To Photoshop or not to Photoshop, that is the question.

Digital photography is certainly the method of choice. (There’s no argument there -- hands down, it’s better.) Film, on the other hand, is no longer the medium of choice - at least in most still imaging applications. Digital offers automation, and the freedom from having to reload in the middle of a sequence. We can record hundreds, if not thousands of images on a single memory card. Fantastic! So far we haven’t spent a dime.

Next we upload all the images from an event onto our computer to be viewed, edited, and possibly enhanced using software. I have heard that the editing and enhancing part of the workflow process can take hours of work at the computer. (I recently went to a commercial shoot and watched the digital process at work. It did, indeed, take several exposures and hours to “get it right.”)

Far be it from me to be critical, but whatever happened to the old adage, “get it on the negative?” Why so many exposures to get a single image of quality? I have heard photographers say they expose as many as 3000 shots at a wedding. Help! Time is real money, especially for a photographer. I can’t imagine spending all that time in front of a computer managing that many images. Oy! Having managed a wedding studio for seven years, I remember when the essence of an event, wedding, or Bar Mitzvah could be captured with maybe 200 to 300 exposures. And we still had some we either could not or did not sell.

I am not boo-hooing image manipulation or enhancement, but isn’t it more practical to pre-visualize the image in our mind first, as Ansel Adams did? By applying our technical knowledge before we press the shutter release, we can minimize, or better yet, eliminate the need to spend countless hours fixing things later. I shoot digital, and I don’t know how to use any of the image management software out there, yet I still manage some eye-popper images. (At least, that’s what people tell me!) I still remember the fundamentals I learned from folks like Frank Cricchio, Monte Zucker, Lean Kennemer and Big Daddy. Proper exposure, lighting technique and ratio, modeling, and capturing the spontaneity of action and expression were central to their teaching. O.K., so I’m and “old timer”. The point is, we had no way to fix an image, so we had no choice but to get it right and not waste precious film or time.

It might be worth a try.

I think the photojournalistic approach is awesome and less intrusive at an event. So go ahead -- stalk and shoot, capture the unexpected! I have seen incredible images that were not posed or controlled. I do think some spontaneity is necessary … but why can’t it coexist with controlled posing and lighting? After all, our knowledge of lighting and posing is what separates us from the amateur.

Peter Cardello