Losing My Way in 2021

2021 lacked a clear focus or direction for my photography endeavors.  Usually, I have goals related to skills or styles I want to develop or subjects I want to explore in depth. However, this year I meandered, a bit lost and distracted.

It seemed each time I attempted to move in a direction, it dead-ended more often than not. Don’t get me wrong, I had a few creations I was pleased with but there were many times I felt like I was going down a trail that suddenly came to a stop and had to turn around and go back without reaching the planned destination.

Looking back, I think there were two factors involved in “losing my way”. First, there is creative momentum, and second, there is my new Samsung S20 phone camera.

Spending most of 2021 as a vaccinated person, yet still in a pandemic, was a new experience and took time to understand. In the beginning I rushed out of the gate to do all the things I had not done for 2 years and “made up for lost time”. Experiences were my primary focus. With my new Samsung S20 in hand, I spend lots of time capturing the world around me using my phone’s camera and spent an equal amount of time trying to edit the photos from my phone, attempting to turn them into quality images.

Samsung S20 Phone Images vs SLR Images

Can phone images turn into wonderful quality images? Of course, they can. Some people exclusively use phone images to make up their portfolio. However, after months of trying to integrate the “workflow” for my phone images into my SLR photography workflow on my computer, I could not find a middle ground that worked for both. My conclusion is that you should keep your phone photo post-processing workflow on your phone, editing phone images using tools on your phone and keep your SLR photography post-processing workflow on your computer, keeping them separate. Or ... keep all your images and editing programs "in the cloud" which still requires additional storage costs and moving the images to the location where you can edit them, moving from one cloud provider and platform to another. If you keep them all with one vendor/provider they rarely offer all the options you need to complete your post-processing workflow in one place at a reasonable price.  

I have yet to perfect the post-processing workflow for my phone images using post-processing tools on the phone. And frankly, I don’t have time to put together a portfolio using separate platforms. Even though my phone camera is wonderful and has incredible capabilities, it has become a distraction unless my goal is to take a "snapshot" with it.

I feel like I “betrayed” my SLR this year. My new emphasis is to reacquaint myself with my SLR equipment. When I go on a photo shoot my phone can come along, however the only reason I will pull it out of the bag is to take a “snapshot” or if my SLR just won’t work in the situation.

Samsung S20 Phone Images

A positive result of spending so much time trying to edit photos taken with my phone was that my editing skills improved because I spent so much time trying to optimize low resolution images that had very little room for error in the editing process and at times required "destructive" editing.

Below are a few of the images taken with my Samsung S20 phone in PRO mode then post-processed on my computer using Lightroom and Photoshop. In PRO mode the Samsung saves a RAW image as a .DNG file. In most cases, I uploaded the .DNG files from my phone to my computer into Lightroom where I did basic exposure and color adjustments, then imported the images into Photoshop for more refined adjustments using layers.

Sky on Fire

"Fire in the Sky": I was late arriving to this sunset and did not have time to setup my SLR camera so took this shot with my phone. Because of the intensity of the sunset the image did not require much post-processing. In fact, since the PRO option on the Samsung phone does not allow "zoom", this image was saved as a .JPG and edited in Lightroom for cropping and noise reduction. Other than that, it was "right out of the phone".

"Pink Wild Roses in Edmonds": This image was taken in PRO mode on my Samsung S20. My phone was inches away from the foreground rose in order to keep the foreground rose in focus. I was trying to simulate a "focus stacked" foreground shot, however the rest of the image is out of focus because it's not a real focus stack. This is a single image processed using "layers" in Photoshop.

Grand Avenue Bridge at Night

"Grand Avenue Park Bridge at Night": This photo was taken during the summer solstice sunset. I had put away my SLR and tripod and as I walked toward the bridge the sky started to brighten with more vivid color so I pulled out my phone to capture the moment.

Walk this Way

"Walk This Way": This photo of the Edmonds ferry from Sunset Avenue was taken in PRO mode with my phone. The RAW .DNG file was uploaded to Lightroom, then edited in Photoshop.

Popular Images from SLR Cameras 

I have consolidated my most popular images into a gallery on my website. 95% of these images were taken with my SLR cameras, not my phone. After looking at these images, I've decided to return to primarily using my SLR equipment to create images for my portfolio despite the fact that a backpack of equipment is required rather than a device that fits in the palm of my hand. But kudos to phone manufactures that make it difficult to tell if an image came from a phone camera or SLR camera.

Below is the link to my "Popular Images" gallery. Wall art or paper photos of any of the images can be purchased by clicking on the image and selecting the product of your choice on the right hand side of the image.

 Popular Images Gallery: https://pattiphoto.zenfolio.com/p357923438