PHOTOGRAPHY

People will usually judge at a glance whether or not a photo looks good. However, people often assume good photos are just captured that way in the moment or that they’re painstakingly produced through hours of digital manipulation. I strive to capture good photos in the moment, and that negates the need for a lot of post-processing. Still, you might be surprised what even a few minutes of enhancement can do. I’m presenting three before-and-after examples of this below: the lifeguard, the diplomat, and the rocker. Be sure to click the thumbnails to see the full images.

#1 - The Lifeguard

The St. Louis Park Aquatic Center needed more lifeguards and they wanted to promote upcoming training classes on short notice. However, they hadn’t taken any recent photos of lifeguards to use in social media posts, and they asked me to go take photos a few hours before they wanted the new posts to go live.

It was really difficult to find any lifeguards who wanted to have their picture taken and shared online. People assume teens and young adults would jump at the chance, but I know why they don’t (ask me about it in person if you want to know). I finally found one lifeguard working at the time who was willing, and so I had just a few minutes to take pictures as he went about his business. I got a few compositions I felt would work, and after cropping and editing in Lightroom, I had a great photo that was also not personally-identifiable, a bonus given this is a government employee.

#2 - The Diplomat

The Mayor of St. Louis Park, Joe Spano, was meeting with a delegation of Thai officials, including Thailand’s Ambassador to the United States, Mr. Tanee Sangrat. This was part of an event to recognize the contributions of the Thai buddhist temple in St. Louis Park, and I was asked to take photos.

While the event was fairly small, there was a surprising number of other photographers, official and otherwise. It had a fairly relaxed atmosphere, however this made things more chaotic than expected during the typical “press” photos afterwards with people randomly getting together around the room. Here’s one that I really wanted to keep because it captured a nice moment when the Ambassador presented the Mayor with a gift he really liked. I used Photoshop to crop it, remove foreground clutter, extend the background, enhance their appearance, and redirect the Ambassador’s eyes to me. I then used Lightroom to adjust the lighting, color balance, and clarity. Now it’s worthy of a press release.

#3 - The Rocker

Brass Elephant was performing a live show for the release of their new album. The band wanted some high-quality photos to post online afterwards and keep the buzz going. As I had already been doing other design work for the album, they asked me if I’d do the honors.

The band performed at Mortimer’s in Minneapolis, a really cool and intimate venue. Perfect for a band with such a throwback vibe, but there was one major contemporary challenge - the LED stage lighting. Shooting a performance on a dimly lit stage is never easy, and even the latest digital cameras have trouble accurately reading LED stage lighting. Fortunately, I’m no stranger to manual camera exposure, and I was able to get some intimate and dynamic shots like the one below. Adjusting lighting, color, and also noise reduction in Lightroom Classic brought out the true colors of a classic rocker.