Still looking for the truth

Does an important subject deserve one's best efforts in seeking a good image or will bravado, convenience and incompetence suffice? After all, an image like this one only has to last fifty years or so.

A lot of macho shooters, grew up taking film to the local camera shop or chemist. They'd get back their prints and were usually delighted with what they received. Images seemed consistently well exposed with good contrast. One can jump to any one (or a combination) of three possible conclusions.

1. Modern exposure meters are basically infallible and will virtually always produce terrific results. Post processing is unnecessary.
2. The shooter (probably of the macho variety) must obviously be an expert photographer and all of those wishing to improve their efforts would do well to listen to whatever advice he may choose to offer. He says post processing is unnecessary.
3. The person(s) deciding that their results are so brilliant, wouldn't know a good image if they stumbled over it in the half light and performed severe injury to a shin.

To all of this, allow me to make the following responses:

1. After all these years and as sophisticated as the hardware/firmware camera implementations now are, exposure meter systems are FAR from infallible. They are constantly tricked by prevailing conditions into providing less than optimum results. Overexpose by a tiny fraction and you may easily blow highlights. Underexpose by a little and all those masses of shadow lose their detail. People who believe that "straight out of camera results" rarely need processing have never been in a commercial lab watching operators make constant brightness/contrast adjustments to images moving through to be printed
   
2. No one is expert enough to get perfect "straight out of the camera" results every time. It just doesn't happen - even images that look fine on the rear LCD preview screens can turn out to be unsatisfactory when examined under ideal conditions. Few casual shooters will take the time, during shoots, to meticulously examine preview screens for cropped histograms, poor focus, inaccurate colour balance and camera movement problems. In most cases, if the subject is important and you wish to honour it with a genuinely good image, post processing is essential


3. It has taken me most of my lifetime to be able to assess the technical and artisitic merit of photographic images and I don't always get it right NOW. I DO know that there are few images displayed for me by well meaning macho shooters that could be described as something I'd have been proud of. Most casual photographers delude themselves into ignoring most of the constituent elements of what constitutes a good (as opposed to a serviceable) picture.

Let's examine a theoretical but all too common style of image (NOT the one above).

Yes it IS a lovely picture of the new baby. You can see who it is, she is smiling, the bright yellow shawl does indeed look bright yellow and the top of the subject's head has indeed NOT been chopped off. For most people (even toffee nosed types like me) the content of the image may make it a wonderful keepsake for the whole of their lives. No argument. But don't start telling me it necessarily does its beloved subject justice or that post processing might not have assisted it to BECOME a genuinely good image.

Why couldn't the image have been cropped so that the 40% of the image display area, presently occupied by the cot, be removed? Why couldn't the image be sharpened a little to help compensate for the inaccurate focus and/or slight camera movement blur? Why couldn't the exposure be adjusted so that the left side of the child's face is no longer lost in almost featureless shadow? Why couldn't the white balance be adjusted so that child's face, (lit by tungsten light) be less orange? Why couldn't the transient spec of anonymous vomit (presently adorning the baby's chin) be removed?

If a subject has value, surely it is a dishonour to that subject if every effort is not made to reproduce its image as competently as possible. To anyone with this level of sensitivity, it requires thoughtful camera work, some actual knowledge of imaging ... oh yes .... and post processing.

My work can be seen at: www.pbase.com/davidhobbs