Purism in Photography

November 12

I had a great time with this lovely person taking pictures of her and her taking pictures of me. We started out at a local coffee shop and took advantage of the beautiful architecture on campus and the fall trees and their brilliant display of colors. We’re both photographers touching up on our skills and seeing what a free Saturday morning in November could do for us. I thoroughly think she is a much better photographer than me and a very skilled designer. I really do look up to her and the work she does. You can check out her account on Instagram @emilykdesign.

And if you want you can check out my photography account @findingpurejoy

A little rant to express a thought

The title of this post,”Purism in Photography”, is something I just wanted to talk about briefly, because it is something I believe in quite a bit. When I say purism, I mean no editing was involved. All of the pictures I display here are not altered in any way and literally nothing was done to make them “better”. They are shots taken straight from my SD card.

I wanted to express my personal distaste in editing photos. Now, I have edited photos before and I actually do it all the time for my Instagram photos on my personal account and sometimes for my photography account. Editing can improve a picture to some degree.  I won’t deny that. However, I feel it takes meaning and skill away from the art of photography itself. Now, we emphasize how skilled a photographer is at editing more than how he/she is at actually taking the picture. You know, like making sure the lighting is right, the angle is flattering, and the layout of the picture is just right vs. trying to fix all those mistakes you made when taking the picture with all the tools available in Lightroom or Photoshop. I know that plenty of photographers can spend a few minutes to take a decent photo and then spend half an hour editing it in Lightroom. This just boggles my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not judging people who do this because again, I DO IT TOO! But we have moved from pure photo-taking skills to photography and lots of editing. Now, to be good in the photography world you can be good at photography but you have to be really really good at editing your photos. I know I follow photography accounts on Instagram not because of the content and skill in their picture-taking but because of the underlying tones they use in editing which makes all their pictures look awesome together as a whole and very appealing to the eye. Yeah, the content is great. I like mountains and pine trees. I like portrait photography. But what sells me has a lot to do with the editing and how the pictures look with each other and not individually. And that is what bothers me. Pictures now have lost more of their individual meaning and uniqueness. But maybe that is photography itself evolving. Nevertheless, I am certain that what makes a good photographer today isn’t in the picture-taking part; it is in the editing.