 Text and Photos by I.B. Andi Sucirta
Based on my experience, photography is not only about gears. Photography is closely related to how you wisely and correctly use your gears, resulting in good photographs. The secret does not lie behind the technology utilized. Technology changes, but good photography is eternal.
On my journey in photography, I always hold one value dearly: shoot it right from the start. This is true since the analog era to the digital era, in which we are presently in.
Digital photography does not magically transform a bad picture into a good photograph. Digital photography is used to get the best out of an already good photograph. If we are able to do just that, we already have all the correct basis. Whether the picture will be further post processed digitally is a different story altogether.
Easy & Simple
Photography as a hobby, certainly not my main job, forces me to invent strategies in order to pursue photography further. One such strategy is to make this hobby easy and simple.
Currently I have one camera and one lens. The reason is very simple: I can only afford to buy one camera and one lens. This condition has its own benefits: I can simply concentrate more on the subject hand than on my gears, and obviously the weight of my gears is substantially less than the others’. Other accessories include a tripod, a hot-shoe flash,memory cards, spare batteries, and a few filters. Before taking a photo, I always make sure that the batteries, including the spares, are charged and full, the memory cards are empty or already transferred onto the computer, and always carry spare memory cards.
Developing Ideas
I always try to gather as much information as possible about a photo object. The goal is to get answers for: who,what, where, when, why and how. I imagine all angles, compositions, shutter speeds and others. It does not matter whether the imagination will apply in the field. It is the preparation and the planning that is important. In the field I just improvise depending on the condition. I also try to think about concepts and creative ideas, by learning what othershave done, and probably have not done. I say “probably” because I have no ability of knowing whether an idea has been implemented into a photograph or not. Almost all ideas and techniques has beenapplied onto photographs. What is possible now is to develop those same ideas creatively.
Digital photography enables people to learn photography in easier manner. Only creative process now distinguish one photographer from another. On this, do not confuse creativity and digital postprocessing. (translated by Remigius Budhi Isworo)
Photographers Tips
1. Do not be afraid with experimentation. Digital photography gives us more room to experiment. Do not get easily satisfied with the result.
2. I concentrated my early digital darkroom processes, using software such as Adobe Photoshop, on its main features such as level, curve, brightness/contrast, color balance, hue/saturation, dodge/burning, clone stamp, layering, and simple selection techniques. After mastering these features, I moved onto other tools and features.
3. I often use post-processing to clean-up dust spots on my images due to dirty lens or sensor, using clone stamp. I adjust exposures using level, curve, brightness/contrast). I also use color balance, hue/saturation to adjust the overall color. Besides, I use localized color adjustment and adjust the sharpness of the image.
4. In finishing up I save the file as a copy of the original.
5. In this digital era, people are often satisfied by the image on the monitor. I would suggest that you should print some of your photos. Printing photos is an art on its own merrit. By expreimenting you will find what your looking for.
Copyright Andi Sucirta
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Exposure photographic magazine; Un-gearing Creativity. 