Photography in the Sun

Today, we had our first BBQ of the season! Below are some of the photos I took of my friends and I from the afternoon.

I have always enjoyed photography and the prospect of editing photos; I was always the one to bring a camera to a party and the keen one to upload all of them as soon as I got home that night. What is it that I enjoy about the process? I guess my love of taking photos has stemmed from my need to rigorously document my life (the very same reasons for keeping a diary) and the need to edit them is my desire to be a better photography and produce images that are beautiful and meaningful. Doesn't everyone feel that tiny bit proud inside when someone makes their Facebook profile picture a photo that you've taken? 

However, when I first started editing photos (I was about 14), I went completely overboard; over saturating every image and introducing funky colours. Looking back on it, the photos looked horrendous, but in that time since not many people were into editing, these photos seemed cool. Maybe in the back of my mind I was trying to imitate all those photos that I saw in fashion magazines. 

Every since then I've kept at it and tried to improve, encouraging my friends to do the same; there is nothing worse than waking up in the morning after a night out and seeing an blurry, murky photo of yourself looking awful.

So whats the magic secret? How does one take an amazingly, mind blowing photo? The most honest answer I've found is on an article by Christopher O' Donnell on photoargus.com , he says 'Photographers often ask me what is the most important step in editing my images and are often disappointed by my response, hoping to hear about some secret Photoshop workflow. The most important step – hands down – is to take a photograph that is strong on its own and does not NEED to be edited. Most of your photo enhancements can be done in-camera before it even makes it to your computer, and does not compare to anything you can pull off in the darkroom. If you find yourself editing your images in order to correct them, and not enhance them, go back in the field and try again'.

 I think this is advice I need to follow myself, and I would probably save a lot of the time I spend endlessly browsing and meticulously editing all the photos that I take.

However if that doesn't work, he also says 'when you’re done editing your photo, undo the last step you did and it will look perfect. What this means is that we can get so caught up in the editing moment that we fail to see how far we’ve progressed (or damaged) our image'.

Interestingly similar to the wise words of Coco Chanel!,  'When accessorising always take off the last thing you put on'. 

(source:http://www.thephotoargus.com/tips/3-signs-of-bad-photo-editing-and-how-to-avoid-the-common-pitfalls/)