Thank you for the kind compliments! It’s funny that you like my sharp photos’I've always thought keeping things sharp was my weakness, because when hearing other photographers talk about how the focal point was on a model’s nose instead of his/her eyes’I'm usually not seeing it. Also, I almost always shoot at 2.8 or lower, and have a tendency to just keep pressing the autofocus button while I’m waiting to press the shutter. Thanks for the questions, I’m new enough to photography that I’ve never taken photos with film (except disposable cameras)’hopefully my answers are useful’ Photo-editing: I got into photography through journalism, so I’ve always been very conservative in what I do in Photoshop. No airbrushing of anything, no cutting and pasting, no selective coloring, no blurring. I do dodge and burn, but very little compared to what I see people do to prep photos for print’I just find it too time-consuming. I almost always underexpose my photos, so I typically increase the exposure by a stop in Photoshop and bump up the contrast, and sometimes desaturate a color by a few ticks if any color looks too extreme. I also do noise reduction and some sharpening. I’m most definitely not a perfectionist in cleaning up my photos’when I started doing photography, there were times when I wish I could use the clone brush to get rid of a a stupid stick or limb or fire hydrant that cluttered up a clean background. But because I’ve removed the option of selectively Photoshopping out ‘bad’ things in a photo, I’ve become much better at noticing everything in the background before I take the photo. And I think it’s affected my artistic sensibility’if there’s something in a photo that messes up the ideal balance or symmetry’I like that, because that’s how reality and life are. It’s become less about being anal to photojournalism standards (though I still am a stickler for them) and more about using reality’s imperfections to add to the photo’s interestingness. Also, photo retouching is hard’I have friends who do it for a living’I'm just doing photography in my spare time, and so I’d like to spend as much of that time on shooting and editing than pixel hunting. My camera: I’m sorry to say I’m one of those people who owns a camera and a set of lens that is way more than any non-professional needs. I justified it at the time because I took photos while working for the newspaper. I still do for my current job, but very infrequently (and my office has its own DSLR anyway). But I have a Canon 5d Mark II and a set of L lenses. The 24-70mm is the one I use the most. Looking at some of the other photogs here, I definitely don’t use my expensive camera to its potential’I think nythroughthelens has a point and shoot and she definitely puts me to shame. Also, the camera and lens is so conspicuous that I feel really self-conscious pulling it out’and I like doing candid shots with strangers in them, and sometimes strangers get nervous when they see a big camera pointed at them. So there are a lot of good pictures I don’t even try to take. But I do also have a Canon S90′which I have lent out to a friend on an overseas trip. But when I had it, I almost stopped using my DSLR because it was so easy to carry around and fun to use. Because it takes more thought and control to get a good photo with a P&S, I feel that my photos with a P&S have more artistic merit even if they aren’t as sharp’whereas, with a ‘fancy’ camera, I get complacent and just hold down the shutter button. But I already blew my money for an expensive camera, so I try to use it when I can Hope that answers your questions. I rambled a lot to continue putting off work.
. I have a Flickr set of my S90 photos here.
http://tumblr.eyeheartnewyork.com/post/2970967531
