The Rabbit Hole of Creative Post-Processing

The Bar at Gold Hill. Gold Hill, Colorado, 2013 (A creative filter example.)

After yesterday’s post, here is an important follow-up…That is, some things to think about before you launch yourself cranium-first down the rabbit hole that is lined with the colorful boxes of the myriad creative software options available today. To wit: What exactly is your creative vision? Where do you want to go with your photography? What is your personal style, or what do you want to be your personal style?

If you have at least some partial answers to these questions, you stand a good chance of emerging from the rabbit hole with your mind intact and your mouse-click finger arthritis-free. If you know where you are going, photographically, you will be looking for specific tools that will give you a specific look. There is less chance of you simply spending the next 140 years slobbering over the millions of possible presets, filters, and slider combinations.

For an example of a photographer with a clear vision, a clear style, and who cares about the software tools only insofar as they serve to carry his vision to print, look at Cole Thompson’s work at Cole Thompson Photography. He claims to know roughly six things in Photoshop and that’s it. That’s all he needs to make his photographs so that’s all he cares about. You certainly won’t find him trapped in the rabbit hole! (Cole, by the way, is our guest presenter this month at the Colorado Nature Camera Club. Be there or be square: 7p.m., November 21, Colorado Mountain Club offices at the Table Mesa Shopping Center in south Boulder.)

Yes, there is something to said for playing around in some of these creative post-processing programs. First, it’s fun! More to the point, though, you might actually discover something that resonates with you if you are not on a specific path already. So, sure, play around a bit. Experiment. But, always be thinking about where you really want to go with your photography.

The big question: What is it you want to say with your work? (And I ask as if I know the answer to my own question!)

Thanks, Cary Wolfson, for the “rabbit hole” idea.