back to start

 
So I’d planned to finally transition to digital last year. By September it was certain: I had to make this move if I was to continue working as a portrait photographer. But the busy holiday portrait season started earlier than it had in previous years and I soon worried it might be too much to learn a whole new workflow in the midst of so many shoots. Then November arrived and with it unexpected and devastating news. It became paramount to keep as much of my life the same as it had been in order to survive all that had changed in that moment.

I am not a film snob, although usually drawn most to the more subtle quality of film images. My main hesitation in embracing digital capture has largely been intimidation of the workflow required. And perhaps some laziness. In six years of working as a professional photographer I believe I’ve only had a half dozen images that were digitally altered in any way whatsoever for clients (and all of these were handled by a lab, not by me). I shoot the film, a local lab processes it, I choose the proofs to show the client and from those they make their portrait selections. The negatives are sent to a custom lab out of the area where they are printed. No scans, no alterations, just a very simple straightforward process from start to finish. Not ideal nor sophisticated by any stretch of the imagination, but it has suited my personality well.

But things change, and I know I need to be willing to change as well. I’m just so darned resistant that it’s now reached a place where I’m using this reluctance to getting on with things as a reason to berate myself. As if I need yet another excuse for self-denigration. Geez.

Most of the time when I scan an image to show on the web I just want it to look like the physical print in front of me, nothing more. When the scan of this image came up on the screen though, it appeared too bright, and the contrast not the same as the proof. Plus I wanted to burn in the mom’s ear and neck similar to how she’d requested for the custom prints that were ordered. I’m still such a klutz in photoshop that making these changes required countless more steps than I’m sure were necessary. At one point I was so deep into this process without achieving the simple results I’d wanted that I nearly scrapped the whole thing. But then I remembered all those dust spots I’d cloned out that would have to be redone with a fresh scan and decided to press forward. Finally, I felt the web version appeared about as close to the final print as I was going to get. I had to laugh at myself: all those crazy haphazard steps I’d taken just to end up approximately where I started with my original actual print.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since……the meaning and metaphor behind this particular scan. And maybe have discovered new insight behind my digital recalcitrance. It seems that lately in my life I’ve not been loving the process of much of anything. I’ve only wanted to get through and out the other side as painlessly as possible. My chief desire being to bring back the original just as it was…….exactly as I had seen it previously. In so doing, I’ve not let myself really play or experiment much at all. I’ve not made allowances for a new picture to appear that might even be better than the original. I’ve merely been enduring. I’ve been hiding my fear of the unknown behind a mask of self-professed simplicity.

I really need to give this more thought.

 
~Cynthia