Photography 03·06·09o

March 6, 2009 by admin

Got a call from El Marinero in SD, seems he will soon be off to sea until spring, plying the waters between LA and Seattle…the reason I bring this up is that our conversation drifted from sea to surf to boards to photographs of sea and surf and boards and finally to the topic of photoshop- My response to his query of “so do you use Photoshop” was that I do not use photoshop, that in fact I don’t even own photoshop but instead do all of the work “in-camera”…tweaking the light meter this way or that, or changing the white balance to match the availability of light, I use filters as well (graduated, polarizing and UV) and lots of tripod work to stabilize the shot (and many a rock or piece of driftwood have been used in a tripod’s stead)…while I believe that Photoshop has its place, that space does not overlap with my own and rather I choose to use the camera to capture the moment. I shoot film and digital, but the digi has taken over as of late-mostly because I’m broke and have not been spending loot on developing. It is true that you can now do quite a lot with digital cameras that one could not do with film, but that -within certain self-imposed limits- is part of the art, in the same way that you can choose to use or not use filters with film, or tweak your light meter or use certain types of film…as my father would say “to each their own”, and for me it’s all about the camera and the moment…see you in June Marinero!