What could I be doing wrong?

[katrinak]

I'm laughing at the selective coloring comment Sarah! In 20 years we'll all look at our photos and be able to tell what year it was just by our clothes, cars, backgrounds and print processing! No getting away from it so recolor all you want!!

[sarahorton]

Selective coloring will probably be quaint and charming in 20 years ;-) *snicker*

Raising my hand as a fellow chimper. Oooh ooh aaah aaaah. Until I grow a brain cell or two, I need to chimp to check my results. I've messed up too many shots with incorrect ISO, EC or just plain using the wrong settings. I look at it like a carpenter uses the "measure twice, cut once" rule. You can't be too careful.

[katrinak]

Remember that Associated Press photographer in my house? YEARS of experience? Tons of high pressure situations, with once in a lifetime got to capture it to feed the children opportunities? Complete chimp!!

[kminton]

Love this thread! Between the "chimping" and retro back to film.

Personally, I was anti-digitial for so long! I loved film . . . I loved the process of developing and the hands on. . . but really how realistic is a dark room? Once I moved away from my community college and no longer had access, that hands on got to be a little harder to get!

Then came kids and I HAD to go digital to keep up. Still have my 35mm in my closet and claim I'll use it again . . . we'll see!! LOL

And if you have kids -- I imagine you HAVE to check that LCD. My kids are famous for posing and then view. Pose. View. Pose. View. Pose. View.

And I recently watched a professional wedding photographer at my friends wedding. Everytime she changed lighting situaitons (inside, outside, back to inside) she checked her screen . . . after all, who wants an upset bride!!

Thanks for the read!

[iUma]

Ok, I seriously missed the party but which lens did you get, Karen? Brian Peterson and every other digital book I have says check the screen for data - image or histogram. I do it gracefully, quietly, and with rapt joy. NO MONKEYS.

[KarenC]

Patricia, I got a 50mm 1.8.

[SAHMom]

I definitely am not looking at the image so much on the back of my LCD, but the RGB histograms and any highlight clipping that may be flashing. With all that displayed, my image is pretty small to look at! (not sure if only Nikon has that ability, to display full histograms with your image review, but I LOVE it!)

[bluelemur01]

hahaha Sara, I know I sound so irate there. it's just that there are some photographers who are just so crazy snotty about their anti-chimping philosophy and it drives me nuts. But all the great photographers still do check their LCD at least once in a while!

I enjoy me a little bit of selective coloring now and then too. And if it goes out of style, then it will probably come back in a decade later, because it's just kind of neat looking and neat-looking stuff never goes out of style forever, right? I have heard some of the snob folks decrying selective coloring but every wedding photog I know does it in at least one picture b/c the brides still love it.

Ah well. Or should I say, "ooo oooo, aaaa aaa," chimp that I am?

[dugarner]

Originally Posted by bluelemur01

hahaha Sara, I know I sound so irate there. it's just that there are some photographers who are just so crazy snotty about their anti-chimping philosophy and it drives me nuts . . . but every wedding photog I know does it in at least one picture b/c the brides still love it.

No, you're hilarious---I love your no-holds-barred attitude! Funny enough, the consensus on this particular forum about selective coloring was that brides love it, but they love it because they have absolutely no taste (complete with eye-rolling and shoulder-shrugging) and don't know better, but as long as the photographer is getting paid, they'll ***sigh*** do it for the bride. Very self-sacrificing!

But I have to say, I play wedding gigs in string quartets and EVERY TIME, the bride asks for Pachelbel's Canon, which is, by far, the worst, most boring, most horrendously torturous piece of music in the WORLD, and should be destroyed IMMEDIATELY. Musicians HATE playing that piece (I am very vocal about this, can you tell??) and I have told many brides-to-be "I refuse to play it. I just won't play it. We hate it." (I've never met a string player who likes that piece. Ask a cellist to play it. They'll hit you over the head with their cello. And for lots of fun, tell the violist you don't have the viola part, can they read the 2nd violin part. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!) But then at the end of the day, we have to smile and say, we'll play whatever you want, because you're the paying customer!

So I can sort of see where they're coming from, but I don't think brides ask for it because they have no taste in music, I think it's because they don't know what all is out there. So a skilled musician could present them with other, better options. Likewise, a good photographer should capitulate to the selective coloring request, but also guide the customers into seeing all the other amazing post processing options that are available, as well!

Boy, I feel like I'm in a therapy session!

[bluelemur01]

But Pachelbel's cannon is my favorite piece of music! It's what I listen to (that and Bolero, lol) while I do hundreds of selective coloring portraits for brides! J/K. I can see how playing that ten million times could make you hate it.

One thing I'm getting sick of in photography is the "EVERY SINGLE portrait I take must be VERY slanted" trend. I like a FEW slanted portraits here and there, and I do it myself, but some photographers seem to do it for every single shot. I have a photographer friend who seriously has more than half of her wedding portfolio showing slanted shots. Come on, folks...don't make me feel like I'm constantly on a boat in rough waters! Sometimes I like to look at things head-on! Personally I think THAT trend can be just as annoying as the Canon, lol. **Sorry to all the slanty-shooters out there. **

[marnie]

Just read through the thread--enjoyed it girls! As said, at the end of the day, I'm the one living with my pictures!

[dugarner]

Originally Posted by bluelemur01

One thing I'm getting sick of in photography is the "EVERY SINGLE portrait I take must be VERY slanted" trend. Come on, folks...don't make me feel like I'm constantly on a boat in rough waters! Sometimes I like to look at things head-on!

Yeah, a few years ago a semi-pro photographer told me about this trend, I don't really know what's "hot" in photography, said everyone was doing it, and you had to do it to be "edgy."

I do it a little, but have found recently that when I slant, I wind up doing a rotated crop to straighten it out! Also, I've learned that the "traditional" way of typically doing portraiture in, well, portrait orientation, is not the way I like to frame most of my pictures. I'm using horizontal much more frequently now, trying to understand how a proper background can add to/take away from good photography.

Yeah, sometimes I look at slanty pictures and feel queasy!

[dorah]

Just read through this thread and although I don't have anything constructive to add, just wanted to say you all are hilarious. And even though I use a point and shoot I am a chimper in that I do check my pics as I am going along. There are still some adjustments I can make and manual to experiment with.