comes from working with well known subjects or locations. We get to know all of the moods, the look in different lighting and conditions, the “best” times. When we have a familiar subject we can work when we want, we are not dependent on the luck of what we find the day we are there. We can keep coming back whenever we want to explore how we best like to see it.

    This has always been true. Claude Monet was drawn to his water lilies. Some artists only do portraits, because they are energized by the personal interactions. Guy Tal mostly does images of the Colorado Plateau in Utah. That is what he loves and it is where he lives.

    Probably most of us have a favorite place or subject we are more drawn to and spend a lot of time working with. It is natural. Familiarity tends to build strong ties and a deep appreciation.

    Stagnant

    But if we are not careful, we can get stagnant. We get into a rut. If we keep doing the same familiar thing over and over without injecting new thought or new creative approaches, we will cripple our art.

    Are we able to see something new in the familiar territory? Can we look at the same thing and visualize it differently? This is a skill. Like any skill, it must be developed by thoughtful practice.

    I mentioned Claude Monet. How much can you do with a small pond with water lilies? Well, I recently visited l’Orangerie in Paris. This museum has a special wing built to host an incredible set of paintings he did of his garden. It hosts 8 images, each 2 meters high and 91 meters long. Yes, each painting is 299 feet long! It is quite an experience. This, to me, is an example of creating a fresh approach to a familiar subject.

    Seeing new approaches to the familiar is a great creativity exercise. Sometimes, though, the subject doesn’t support the depth of vision required. We burn out on certain subjects. That is OK. Take what we have learned and fall in love with a new subject. This is one of the advantages of doing projects. A project gives us a subject or a theme to pursue for a while until we feel it is exhausted. Some may run out in a few weeks. Some last our whole career.

    Shake yourself up

    However we do it, we have to shake our self up. Shake off the rust and barnacles. To pull out of the rut and make our work fresh again. What works for you is intensely personal. I am not one to try to tell you what you should do. I don’t like it when someone presumes to know what I need without even knowing me.

    Some things commonly recommended are projects, travel, workshops, classes, and tools. I have tried all of these and all have varying degrees of impact on me.

    I mentioned projects already. This has been very useful for me. Having a project as a focal point for your creativity is stimulating. Taking a subject or a concept you have never seriously considered and trying to make a coherent and excellent portfolio around it is a great creativity exercise. It might give you a fresh viewpoint on other things, too.

    As a personal example, I just returned from an international trip. Rather than going with the idea that I would shoot “everything” that is interesting, I had 4 projects in mind for the trip. Yes, I shot lots of pictures just because they were interesting, but I found myself drawn to my project ideas in a deeper way. They gave me a focus for my creativity.

    Travel is almost universally recommended. Getting out of your comfort zone and into a new environment tends to change our perspective. I believe almost any travel is useful, but that idea of getting yourself out of your comfort zone is important. What I mean is, if you live in Philadelphia, traveling to Cincinnati would be interesting, but going to Utah or France would have a lot more impact. Those are a major change of comfort zone.

    Other tools

    Workshops and classes have good results for a lot of people. I find myself not drawn to workshops for a variety of reasons, many related to my personality and learning style. I do, though, take a lot of classes. Mostly online. There is a wealth of instruction available now. I get many of my classes from CreativeLive or Kelby One. And I get no consideration for referring them.

    Sometimes new tools or technology can spur us on to new levels. New camera bodies with great built in features might cause us to try new things. New software tools might give us incentive to apply new techniques to our work. To think in different ways.

    Whatever works for you, find a way to do it.

    Feed your head

    Like Jefferson Airplane said way back, we have to feed our head (but hopefully not the way they did). Our creativity comes from within. We must protect it and grow it. If we let ourselves get stuck in a creative rut, all our work starts to look alike and we are just repeating the same things over and over.

    Sometimes this is the result of boredom from focusing on the same subjects and the same locations too long. Get out of your comfort zone. Get scared when you cannot find new things to do in your work. Don’t repeat yourself.

    I don’t want to do that. I hope you don’t, either. And have fun while you are doing it. After all, this is your art.

  • The Product or the Experience

    The Product or the Experience

    There is a lot of contradicting statements and articles floating around, especially about photography. I think a lot of it comes down to the statements being more or less true, but the assumptions behind them are different. One of the biggest and often unstated assumptions concerns whether the focus is the product or the experience. Should the focus be the final produced piece or the artist’s state of mind?

    What is the output?

    I am talking about fine art, not commercial photography. What is the purpose of an artist? How do you measure art? Is the artist to be graded on the number of works he creates? Or are there other values or metrics that are important?

    Have you ever been to a great location and not taken any pictures? I have. Sometimes I just want to soak up the experience as it is happening. Enjoy the wonder of the moment. Or maybe I get there and discover I am drawn to something completely different from what I anticipated.

    I will go where my interests take me and not worry about the original plan. Does that make the outing a failure? Not to me. For me there are other considerations besides getting a planned shot or even getting any at all. So the results I value may not be just a particular image.

    That does not seem to be true for some people. There are those who plan an outing to the last detail. Making sure they show up at the “right” spot and time to get the classic light on the subject. If the weather is not what they wanted or conditions have changed, like a forest fire that alters the landscape totally, they are devastated. Not getting the planned shot is a failure to them.

    The product

    Is the goal of an artist to make the most nice works he can? Is an outing a failure if it didn’t result in some minimum number of “keepers”? I think this is a mindset many have. We tend to be very production oriented. Society in general pushes the idea of efficiency. . Sometimes we believe it for our art.

    So, for those times we have gone out to photograph a well known, iconic location , what is your attitude if it doesn’t work out?f Is that a wasted trip? What if all you got was a memory? If your only goal was to recreate someone else’s photograph, I guess it was wasted for you.

    What of the experience you had? Did you experience wonder at the great scene? Did you let yourself be drawn to some smaller scene within the scene? Maybe to something else entirely? Or was the disappointment of having your goal thwarted overwhelming?

    Even if it is not a great icon, what is your goal when you go out? Are you desperate to collect a certain number of good images? Why?

    What is a good image worth compared to a great one? If you create 1 image that you consider shows the peak of your ability as of now, isn’t that more worthy than having a whole memory card full of mediocre pictures?

    My point is that, for art, it is not a game of numbers. Quantity is not better than quality.

    The experience

    Some would say photography is about the experience. That if the artist experiences significant emotion or awe or connection, and if he is able to capture it in a way that helps others participate in the same experience, then maybe he has created art.

    There are a lot of “ifs” and “maybes” there. That is part of the problem. I tend to buy in to the intent of this, but there are a lot of pitfalls.

    One problem with the equivalence postulate is that it can be very difficult to transfer a feeling or experience from one person to another. Or from a piece of art to a person. You have seen it. Have you ever made an image that is dripping with meaning for you, but have someone else look at it and say “meh…”.?

    It is easy to say that I must not be skilled enough as an artist if that happens. Perhaps. But our viewer wasn’t there when we were. The image may not touch the same things in them that it does in us. We all have different experiences and values and feelings.

    I think the point for me is that we should first make images that touch something significant in us. If we are able to do that, them perhaps our viewers can see some of it, too. Then we will have been successful at communicating our experience. If we cannot share our experience through our image, then at least it is notable for us.

    Which are you?

    I have made it pretty clear which way I lean. My images should capture an experience or an idea that is meaningful to me. It is my goal to have you see significance in some of them, too. That said, it can be significant sometimes to just say “wow, that is beautiful”.

    If you are on the other side and feel like you need to collect images of famous scenes or make works that are popular with many other people, then that is your decision. It is your life and your art. I don’t understand why you would let things external to you dictate your interests, but whatever makes you happy.

    Whatever you do, enjoy your artistic life.

    Today’s image

    This article came across as kind of heavy and preachy. So I Iightened up some on the image. But not going off theme.

    This was from a visit to a “famous” landmark in Kansas. It was interesting and I’m glad I went there, but when I turned around, the road leading in to it was more interesting than the landmark. There was no reason to dream there would be a picture here, but I remember this more than I do the landmark. Look around. Be open and flexible.

  • Recording the Obvious

    Recording the Obvious

    The great photographer Edward Weston once said “I see no reason to record the obvious.” But isn’t recording the obvious what most of us do most of the time? What are the alternatives?

    Cameras record everything

    As I have pointed out many times, our marvelous high tech sensors are great recording devices. They do a great job of capturing what they are pointed at.

    Because of that, these days our phones have become an invaluable data capture device. We record a sign we want to look into later, or a wine label we want to remember, or selfies of us and friends. When I rent a car I always do a 360 degree bracket of it before leaving the lot, just in case there are and disputes about when some damage happened. We have our phone with us, so when in doubt, snap a picture.

    Most of this is never intended to be considered art. It is just data. Maybe memories. They are a ubiquitous part of our lives.

    Most pictures are of a clear, well defined subject

    Most of these images, whether on our phone of our “real” camera, follow the rules of composition we have been taught. The subject is centered and as sharp and well lit as we can do. Perhaps we have a clear foreground, middle ground, and background. Maybe we have made the lighting interesting: high key or low key or strong side light.

    What is common is that the photos are “of” something. They are generally straight representation or even utilitarian.

    I do not dismiss this as unimportant. But it is not art. If we want to make art we have to take a different path.

    Can there be more?

    Trillions of pictures are taken every year, no exaggeration or typo. One more image I take is just a drop of water in the ocean. Why should I bother? How can I stand out? What can we do to be a new voice?

    We are often told to be creative. But almost everything has already been tried. True creativity, in the sense of something that has never been seen, is very rare. We may never do something truly creative, but we can do work that is fresh, because it captures our feelings and point of view.

    If we try to get in touch with what we feel and our reaction to a scene, we can capture it in a way that no one else has seen. We are unique, in that our thoughts and experiences and values are different from anyone else. Therefore we should be able to see things somewhat different.

    This difference that is unique to us is what sets our work apart from everyone else. We just have to follow our unique view and not try to make our work look like everyone else’s.

    Look for the story within the story

    You walk up to a beautiful landscape. There are 20 other photographers there snapping away. What do you do? Are you going to make the same image as all the others?

    Go ahead and shoot it. Capture a record of that standard scene. Get that out of the way. Now start responding to it at a deeper level. What do you really see? It may be a famous scene, but what draws you? Everyone else is using wide angle lenses. Maybe you feel like using a telephoto to isolate just part of it. Small sections of a scene can give an impression of the whole. This is making the picture “about” something.

    It doesn’t matter what people expect to see there. What do you see? What tweaks your interest? One fresh, interesting frame is better than a whole memory card full of “me too” shots. You are the audience you have to please.

    Look deeper

    I find it useful to keep asking myself questions and demanding an answer. Especially “why?”. Forcing myself to go through 3 or 4 levels of why questions about a scene can reveal a lot. But only if I make myself answer truthfully and with some detail. It is too easy to accept a vague idea of what I feel. No, be specific.

    Can you find something more there than the surface image? Is it actually interesting? Does it excite you? Paraphrasing the great Jay Maisel, “If the thing you’re shooting doesn’t excite you, what makes you think it will excite anyone else?”.

    So peel back the layers until you discover the truth or essence of what you are drawn to. It doesn’t have to be a deep, profound truth. It could simply be “I really like the way the water is flowing over that rock.” But you have identified what part of the scene you are drawn to and why. Now the resulting image can clearly convey your intent.

    Edward Weston famously told us “This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.” (Guy Tal based a whole book on the idea. It is good. Get it). This statement is pretty Zen-like, but it brings up a lot to think about.

    How can a picture of something as simple as a rock actually be about a deeper idea? Maybe it can or maybe it can’t. I have to say that some of the pictures in Mr. Tal’s book did not bring deep concepts to me. That is the problem of conveying feelings to another person. It doen’t always work. But, the artist attempted it and discovered something meaningful for him. Perhaps I cannot perceive it, but it was there for the artist. It is an honest attempt to bring me more than a rock.

    Get over the obvious

    So I encourage us all to dig below the obvious when we are creating our images. The obvious may be pretty, but is there any substance to it, in the sense of engaging our brain, our thoughts, our feelings?

    I have come to believe that I just bring you the same images you would have shot if you were there, I have probably not added much value for you. I owe it to you to force myself to understand what I was drawn to and capture my feelings, while making a beautiful image.

    Today’s image

    New Orleans French Quarter comes alive at night. The color and interest of this scene really drew me in, but it lacked depth. I had an idea of what I would like to see and I refined it as I watched various people stop and look in. This person finally paused there in the entrance, alone, questioning, swiveling. He seemed torn between conflicting ideas. Go in or keep going? To me this captured inner conflict and moral ambiguity. Choices.