good photography

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Combatting the Interdump

All photographs by Renee Beaubien

Oh, technology’s a wonderful thing!

More people taking more pictures and writing more nonsense and dumping them onto the digital airwaves every second! Never before in the history of man has so much garbage circulated so quickly over the entire breadth of the globe so comprehensively! The Age of the Mediocre is truly upon us!

Like I’m doing anything but adding to the problem by making that observation. No, the whole point, as Jared Lanier pointed out in You Are Not A Gadget!, is to think about what you post to the Internet before you actually post it.

If you’re writing, that means giving the piece a draft or two, maybe checking the spelling and grammar, hell, even editing a bit if it won’t entirely short circuit your self esteem.

But what about photographs?

Simple, right? Shoot and upload. Why does there need to be anything else to the process?

Because of the simple self evident reason that it’s more rewarding for people to look at a good picture rather than a bad one. Or mountains and mountains of mediocre shots.

My wife the photographer and I had an extended discussion on this subject when we dared to go for a long walk a week or so ago, the temperature having finally risen to something bearable to exposed skin. I asked her why she wasn’t taking her camera along with her? She replied she’d already worked enough on photography that day already. But you haven’t taken any pictures yet! I protested.

We then outlined in detail the full process of what photography has become for her, as someone trying to take a serious approach to her Flickr account. A process that has certainly become a lot more than just shoot and upload.

Doing a little old fashioned systems analysis, we decided there are actually twelve steps to her process in today’s technological universe. In short order, they are:

1.   Find or compose something worthwhile to take a picture of.

2.   Actually take the picture. Or in most cases, pictures.

Because you can, with a digital camera.

3.   Do a pre-sort on the camera itself, checking for photos that

don’t make the grade up front and deleting them there and then.

4.   Upload the remaining photographs to the computer.

5.   Work through this group and edit out the ones that still aren’t quite up to snuff.

6.   Organize the selected photos by theme into folders.

7.   Choose the best shots within the theme.

8.   Do digital editing on any shots that need the work

or are improved noticeably by doing so.

9.   Organize the final selected and reworked photos into an album for Flickr.

10.   Add watermarks for identification and copyright purposes.

11.   Upload the album to Flickr.

12.   Backup the new project on a stand alone terabyte drive from the computer.

Do all that, and then you have a finished piece of work worth posting on the Internet.

But don’t take my word for it. Take a look for yourself.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Weather Girls go to war on Monday, in Chapter Seven of The Electric Detective, posting Monday this week, while the remaining Contestants take a trip to a different sort of space place in Episode Eight, Lem-Ish, starting on Thursday, April 2nd — a day early to allow for Good Friday being a holiday. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Meeting strange manifestations of inner fantasies made real face to face. That’s a normal week for me writing this stuff, but now the Contestants get a taste of it too. 

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

All with illustrations by the author. Working through the Contestants in order of their appearance. But there’s been some problems with the scanner, so appearances may be deceiving.