I was going to start this post saying that over the years, I’ve gotten lazy with my photography. That’s not necessarily true; but then again, it’s not really a lie either. When I first got into photography, I was shooting film. So back then, my mentality was to get it right when you clicked the shutter. You had to, because what you captured on that negative only had a limited amount of adjustment in printing. Then digital came along and things changed. You had a lot of room for error, though getting it right first gave you even more room later. So, I still focused on getting it as close to perfect as I could in camera.
Over the years though, I started changing my shooting habits and started capturing scenes with the intent of processing them later. This could mean HDR, or just extensive adjustment masking. I am not at all suggesting this is wrong. In the world of film, you could easily compare it to using sheet film like 4×5. Each image is captured with a solid idea of what the processing will look like later. So you go into it with the final product in mind. Again, not wrong; just a different workflow.

Recently though, I have had a change of mentality if you will. One of my goals is to photograph with some specific publications. I won’t mention them because I don’t want to jinx myself. One of them specifically requires only very minimal editing to images. Allowing basically just cropping, and some light exposure adjustments, with some dust removal if needed. That’s how I used to work, so why not start working that way again, at least for work that I want to be seen by those publications?
So, that is my goal over the course of this year. I want to get back to capturing as close to a final product in camera as I can for as many images as I can. Does that mean that some images will indeed require some heavy lifting in Lightroom, sure. I want the bulk of my images going forward to be as close to untouched as I can. I assure you though, if it comes down to not getting the shot because of that goal, I will let it slide. I know that I have gear limitations. While I am not advocating that gear solves issues, because frequently it doesn’t, I am going to go out and buy a good quality gradND filter and holder.

The other good thing about this goal: it will absolutely force me to slow down for a lot of my shots and think. Or at least force me to be more aware and pre-plan my shoots. Sure, you can’t really slow down when photographing birds and such, but you can absolutely be prepared and ready. That includes making sure your camera is set up in such a way that you can just push a few buttons and be ready. As a Nikon user, that what the whole custom menu thing is about anyway. Which honestly is a feature I rarely had used. Along with Picture Control. I knew about it, but always had it set to flat. Not anymore! Need to develop one that mirrors how I like my images to look.
Shawn