After years of doing this photoblog, more or less, in an anonymous manner I thought I should take a moment to explain what it is I do and maybe a little of the how and why.
When I started this photoblog I had absolutely no idea if or where it would go. After 6 years it seems to have a life of its own, which is fine with me. What has occurred to me often, over the life of this blog, is an omission of what exactly is my sense of photography, my approach and, given some minor ranting, the reason I have this working platform.
Most of you have probably guessed that I only use minimal post production editing ( lame way of saying I don’t spend most of my time after the shot working on an image). I have never used Photoshop or Lightroom, two of the most popular software editing packages. I do minimal color adjustments and cropping, all in iPhoto and then take the usable images and run them through Picassa only to reduce the size of the file and add a watermark. End of story. Most of my energy and time is spent getting the shot. I could go on an extended diatribe about Photoshopping or extensive editing, but will keep it short. I subscribe to a few photo mags and 99% of the amateur and pro images published have been run through Photoshop, etc. Pretty images……yes; artsy images….sometimes. REAL IMAGES? In my opinion, NO. Just lots of manipulation of tones and X’s and O’s to what end……..I don’t know. We have all seen images of fashion models, before and after……well, that is all you need to know. I knew someone in NY that used to do that as a full time job; take photographers images of models and rework them for publication. To me it is nothing more than slight of hand, trickery and misleading.
When I shoot an image I want to capture and freeze that moment in time as it really was: Reality, to me, is always more fascinating than the artificiality of darkroom manipulation. I see the camera as a partner in this effort to “freeze time”; a co-conspirator of sorts. I do my best to allow the camera to succeed in doing its part and try to not interfere too much after the shot.
By definition, if you have to put me in some sort of box, I am probably what is referred to as a Street Photographer. Some of my favorite photographers, living and passed, fall into this “box”. Most of my work is out on the streets of NY, Portland and Seattle ( with some traveling farther afield on rare occasions ). I love and hear music everywhere; the streets, buildings and sidewalks and my hope is to capture a bit of that rhythm of life that is all about us.
So, lacking a detailed bio on my blog, this might suffice ( and I kept my ranting to a minimum :-)).
Bluestar2012's Photoblog 