Simply Beautiful (2015)
Just as I was sitting down to edit these photos, my email application dinged at me. I checked and was promptly informed that Adobe® had just released a major update to Photoshop®. My response was profane. I don’t like software updates because of the amount of time it takes after the install to figure out all the new features, consider how they can be used, and then get everything back to how I like it. I can easily lose a week’s worth of productivity every time a major software release comes out. Perhaps some of that is sheer distraction, but the update does me no good if I don’t know how to use the new tools included. Photo processing drives me crazy.
Post-production is not a job I enjoy. I would just as soon farm it out to someone else if I could justify the cost. It probably doesn’t help that I waffle back and forth on just how much post-production work is appropriate. Sometimes I’m all gung-ho about trying new techniques on a number of different photos. Other times, such as with today’s set, I’m more of the mind that simple is better and that the less done to an image the stronger that photo is. I once saw Horst P. Horst throw a notebook at a designer who wanted to dramatically modify one of Horst’s photographs. Horst was big on being able to go straight from camera to print with as little intervening process as possible.
While keeping the processing on these images extremely simple, we did make some conscious processing decisions as to the exact toning to use when we realized the extent to which the model resembles the late pin-up model Betty Page. Maybe it’s the bangs. Maybe it’s the body form. Ms. Page’s hair was more wavy, but when placing pictures side-by-side the resemblance was uncanny. As a result, we went with a photo processing method more resembling 1940s film.
What we end up with a set of pictures that are low on processing and high on beauty. Simple beauty that all the software tools in the world could never improve. Enjoy.