A lot of times I get the question from clients or in meetings with potential clients “do you use photoshop to enhance your photos”. The other question I also get for instance goes something like this “is there any chance you can photoshop so and so object out of a shot” say for example, telephone poles or electrical outlets. What I tell my clients and is also my philosophy that goes back to my days of shooting with film, is that I do everything possible I can on location be it interiors or exteriors to get the shot perfect before I push the button on the camera (or in this day and age the button on my laptop). Or better put, my crew and I are not lazy nor do I like to kick back and be the photographer that tells his clients that “I’ll just fix it in photo shop back in the studio”. The last thing I want to do is spend more time in a dark room in front of the computer when I can be outside hanging with the kids. That’s all fine and dandy but there are times where I rely heavily on the tool of photoshop and tell my clients that it is part of my services.
I was hired by the architectural firm Coover/Clark based in Denver to photograph the New Readiness Center for the Army National Guard in New Mexico. After shooting the interiors of the complex the day before I returned the next morning to shoot the exterior at Dawn. The direction and quality of like was just beautiful for the front of the building. The only thing that bothered me was the huge shadow running across the pavement and grass. The shadow was being created by the plane you see in the below image. So as to not make a longer story any longer, I photoshopped the shadow out back in that dark room in my studio.
The plane in the above image was casting a shadow across the front pavement and grass on the above shot.
This project was shot in Bel Air California for my good client R.T.A Construction.
Same deal here. I had to rely on photo shop to take out the car on the left and all of the riffraff in the foreground. You are probably asking “why didn’t you just move the car”, and that’s a great question. We had no idea whose it was. I would have loved to have actually moved back farther than where I was standing so I could include more space around the house, but it was a construction site where I had the camera positioned and I couldn’t move back and further because of construction equipment.
One should keep in mind that both of these scenarios above took about an hour each to get just right. It should also be noted that pictures taken with a digital camera don’t just pop out of the camera looking perfect. As in the old days of the traditional darkroom photography there is a lot of nuances to make a beautiful image, and this is what a professional photographer can bring to the table. OK, enough of being in a dark room and in front of this computer. I’m going outside to hang with the kids!
James Ray Spahn Photographer
Jamesrayspahn Photographer 