While shooting in JPEG during my earlier days, it was also around the same time that I didn’t take note of lighting.
This was a hectic rookie mistake. What was ironic is that I learnt about this in Film. I guess that knowledge didn’t continue over to my photography knowledge.
I think for the first couple of months I shot in BROAD daylight. Literally at 12pm; 1pm; 2pm; 3pm … All in the height of Summer and Autumn when it is still pretty bright in our beautiful mother city Cape Town.
So because I shot in JPEG, the more I edited the images and tried to decrease the amount of brightness, the more I distorted the images. Let me add, this was also around the time when I had just started to learn how to edit in Adobe Photoshop even though I actually had Lightroom (I thought Lightroom was too complicated, boy was I wrong.)
Sigh, needless to say, these images were not great. Want to see? Here you go:
Oh, did I mention how my framing also sucked? Yeah that too. As much as I’m not impressed with my work of then, I am super humbled by how I have grown and also the people who have allowed me to shoot them.
I think I charged R250 by the hour at the time. These images are definitely worth that! I had no idea what I was doing. But, as time went on, I started to grow. I began to practice more, and more. I probably did more free shoots than anything else. I needed to learn somehow right?
The day I discovered RAW was a bit mind boggling. As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post I discovered it via a Photography magazine. I was confused each time I opened up a RAW image via Picasa viewer and seeing how the colour tones changed quickly. From a more enhanced image to extremely dull.
At this time I was already editing in Lightroom, so I began to edit a RAW image that I had taken of a plant by the window of my room in 2015 I believe.
I saw the major difference. Just taking my camera into consideration, a basic DSLR with really little depth, I absolutely NEEDED to shoot in RAW to enhance the quality of my images, while still being able to edit and not lose pixels. So, all my images from thereon out was shot in RAW.
Up until this very day, I am still shooting in RAW. JPEG has it’s own perks, but for what I am doing, and the kind of photographer I am, RAW is what works for me 🙂
So, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. I think no matter how experienced you are in your respective fields, there’s always still more to learn and to grow in. We all still make mistakes, I guess that is a part of being a human being, whether you’re an expert in your field or not.
Grace and Peace.
Models: Chesna Hill; Jessica & brother; Lesley & Gabriela Lindhorst; Zia Pedro; Carlynn Henkeman; Timinay Langeveld
Charlene D. Edwards Photography 