Ex. 4 Editing

This morning I spent an hour or two walking around my local neighbourhood thinking about ideas for the first Assignment for DPP.  I carried my camera and as I found interesting ideas for photographs took a frame to build up an initial set of images as ideas.  In total I captured 126 separate photographs, a good sample to use for this exercise in step-wise editing.  The images are a mixture of fall foliage and modern buildings, deliberately framed both horizontally and vertically.  The goal of this exercise will be to edit the 126 images down to 2, one in each orientation.  The deciding criteria will be to develop two images with complex horizontal layering of content.


When I headed out I measured the light level and determined that I would need to leave the camera on ISO 400 to ensure a high enough shutter speed at f/8 or f/11, I needed good DoF to create the layered images I am trying to create.  I also took a single lens, my 24-105mm f/4 image stabilized zoom, again concerned that on a heavily overcast day that I would need the IS. Subsequently all of the images were acceptable from a technical perspective and so the first technical edit left me with 126 images:

Working through them again, this time selecting images from an aesthetic point of view, I added the best into a Quick Collection, which I then saved as my Selects, 42 images:

Becoming far more critical and starting to get rid of some good images I now worked the sample down to 10, 5 in each orientation.  My criteria now was quite strict around looking for images that contained multiple layers:

Following a lengthy lunch break I took another look through the images.  At this stage I normally work through the original set again, adding ones that are close to meeting my criteria back into the group.  I then eliminate as many as I have newly added, which might include the new ones.  This led to two additions and removals:

Driving down to two for "publication":

The first of these in landscape:

I like this image as it is a juxtaposition of the solitary man at the bus stop with a colossal office block.  The image combines the complex structure of the office with the flashes of colour from the Autumn leaves and the blue of the bus stop.


The second landscape image:

Again this is a layered image with distinct foreground, mid, and background components. The image is bounded by the frame there is no negative space to indicate where the buildings begin and end.  This is a concrete jungle.

My thoughts at the exercise, well nothing new for me, editing images from a single shoot is a relatively straightforward stepwise process, one I am very familiar with.  When I go on vacation, to take underwater images, I capture up to 5,000 frames over 14 days of diving and shooting.  These must be managed and then edited down to 200-300 for publication in a Blurb book and then down to maybe 100 for a slideshow that will not over task my friends patience.

However, reinforcement of principal is a key element of education and this exercise provided me with a good opportunity to go out and have a think about the upcoming Assignment 4.