Archive for August 1st, 2008

01 Aug 2008 At Large In Quebec
Author: Gail |  Category: Canada, Food + Drink, cameraphone  | 3 Comments

I’m writing this in recovery mode from the wonderful dinner you see here (and more, consumed but unpictured), prepared for me by my host in Quebec City. It is my first visit here and I rolled up at dinnertime from a long drive that started in Toronto this morning. Look what I was greeted with!

spoiled in Quebec City (vegetarians, look away!)

I had two passengers with me from Toronto to Montreal, people who each responded to my ad in Craigslist for a shared ride east. There was another person who was a tentative but didn’t come because he SLEPT IN* and I said we weren’t going to wait for him. But the three of us who did travel had a quick five-hour drive to Montreal thanks to music and plenty of easyflowing conversation. I dropped them off downtown and found my way to the Pont Jacques-Cartier to continue to Quebec City.

Pont Jacques-Cartier

Strangely, THIS bridge photo was the only one of the batch I uploaded from my cameraphone via email that was posted to Flickr. I have several others, but I’m not reposting them now in case they’re all delayed in a data bottleneck and get released in the middle of the night, making me eat my words… really, I can’t eat my words, in fact, I can’t eat anything else — did you see my dinner plate? I’m going to crash and burn now, because Georges warned me it is going to be A VERY EARLY MORNING. We’re heading up north!

* There’s more to this story, it’s funnier in person. Remind me to tell you later!

01 Aug 2008 A Critical Eye
Author: Gail |  Category: Life Lessons, Photography  | 5 Comments


[original]

twilight Neesa
[post-processed]

There was a time when I would have been happy with the top photo and uploaded it right away, but that time has come and gone. Now I look at my photos differently, and look for things to improve on. Part of developing a critical eye is learning what Photoshop can do, but also learning what it can’t. You can’t perform miracles with it, but you can do wonderful things.

That said, I don’t want to take photos with the idea of fixing them after, because — let’s face it — Photoshopping is onerous work. From a purely creative standpoint it’s exciting, but the work itself is nothing short of painstaking, even with shortcuts such as actions (basically macros, or a series of tasks/commands played back/automated). There are people who shoot only in RAW format, but I’m not one of them — that kind of workflow would mean I’d sleep even less than I do now.

If I had a choice between pre- and post-processing, I’ll take photography any day. But cameras, no matter how sophisticated and expensive, will NEVER ever match the ability of a human eye to focus, find the perfect exposure, white balance, or replicate colour. That’s where Photoshop comes in.

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