Being true…

Lightroom has recently released a new update (15.5 for LRC etc) with Generative Expand now available. For more details on this update, follow this link.

For the last few weeks - maybe more in reality - I’ve started to yearn for simplicity in my photography.

Harkening back to film days - where for me at least, the most I could do with a B&W photo I took with my ageing Praktica, was cropping and some dodging and burning (selectively lighten (dodging) or darken (burning) specific areas of an image in the printing stage).

On an economic basis, reverting back to film now isn't viable for me. In addition, in reality, given that I don’t have a darkroom, I’d either have to build one or rent time in one nearby - assuming there is one nearby…

So reverting back to film would be just to have the experience, loading, winding and re-winding, sending off the roll of film to be processed - and then scanning the negatives myself - all to get back to where I am already with a RAW (digital negative) file.

I know I’m simplifying things here but these are the main standouts.

SO - it’s digital for now. And in terms of brands, Fujifilm has it for me - for many reasons - the physical size of the X series as well as the ability to simulate, as near as possible, the actual look of films as they were “back then”…

And beyond that, the virtually limitless ability to pre-set all sorts of image tweaks to have the photo turn out how you want. Recipes as they’re called.

All that for reducing - or entirely eliminating - the need to do any editing of the image file before sharing it in social or wherever.

All that as background.

So what happens if I don’t renew my Lightroom subscription coming up at the end of the year? 

≥ I need to save the collections - don’t have many.

≥ I need to start a new catalogue - pretty much do that anyway.

≥ I need to accept that I will no longer be able to (easily anyway) do split-toning which I’ve done in the past.

≥ I need to also realise I can’t easily merge photos for a wide scale panorama such as I’ve done here.

Are they all significant losses over what I’ll gain? Quite honestly I don’t think so.

Why not just keep Lightroom and not use any of the AI editing tools they are now providing I hear you say? Surely that would be much easier?

Well yes and no. We all use (and pay for) technology that we only use a small percentage of. Cameras for one. I’m not a video guy so that’s a whole bunch of stuff that I’m paying for that I don’t use. Even the areas for images, I don’t use that many. I’m not a sports photographers, rarely shoot wildlife and am not into astro. It’s all there if I wanted. Maybe that’s why I’ve never moved up beyond the Fuji X-T3. The X-T4 had a back screen that defeated many. The X-T5 is great for video and has a 40MP sensor - but do I need that? Many others don’t think so either unless you want to print off some big A2 or even large images.

I’ve printed off much larger using photos from my X-T3 by stitching images. Without Lightroom that won’t be possible - but it really is not such a dealbreaker that would make be stick with paying for something that I use less and less features of - as well as feeling less emotionally attached to the whole deal.

Ah - that’s it. Emotional attachment. It had to pop up somewhere.

I am attached to the process of being true to myself, to what I see in front of me, to the people I engage with and to tradition that I grew up with. The darkroom with my father. Developing. Printing. Cropping occasionally. Dodging and burning. End of.

Whilst this is a personal journey, it’s also a journey that the august New York Times, has been through!

Look at their relatively recently published integrity guidelines (bolded mine)

images in our pages, in the paper or on the Web, that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions). Adjustments of color or gray scale should be limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction, analogous to the “burning” and “dodging” that formerly took place in darkroom processing of images. Pictures of news situations must not be posed.

Well - if that doesn’t say it for me, nothing does!

I do purport to depict reality. But I also do enjoy colour tweaking or bringing out some additional highlights or accentuating those shadows.

Which is why I’m not the NYT. But running a close second - okay maybe third.

So what I’ve decided to trial for the remainder of this year (aka my Lightroom subscription period) is:-

✅ Continue shooting with the setting Raw / JPEG (fine)

✅ Continue to use recipes and simulations as much as I want (yes this is wider than NYT allows but as I said, I’m not the NYT!)

✅ This gives me the potential to share Straight out of Camera (SOOC) JPEGs if I want on social (and/or I can edit if I want with Snapseed on either my iPhone or iPad)

✅ I can print off these images on my Canon Selphy printer if req'd - such as I sometimes do for street portraiture situations

✅ Back home, I can use the Fuji software X Raw Studio to adjust the RAW image settings as much as possible to produce a final JPEG that I’m happy with and can print off on my Canon Pro 300

✅ If I really want to do further edits on this final jpeg - I can always use Snapseed

And there you have it.

I won’t call this Des Clark Photos Integrity Guidelines - but it comes close. Maybe even second….

Thanks for reading. Comments as usual welcome.

Until next time, stay cool…