Thanks for the comments!

Some very strong feelings on the issue. I’d for sure beg to differ! If you can look at an image by Herb Ritts or Avedeon and say it’s looks contrite, I’d have to challenge you and say you’re saying it for shock value. A great photo is a great photo REGARDLESS of how it’s taken. Light isn’t important, the emotion and emphasis behind it in an effort to capture the essence, is.

I disagree and say a professional photographer can and will shoot WHERE EVER it takes, to get the shot.

I’m the polar opposite of you. I WANT to e known for taking perfect shots. It’s why I’m a photographer. I strive for excellence and know that the better I get, the further away it is. I want to take the BEST photo I possibly can and it’s this attitude that has launched me in front of many people that have been shooting twice as long, or have a college degree in photography. I want to shoot the images that makes the client cry, and the art director search my blog monthly looking to see what I upload, so they can email me and tell me they want her or that setup using this model or what not.

Photoshop is a tool. It’s to be used as little or as much as possible. Each job calls for something different. Sometimes I’m a graphic artist, other times I’m a photographer and other times I’m a photojournalist. I am what the client needs me to be as I am a professional. People come to me based off the strengh of my previously presented work. They would never walking away feeling as if I’ve blown the photo, cause they have thousands of images to review, to give them an idea of what I do. If they walk away feeling as if I’ve let them down, then I’ve let them down in the consultation process.

I strive for excellence in everything I do. If I can do this doing something I hate doing, imagine my resolve when it comes to something I love!

But there’s nothing wrong with having a difference of opinion. You are entitled to yours as I am mine. I’m not saying you’re right or I’m wrong, only we differ.

This is also the exact same reason why I try very hard not to over Photoshop my shots after shooting them either. I am forever hearing photographers puff their chests out and say “I just got done spending eight hours straight Photoshoping this one photo to get it to look just right!” I have to try very hard not laugh every single time I hear that, and I hear that all the time these days. Guess what? If you have to spend any more than fifteen or twenty minutes editing your shot….then you didn’t take the right shot to begin with! Go back and reshoot it! If you are spending far more time editing your shots then you are taking them, just to get them to look exactly right, then I would say you probably aren’t taking the right shot in the first place. I shouldn’t have to spend so much time editing my photo that by the time I’m done editing them, they don’t even look like my photos anymore (and worse yet, they don’t even look believable to the viewer anymore either!). If I had a dime for every time I saw a terrific shot that was so completely Photoshoped to death, even when it really didn’t have to be, I’d be a rich man. And, I’m sorry to say this, but that really bothers me because at some point, after a certain amount of editing on your photo, you really aren’t a photographer any more…you’re a graphic artist, and those aren’t the same thing to me (and they do not produce the same result!).

I think one of the biggest mistakes we photographers make is that we get so addicted to trying to create “the perfect shot” all the time…and if we can’t take the perfect shot, then rather than just admitting defeat (and our own limitations as a photographer), we instead go to town with Photoshop (or the editing program of your choice) for hours and try and try and try to manufacture a perfect shot, after the fact, from one that was never really destined to be perfect in the first place. Well, what we don’t realize is that after several hours of editing, what we come up with as a finished product, might be technically be considered “perfect” in the eyes of an editor/graphic artist, but it looks so contrived, so forced, so manufactured and so artificial that it has lost all credibility and believability with the viewer in the process.

I can only speak for myself here, but I don’t want to ever be known as a photographer that takes “perfect shots”. Why? Because the world around us isn’t a perfect place. Lighting is never perfect, settings are never perfect, backdrops are never perfect, hair and make up are never perfect and models and their poses are never perfect. That’s not a bad thing in my book. That’s just reality. As a matter of fact, I’m quite comfortable with all that because within that lack of perfection that so many photographers/editors strive so hard to avoid all the time, lies two things that I place a far higher value on in my shots: credibility and believability. I know it’s very unpopular to say in today’s modern world of photography and editing, but I honestly feel that when you pick up that camera and call yourself a photographer, that you owe at least some reverence to the concept of photographic integrity. In light of that, I would much rather have someone look at one of my shots and not like it at all, but truly believe in it, than have them absolutely love one of my shots, but come away feeling that it wasn’t really my shot that they were looking at because it was so over processed and over edited. I realize that saying in today’s modern world might make me a bad photographer. I can live with that.

Your time is worth something.

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