I'v starting to wonder recently what really makes a good photographer, because to be honest, these days what you think is a good photo can lie to you almost as well as a 2 ft long nose owning Pinocchio. You wonder what I mean by this? First of all lets get down to the core of the matter which is a good portion of the population getting a sudden urge to pick up a camera and play paparazzi, either with humans or nature ( I'm not complaining here as there have been some excellent shots from people's learning evolution. ) There has however, a been an unnaturally large surge in people buying cameras, quoting focal numbers and calling themselves " artists". So what does make a good photo? In years gone by it was good composition, a comprehensive understanding of how your camera works and some knowledge of the workings of light and optics. That, however is no longer a pre-requesit of a decent looking photo, as it has been replaced by that dreaded yet fateful crutch .... PHOTOSHOP , or for the more sophisticated of you Adobe Lightroom. Goodness how the masterminds have grown ! Once something preserved for teenagers who had sugar addictions and wanted to cover up the ensuing evidence on their skin, or Britney Spears' chronic cellulite, has now seem to become the natural process every photo goes through before being published. Lighting changes, over exposure or underexposure corrected, glows, shines, darkness, light effects, colour enhancements, and yes, the acne fix for those of us who are now ruining our liver etc. The list is endless, you name it and enough hours sat in front of your computer with photoshop as your loving guide will fix it. Some incredible pictures have come out of this process; unfortunately this leaves us with a dilemma. When a stunning photograph is view the question must be asked " did you really take this photo?" or was it just you, your photo, and photoshop in a steamy, colourful five hour threesome that produced this masterpiece. I'll leave you with the closest thing I can find to an example of what I mean, kindly donated by my sister amber, quite the mastermind with photoshop, but thankfully for other's badly taken pictures and not her own
Disclaimer: I do myself own a copy of Photoshop CS3 but my level of using competence is still at the teenaged skin problem stage. I also do own or co-own a Nikon D60 and enjoy experimenting, but do not profess any knowledge of how to use it professionally, only rediscovering a week ago that aperture and shutter speed are somewhat proportional to one another
