Published May 25, 2008

Taken on the parking of the Drogenbos Carrefour while teaching Nathalie how to parallel park.

It’s funny how my old pictures (2-3 years old) are still getting comments and my new ones don’t so much, even though I feel a lot more confident about the latter. I enjoy doing them better and am happier with the result too. Doing photographs is not the neurotic process it once was for me. Plus, I’ve come to realize that I am now able to take one or maximum two shots of one particular subject, and most of the time I’m happy with it. I don’t think that’s because I take better pictures : I think it’s only because I now envision the picture as I want it to be before pressing the shutter. So when I do it, I do it just right. I used to see a nice subject and take a thousand shots of it hoping one of them would be good.

All of this actually relates to the fact I have become a much more confident man than I used to be.

That’s a pleasant feeling.

I also have finally discovered the proper way to make my photos shine in Photoshop. Every photographer has its own routine I guess : be it curves, contrast, sharpen, shadows and highlights… I’ve tried many different uses of the various adjustements and filters before finding the routine that was the right one for my taste*. Now each picture spends about 30 seconds in Photoshop. It used to be 30 minutes.

*Duplicate layer twice. Blending mode of first one : overlay. Blending mode of second one : color burn, or multiply or… according to picture and situation. Decrease opacity of both duplicate layers. That’s it.