Editing Photographs, Before and After

After taking a photograph it is usually a good idea to edit to improve it. With editing you can emphasise the colours, textures or subjects you like best in the picture. Here are some of my photographs that I have used iPhoto to manipulate to improve them.

This photo was taken in the Edinburgh train station. I thought the linear quality was interesting but I thought that editing it could make it more effective. I firstly straightened the picture slightly to look more aesthetically pleasing. To make the picture more dramatic, I decided to make it black and white and increasing the contrast. I think the edit was successful because it became more intense and complex.

This picture is of a painted wall in the Edinburgh City Art Center cafe. The original picture had quite dull colours so I decided to intensify the colour  and increasing the warmer colours. I thought the rough texture of the wall was really interesting and I wanted to emphasise this aspects of the picture. I increased the definition and contrast and I think the result is very effective. 

This photograph was taken outside Victoria Park in Bath. The tree on the left hand side had intense red  leaves that didn't show up strongly on camera so I increased the contrast to bring out the sharp colours against the dark shadows. I thought that there was too much of the shadowed side of the tree in the photograph so I cropped out some of the left side and some of the sky because it was grey and dull. I think the final photograph is much more effective than the original because you are more focused on the main subject of the picture and the colours are more intense.

Long Exposure Photography

Long exposure is a genre photography that uses a longer than usual exposure time to emphasize movement in a picture. It is often used to give the effect of flowing water looking smooth, streaks of car lights or trails of people. 

How to take a long exposure picture.

You need:

·        A camera.

·        A tripod, it is very important to keep your camera still as the slightest movement could spoil a picture.

·        A remote, this means that you can take the picture without moving your camera when you press the button to take a picture.

·        A filter, so you can have a long exposure and not let in too much light.

There are 3 things you need to take into account whilst taking a long exposure picture to let you know how much time you should be leaving the shutter open:

·        Exposure: You don’t want to much light coming in so you need to be aware of how much daylight there is, what aperture you’re using and what your ISO is.

·        What do you want your final image to look like : How much blur do you want in your shot. Depending on how long you leave the shutter open, the more your image will be blurred. You can blur things out a little, a lot or make them totally disappear.

·        How fast is your subject: you will have to adjust your shutter speed depending on if your are shooting a fast moving object like a car or something slower like a human.

I like this genre of photography because it can be difficult to show speed or movement in a still picture but through this clever use of exposure and shutter speed photographers can create this surreal and dramatic image that clearly convey what is happening in the picture. 

Here are some of my favorite long exposure photographs:

Photographer: Bill Wadman

Photographer: Cameron Jung

Photographer: Darren Moore

Sources:

http://digital-photography-school.com/8-tips-for-long-exposure-photography/

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2014/10/24/long-exposure-photography-how-to-set-up-your-camera/