What do I do? Out in the field, I try to capture the elements that attracted me to a scene. It could be anything, the relationship between a rock and its surroundings. It could be the colors in the grass and how they meet the sky. The whole goal here is to capture and emphasize the simple elements at image capture. Next, starting with a calibrated monitor, I bring the image into my digital darkroom trying to remember the emotions and details of why I was attracted to the scene and why I wanted to push my cameras trigger. In my workflow, this means limiting adjustments to those that meet my original vision. Thats the whole goal. Digital realists may not be happy Im not making the color #s of the capture totally match reality. Tough. Im trying to make a final print match my vision, which in the end is honest to me.

There are times when I desire to totally depart reality and pursue highly modified results that clearly dont look real. Still, I try to do this 95% of the time in camera by making modifications I can see real-time. This means using a set of highly quality colored filters or polarizers. I use the same techniques practiced by photographers manipulating their visual realities since the beginnings of film. The goal here as before is to capture a certain emotion or vision in such a way that manipulations in the digital darkroom are minimized.

While all the technical details of maintaining a color-calibrated darkroom can be tedious, color calibration is necessary to accurately mother your images colors from your camera to the printer. I try to create as best as possible the image I have envisioned at capture as my means to maintain the integrity of my style of photography. While this process may be more difficult than just manipulating things using high tech digital tools after image capture, color calibration is necessary to ensure what few adjustments I make are appropriate and correct. This whole approach I think it allows me to look a person in the eye thats reviewing my work and wondering if the colors were real and respond with it sure was.

I figure integrity is maintained as a photographer by making sure I have a vision at image capture then making it happen with limited digital manipulation in the computer darkroom. Sure there are times when you want to change a scene and depart totally from the photographic realities at image capture. But, when you do that I think you begin to pursue something other than classic photography. The bottom-line; have a vision, make it happen in camera as best as you can, limit manipulations post processing to realize that vision. Thats the way to maintain photographic integrity.

Cheers

Tom Hill