[Slideshow: partial screen captures from the Adobe Lightroom program, showing four basic phases in the editing of a photo I eventually posted on Instagram. The first two really required little if any “manipulation” on my part; they happened in the camera itself. My involvement didn’t even click in until step (3). For some technical details, see this separate page (opens in new tab/window).]
Instagram is typically counted among the social media, but it doesn’t in fact quite “fit” among Facebook, Twitter, etc. After all, it focuses (ha) not on the social — not on human interaction — but simply on visual representations of the world: pictures. The general nature and purpose of a given picture depends on the person or institution who posts it: it might be self- or product-promotional, or artistic, or more — or less — clever, or topical, or whatever. Within each of those general categories are various more precise ones: landscape vs. portrait, for example, or pure photography vs. photography-of-other-media (paintings, calligraphy, video, and so on).
Still, after you’ve been on Instagram for a while, it’s hard not to find yourself interacting, via comments and replies, mostly with a consistent group of people — maybe people you know from elsewhere online, or those whom you first found on IG (as it’s sometimes called) and gravitated to based on a common interest — subjects, genres, media, whatever.
One of the folks whose daily posts and commentary about photography I always look forward to seeing recently posted this photo:
[Image used by permission of Chris Sutcliff (Instagram: oldmansutty77). Thanks, Chris!]
…accompanied by this caption:
I’m interested in how you guys edit your work – do you wing it or do you know what you’re doing? Do you use presets or, like me, hurl yourself at edits with no plan or talent? I feel like I’m winging it with occasional flashes of actual insight. I don’t want to tell you how long I spent on this tree (and the alternate shot before it which ended up in the bin under a hail of verbal abuse). I went to the extreme edges and back again, and I suppose I must have learned a lot along the way; lessons like never ever photograph a backlit tree. Everything about this shot was a total bastard, and I have hated every second of editing it. I’m glad it’s dead. It can’t be just me that experiences this level of frustration. Please share your own tales of woe, join me in ineptitude. Thanks.
As it happens, I thought the photo of the tree was just fine as posted — no post-processing recriminations “necessary.” But I also recognized the misery — boy howdy, did I ever!
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