Day by day I stumble upon a sentence so popular by many photographers – “Straight from the camera”, a.k.a. “As is”. Almost complete portfolios stamped with a same sentence.
I started to think of all the possible reasons artist would have to put such a remark.
So far the list looks like this:
1) Level of the photographic mastery achieved
2) Allergy to digital pixel editing
3) ?
4) ?
Suddenly I have started to evoke some memories and lines read at various books covering the subject of photography. As I remember, even great masters of photography like Ansel Adams, used developing darkroom techniques to get the results they were after.
The final product was always a mixture or photographic result combined with the technique used during the development process. Now correct me if I am wrong but modern digital cameras are rarely set-up to produce perfect photos straight from the camera. More than anything, within reasonably correct exposure they represent a worthy material to be fine tuned in the digital darkroom. Shooting raw and even more potential is at our disposal. You do not want to use aggressive in camera algorithms just to make great “As is” photo, when most probably you can do much better after a slight post processing touch.
A small digression now, some months ago i have submitted a couple of photos to the corporate calendar contest that was about to be produced. Luckily, the people who considered my photos worthy selected 4 from the 5 I have submitted to be included in the calendar. The calendar was a great success, printed in some 2.000 copies, and even received some external recognition and exposure. But the reason that I am sharing this lines with you is not to brag about the calendar success, but instead to tell you about a small discussion with some of the people who also had a photo accepted. They, as a ‘native’ photographers questioned the use of Photoshop and other imaging tools telling that every photo can be successful that way !
I can hardly agree with that sentence, and we all know that the one’s who “loose” have all the rights to be angry, but c’mon people, aren’t most of the photos in the pre-printing color-corrected, with adjusted sharpness, contrast and brightness settings, depending on the machine and person used to process them? Even the photos of the other submitters from the calendar project got the needed impact by contrast and saturation boosting, they didn’t even seem to notice 
So at the end I was proud to say that each and every of the photos I have submitted was digitally enhanced to the extent I considered needed (I am not speaking about photo-montages here).
So at the end of this long write up, what are the conclusions.
For me, do whatever you want with your artwork and i will respect it regardless of the methods used. If it makes me say Wow, i will say so. If you can do it straight from the camera, i salute you, if you do a marvelous post processing, than i will also admire your photography and also the skills and time you have invested to developed even more remarkable artwork.
Just please do not tell me that when some out-of-the worldy razor sharp macro and other photos that you make, with the color pallet not matched in our cyber space do occur, that you exclusively produce them “As is” (do you use a tripod by the way or your hand holding technique is also flawless ), as we all know how easy is to get the job done.
For a couple of photos i may just take your word for it, but for the complete “As is” portfolios, well consider me skeptic here.
And if you do not like Photoshop or learning new ways to improve your technique, please do not tell me that it is a wrong approach. It is like you do not accept to use a PC, because pen and paper, or abacus or typewriter machine are doing a better job.
It also makes me wonder why the hell you are using internet where there are still some good old conservative ways to share your work with the outer world without entering a digital era you already do not like !
P.S. Not to be wrongly interpreted, I appreciate all the efforts one makes to learn as long as we are alive, so I think it is wise to use whatever makes our life easier.
P.P.S. A big salute to the photographers who really are able to make their “Straight from the camera” photos so stunning as they are, as far my own are concerned, I swear that 99% of them are digitally enhanced ! But I will continue working on my technique as much the time allows, so even if I do not make “As is” remark, i just may post some that came to the existence that way
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As one of my most successful photos of all times, this photo was a bit cropped and rotated since i did not succeed to make a perfect horizontal “from the hand” alignment. The photo is also digitally converted to monochrome, since this way it conveys much more of the mood I wanted to preserve and remember.
P.S. You can read more at:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/millagios/journal/5122935-straight-from-the-camera-a-k-a-as-is
