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A show about cameras, creativity, and the weird shit your brains do while you're trying to make something.
Together, we're exploring photography for all levels — asking the silly questions, sharing the expert knowledge, and digging into what it actually takes to grow as a human being and as an artist.
Ep 05 The Trap of Editing
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Welcome
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Amy (she/her): We're gonna chat about editing because it's a thing, but because I am pedantic as fuck, we're gonna define some terms first and the way that we're gonna use them on this episode.
Casey (she/her): Let's
Amy (she/her): have never been accused of being not pedantic, that's for sure.
Amy (she/her): So editing can have a variety of meanings. The way we're gonna use it is, it is really post-processing, and not just post-processing, but post-processing that's used to fix mistakes, things that maybe we should have caught in the field.
So there's editing that's culling, and I hate that word. We can... We're gonna have to have an episode where, where we talk about my language pet peeves with, with photography because there's a list. Um, culling is on that list. So I prefer to use the word editing, which is used in the, you know, like the, if you have an editor if you're writing a book, someone who goes through and they're catching spelling errors, grammar errors, you know, that kind of stuff. So to me, that matches up with the process of deciding what to keep and what to delete in the photos. So then we get to post-processing, which is a mouthful to say, so it's just easier to say editing.
Um, so that's what we're gonna say today, but then we're gonna subdivide that. See? I told you, pedantic. We're gonna subdivide it into the, the post-processing that is to fix things, like the fix it in post,
Casey (she/her): Oh.
Amy (she/her): creative. And today we're not gonna talk about the creative stuff because that is definitely a whole separate episode,
But in terms of editing to fix things, uh, in your photos, that's, that is the lane of, of this episode. So, um, yes.
Casey (she/her): you say things versus creativity, like, I have a sense of kind of what that means, but, like, for the listener, for the sake of this conversation, what kind of things are we... Like, I know there's some specific techniques that kind of fall more creative. They're, they're kind of never a fixing thing.
They're almost always a creativity thing. Can we give me just a little bit better definition of
Amy (she/her): Sure.
Casey (she/her): Oh, good, I get to get more definition? Absolutely. Yeah,
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): I said, like, I think all of us have a sense of what's editing versus creativity, um, but for the sake of this conversation, a little more clarity on the creativity stuff that we're not talking about.
Let's talk about that for a second.
Amy (she/her): Let's talk about what we're not talking about.
that's actually a really good question and, and fair to take a, a moment and talk about that because I forget, um... And, and this is part of why you're here. I forget all of those nuances...
that I just have, I just know at this point and don't bo- you know, don't stop to, to clarify. So, um, I think that making that distinction is really important because we tend to lump it all together. And one of the things I do all the time is tear things down into really tiny pieces.
W- side note, because ADHD, um, one of the things I find fascinating about dog training, and I'm not a dog trainer by any stretch of the imagination. I don't want to be a dog trainer. But what I love about listening to dog trainers talk about are the way they break down complicated processes, complicated skills into little, teeny-tiny parts.
And I realized really quickly when I first started teaching, um, that I do that too. I just didn't have a name for it. I didn't know. It's called splitting versus lumping. And so we tend to lump editing into this one giant bucket, and I like to split it apart into tiny pieces because- Then we can apply the context and nuance that I adore, um, and have a better conversation about things because
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): it's m- you get more clarity.
Okay, so editing for... Let's start... Actually, let's use the, the idea of color to start, um, because you can talk about both editing to fix and editing for cr- creativity.
Casey (she/her): Right.
Editing to Fix vs Editing for Creativity
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Amy (she/her): So editing to fix would be I forgot to set the, the white balance preset on my camera, and all of my photos came out of the camera looking really blue.
And so editing to fix would be, um, changing the white balance so that everything, the th- the white things look white and the black things look black and the gray, the neutral gray things look neutral gray. So bringing it back to what more matches what you would see in the real world. There's even context or nuance to that.
We're not gonna go down that rabbit hole.
Casey (she/her): Yeah. I saw the look on your face.
Amy (she/her): Okay. Um, editing for creativity would be I want this to look like a blue hour photo. So when it's blue hour outside, white things don't look white. White things take on a gre- uh, not a green. Where is my brain? Um, white things take on a blue cast. And so if you, um... That's editing for creativity. So making a deliberate choice, an intentional choice to, um, edit something so it l- matches either what you see in your head or the mood you wanna portray.
Um, this is the harder thing in a lot of ways, but I think we think of the fixing piece, um, as the, the stopping point, and then, then there's the once we've got everything fixed, then there is still another step. Then there's let's talk about how we can guide our viewer's eye through the photo. How can we manipulate the scene?
And that's not a, a bad thing. It's just how can we make use of what we know about psychology to manage the way a viewer moves through our image and the feelings they have about our image? And that's the editing for creativity, and that's the more fun part in my mind. Fixing things is not fun. To this brain, that is not fun, and it makes me angry because it makes me think I f- I, I messed up.
I didn't do something that I should've been doing in the field, and all... That kind of a should comes from me. That's just my internal motivation. That's not a
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): applying it, projecting it onto everybody else. That is
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): didn't do something to my standard that I hold myself to.
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): so...
Casey (she/her): I like... Okay, I really like that difference. I'd actually never thought about the difference in editing fixing versus creativity, and now I'm like, okay, that all of a sudden makes sense 'cause I think there's a couple of photos I've tried to edit, and I realize now I think I maybe was trying to do
Amy (she/her): Yep.
Casey (she/her): And so I was getting not the results I wanted versus, like, okay, like, let's do a couple quick fixes and bring the, the thing back to what I see in
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): like, uh, you know, pictures of birds that were, like, really, like, orange-yellow 'cause of the way the sun was hitting the trees, like getting that shifted back to green, you know, those blues. And then being like, "Okay, now I want to do X, Y, and Z for creativity." Now vignette or some masking that's more blurring or whatever.
Amy (she/her): Whatever the thing is, yeah.
Casey (she/her): I was trying to jump all the way to final vision, which doesn't work.
Amy (she/her): Well, it... A-actually
Casey (she/her): r- that's just, like, really... It's just funny 'cause, like, we talk about this stuff all the time and, and I've sat on your, like,
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): stuff.
And, like, I've never thought about those so separately
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): "Oh, that might change how I sit down and look at my workflow
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): like, okay, here's picture, baseline edits. Okay, do we now want to, need to do something creative with this?"
Amy (she/her): Yes. And I think that process collapses as you get more experience. So I don't
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): go through those distinct phases i-in my, in my edits these days.
Once you get to the, the level where you've got experience and you kind of s-see it happening all at once, you can do that. So there's nothing that says they have to say s-stay separate processes in your, in your workflow. But it... I find it really useful for beginners, which is where you're at, to split it up
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): get it to, okay, let's talk about...
and talk... not only talk about what we wanna fix, but then how does that go back to now how do we implement that in the field so that we don't have to fix it again? Now, if it's one photo and you, you fucked up one thing, g- whatever, you know, maybe it'll stick in your head as a, a, a lesson or not. But if it's something you're repeatedly doing, you're repeatedly underexposing, or you're repeatedly using the wrong settings and getting blurry photos, or you're repeatedly, um, whatever it is.
There's, there's all sorts of things that it could be. Then, then we should talk about your field craft rather than your editing process on the computer.
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): um, I am a field craft person. Like, m- the joy I get from photography is sitting there with the camera in my hands taking the photo. And so- My emphasis always has been, and there are reasons for it we can get into, but my emphasis has always been on getting as many things right in camera as I possibly can.
And that's a personal choice because that is what makes me happy. Um, and then there's, on the flip side, there are people who would rather spend their time in front of the computer and, and no shame to them.
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): power to you, have at it.
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): and I am learning to enjoy that part with, um... I mostly enjoy it with my landscapes and my bird photos.
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): that shift, that was a shift.
Casey (she/her): Your, your work photos are such a different concept, such a different beast, and, like, the volume of work that, like, I could see, like, for work, the craft is in the camera.
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): to take, you know, 10,000 photos this weekend and sort through them.
Amy (she/her): 10? Only 10? What are you talking about?
Casey (she/her): w- and then in an afternoon, a light, a
Amy (she/her): In a... Yeah.
Casey (she/her): agility course.
Amy (she/her): Right.
Casey (she/her): You know? It's like, so yeah, it makes sense for you, given where you started in photography and the focus on agility and, and the business, that y- you would be so field-focused and camera-focused versus the editing side of it. And I wonder too, 'cause as I hear you talk about this, and I think, maybe it's 'cause I'm learning photography from you mostly, I lean towards wanting to get it right in camera. And also just I sometimes get frustrated with the editing because it's not doing what I want it to, and I'm like, "Crap, if I'd just maybe done this differently in the field, could get it to do what
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): and, like, on the creative side. And so, like, I do wonder too, though, like, how many photographers are not making this distinction and relying too heavily on technology and editing, especially now with the, like, additions of different types of AI into
Amy (she/her): Uh-huh.
Casey (she/her): of a whole different rabbit hole, so I don't necessarily
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): like,
Amy (she/her): We're not, we're not gonna too far.
Casey (she/her): But, like, how many photographers are kinda like hamstringing themselves by not spending more time thinking about their in-camera process versus just like, "Oh, I can just fix it in Photoshop"?
Amy (she/her): Right. So I'm... Oh, there's so... My brain's, like, spinning on so many different ways I could answer this. So I'm, I'm gonna bring... No, that's great. I love that. So I'm gonna bring it though to the agility photos because that is the, the bread and butter of what I do,
because agility was the first thing, everything else I do, whether it's birds or landscapes or whatever, comes out of, is a refinement of the processes that I have for agility.
Why Amy Wants It Right in Camera
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Amy (she/her): So in the field if I make the decision that I'm gonna shoot auto ISO, let the camera control the ultimate look of the exposure, how bright or how dark an image is. If I'm gonna let the camera do auto white balance, and I'm gonna not worry about whether or not my horizons are straight.
Um, you know, that's, that's a decision in the field to do, and it does reduce the mental load. that you're placing on yourself as you're shooting. And there is a whole lot that you have to be thinking about when you're shooting. So
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): an advocate for making tho- the number of things you have to think about as small as possible.
But I think you sabotage yourself, I sabotage myself if I make those decisions and then rely on fixing it afterwards. Um, because then I have just offloaded... I haven't l- removed all of that stuff I have to do. Now I've just shifted it. I've time shifted it to now I'm gonna spend my whole freaking week editing all my photos.
And I ... Somebody may never even see it, let alone buy it. So that seems very inefficient and very, um, not a good business decision to me, to me.
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): learned ... I remember, I have this distinct memory of the first year I was shooting, first or second year I was shooting, um, I was using aperture priority because a sports photographer who had given me a few tips, um, had said, "Try that.
That's probably what you want. That'll, that'll get you, you know, um, in the ballpark." And so I did that.
But what I was most disappointed in was when there was a white dog, it made it look gray, and then when, when there was a black dog, it made it look gray, or just random things would happen because the camera was making the decision about what, what the exposure should be.
it doesn't know what a Black dog is. It doesn't know what a white dog is.
that means it's gonna guess wrong more times than it's gonna guess right. And now
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): I will give you, in 25 years, metering has gotten better. There's l- different modes you can use. The, the camera guesses better than it used to.
Um, but I still, if I'm gonna mess up a photo, I want it because, to be because I messed up, not because the camera messed up.
Casey (she/her): Yeah. That's one, and o- obviously it's still very brand new, but I find myself switching back to full manual more often than not when I'm playing with things, because I want control over all three parts,
Amy (she/her): Right.
Casey (she/her): the decision that the camera's making. And some of that might just be a little bit of, like, more reps of, like, shooting more in a certain setting and, like, trusting the decision more and seeing what that looks like when I, you know, go to edit it. I, a lot of times, like, I just... I'm either in, like, full auto or full manual, and the only time I switch to, like, full auto was, like... I, I think I sent you the picture of the fox that I took, and
Amy (she/her): Yep.
Casey (she/her): it was right at dusk, and I could not... I started, like, flipping things in manual like, "I can't find the light.
I don't know what I'm trying to do," and I... She's, like, gonna run away any second. I'm like, "Fuck it. Auto. Snap. Hit okay." Like, and then I flipped it back to manual. I'm like, "Oh, that's what the settings are. Okay." Like, now I
Amy (she/her): Yep.
Casey (she/her): mental,
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): you know, learned moment. But yeah, it is... Right. Like, letting
Amy (she/her): It-- you can't,
Casey (she/her): of it,
Amy (she/her): you can't troubleshoot, you can't troubleshoot it when the camera has some sort of automatic part of going. Even auto ISO, people will say, "Oh yeah, I'm shooting full manual with auto ISO." I'm like n-then no, you're not shooting full manual. You're shooting... You're-- it's no different than aperture priority or shutter speed priority.
You have just changed which setting you're letting the camera control. It is still not full manual. Full manual is you dialing in all three of those settings. And I can troubleshoot that. If I mess up on a setting, I can troubleshoot it. If the camera is in control of something, I cannot... There, there are, there is no way to consistently fix whatever it is doing wrong because it's out of my control.
The, the camera's got, got that. Yep.
Casey (she/her): little equation that it knows how to do, and you can't override that unless you change out of that setting.
Amy (she/her): Right. I mean, there is exposure compensation, but even that, now you've got the camera automatically doing something, and you trying to run along behind going, "No, wait, go this way! No, wait! Go that way!" And, and to me...
Casey (she/her): It, it,
Amy (she/her): Go ahead.
Casey (she/her): me think of, uh, I had a rental car not too long ago that has that automatic lane
Amy (she/her): Oh.
Casey (she/her): that, and I was trying to pass, and it was one of these I know I should use my blinker when I pass, but I wasn't using my blinker because of, like, there was no traffic behind, the whole situation. And I was like, "Why can I not get over?" And then I was like, "Oh, if I just hit my blinker, then the car knows what I'm doing, and it'll let me do..." Okay, this is ugh.
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): saying that about, like, kind of chasing the settings on the camera, I'm like, ugh, that reminds me of fighting with lane assist on a car. I don't like it.
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): want
Amy (she/her): that's exactly... That is such a good analogy. Like, it's one of those that I wish I'd come up with my-on my own. But yeah, no, that's exactly right.
Casey (she/her): it.
Amy (she/her): So, um, so yeah, I... Oh, where are we? I've,
Casey (she/her): you... Yeah.
Fieldcraft, Flow State, and What Cameras Are Actually Good At
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Casey (she/her): So you made a lot of your decisions and kind of got into being so field-focused as a function of the work
Amy (she/her): Yep.
Casey (she/her): about somebody like me, who is... Like, there are no constraints on me, and I'm not trying to shoot for reps, and I get to shoot whatever I want and whenever I want, however much I want.
Like, how... I'm trying to think of what my question is. I almost feel like, and I guess also in a way, I feel like having fewer constraints is somehow leaving me with more confusion, and I'm wondering if there's a way to kind of artificially push myself to be more field-focused. And again, I say that as like, this is my choice.
I'm already finding that I'm more
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): wanna get it right out of the camera, or at least understand that. I think that partly I wanna just understand that better, and maybe I'll make different choices in the future. But like, how? If I'm not shooting tens of thousands of dogs in a weekend. you have ideas or is it just go figure it out?
Amy (she/her): Well, I think, I think that's where the idea of preference comes in. Like, do you like sitting at the computer fixing things that you could have caught in the field?
Casey (she/her): not
Amy (she/her): Then I think you already know your answer in, in that respect. So,
Casey (she/her): Okay.
Amy (she/her): um, so I think it comes down to what part of photography are you drawn to the most?
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): all drawn to all of the bits of it to a certain extent, but
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): it kind of goes back to what I said at the beginning. I... If, if all I had to do to make money was sit and push a button on my camera and just watch fast dogs do their thing and capture photos and never do anything further with the photos, I actually could be happy with that, which is a weird idea.
Like, why? But I get to the end of the day, I'm like, "Oh, I've already done the work. Now I gotta do more work." But, so I would rather... There is something about the process of taking the photos, um, I think, I think it may be, this is a new thought, um, it might be because my brain is always spinning so fast,
Casey (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Amy (she/her): there are very few times in my life where m- it settles in and just kind of finds a groove and just hums along
Casey (she/her): Hmm.
Amy (she/her): isn't spinning off in 15 different directions. So sitting and shooting all day at an agility trial is the closest I get to shutting up the constant chatter in my head and just having the most concentrated single focus that I ever get in my life.
Casey (she/her): Okay.
Amy (she/her): for me, that, it, it's this flow state idea,
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): Where I just,
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): it can get into the flow, and I can just do this thing, and it's what I need to be doing because it is my job, and that is, that is where all, all of it fades away.
Casey (she/her): That makes a lot of sense to me. That's really relatable. Also the ADHD. But as we talked about, like, in our origins episode, like, I'm a problem solver. I like, you and I both, you said at the beginning of this episode, we like pulling apart all the pieces of something is, I think about the, the vulture pictures that I took, and we've talked about those. But, like, as I was standing at my fence line watching these birds, I was like, "Oh, this shot doesn't work because of what's behind the bird," and, "Oh, I wish the light was here." And, like, it was this, a little bit of the same. Like, all the other noise kind of went away for a
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): I was trying to see all of the pieces of the puzzle so that I could figure out how to make the picture. And so I think that, like, as we think about it, I'm like, yeah, I'm drawn to figuring it out and getting it right in the camera, but why? I think that
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): for the flow state, but same result. I think I l- I love that side of it more than And, and sitting in like with the bird photography, sitting and watching the birds or landscape, sitting and watching a sunset or whatever is like, I wanna spend more time in nature.
I already
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): time here
Amy (she/her): Right. Right.
Casey (she/her): of edits.
Amy (she/her): Yeah, I think you-- So I think you know the answer for yourself. I mean, that... So yeah, I get to incrementally, you know, make, make changes and, and troubleshoot, or I can, like, feel like I've found the perfect, you know, where everything is working exactly right, and the camera is responding exactly as I expect, and the dogs are, are not doing weird things that I don't expect, and, and it all just kinda comes together.
So, but even if I'm ma-making constant little tweaks, that's still, that's just enough fuel for the, to get the dopamine going that I can be very happy for 12 hours a day. Thank God, because that's how long it gets sometimes. But I can be very happy doing that. Um, and, and that's, so that's, that is the, the basis for, for why I like doing what I do.
And, and yes, same with the birds. Um, there's a lot more variability in that, and so there's a lot more d-there's a lot more downtime of just observing. There's a lot more, um, variations of things 'cause, uh, an osprey diving doesn't follow an agility course in numbers and whatnot. So I mean, it's but it's like taking, taking everything that I've learned, yeah, everything I've learned in agility and, and cranking up the, the complexity
Casey (she/her): And I feel like to other beginners as somebody who's still in a beginner phase myself, I, I feel like this is part of a whole bigger conversation about AI and writing and content creation, all the other ways that we use and talk about AI. But I think there's even more value to the in-the-camera work now because like I, I saw a thread about this and someone was like, "Oh, I just take photos this way and then I fix it in post."
And like you can tell that the photo was fixed in post and wasn't close enough to where it needed to be to do that big of a fix.
I feel like having More skill in camera is going to translate to better art,
Amy (she/her): Yeah. Yeah.
Casey (she/her): out as AI continues to be a thing both in editing software and just in image creation as a whole. So I think there's that aspect for me too, of like learn the foundations so that you can use the tools even better.
Amy (she/her): Well, I mean, there's, there is bound to be, and I think it's already starting, this, um, reaction, you know, pushback on AI of, um, the desire for authenticity, the desire for realness. And when, when the hype starts going off about, "Oh, no, AI's gonna come and replace me as a photographer," no, it's not.
Casey (she/her): No, it's not.
Amy (she/her): it starts to replace some things, I can pivot.
I've done it before.
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): I can react appropriately to whatever threat AI supposedly brings. And I'm not threatened by it yet because AI cannot do the culling, the automatic culling that it, uh, for dogs.
It has no idea how to pick out a sharp agility photo from my thousands of images. I, I have every once in a while tried it, like the free trials of any of those automatic culling, and I think it's built into Lightroom now. I haven't even tried it. Because AI can't...
Casey (she/her): Mm-mm.
Amy (she/her): not trained on dogs because that's not a big enough market.
Casey (she/her): I
Amy (she/her): We're ne- it's never gonna...
Casey (she/her): control issues. I just don't want you
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): which of my photos...
Amy (she/her): Well, there's that.
Casey (she/her): I even think
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): the, some of the photos I've taken, like is in the camera probably could be cold, but I, I wanna play with it because I want to see...
You know, I, I know that
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): 'cause I took the photo too last second or whatever. Like, yeah, I don't want, I don't want AI making those decisions. But yeah, I just, you know, one of those things that like, as a beginner speaking to beginners, if I have any space to be giving like advice is I think this is why it's extra important to do the field work and understand it.
Even if you choose to be someone who edits, do- does a lot, you know, in editing later on. But understand that groundwork because I think over the next five, 10 years, that's what's gonna stand some photographers out from others, depending on the industry, the type of photography, the type of art style. But that's,
Amy (she/her): Yeah. Mm-mm.
Casey (she/her): good at what you do if you're doing dog sports.
Amy (she/her): Yes. Well, and so one thing that I think can help people figure out how to, how to make that transition or how to be more fieldcraft forward, is to understand what cameras are really good at and what they're actually not good at,
Casey (she/her): Okay.
Amy (she/her): should leave for the editing process versus what you should be doing in camera.
I make sure that the white balance is right. Um, my crew and I talk a lot about how to set up shots and what the framing should be. Um, and, uh, I control how much contrast and saturation because, um, there is nothing worse to me than an overly saturated and overly contrasty picture of a black dog because it, it just becomes a black blob.
So, um, that's, that's kind of
Casey (she/her): I
Amy (she/her): go, know what.
Casey (she/her): side tangent here, the reason we own a yellow lab is because black labs are too hard to take pictures of, and I knew I was gonna take eight gajillion pictures of my dogs, and my chocolate-colored dachshund is hard to take pictures of. So my husband was like, "I want a lab."
And I'm like, "Great, it has to be yellow." And he's like,
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): like,
Amy (she/her): Pictures. I love that. You are not, actually, you are not unique in that.
Casey (she/her): know.
Amy (she/her): I have had customers who have had black dogs come to me and say, "Hey, guess what? I got a new puppy, and guess what? It's not a black lab. It's yellow this time so I can get better pictures." And you are, honest to God, I wish I was joking, but I'm not.
I love it.
Casey (she/her): I, I knew it couldn't be just me.
Amy (she/her): No. No, anybody who has ever had a black dog, and I have one now, um, is well aware of the challenges of taking pictures of black dogs.
Casey (she/her): Yep.
Amy (she/her): I do... My agility photos have to come out of the camera being ready for primetime.
but in terms of, like, my bird photos, the priority I put on when I'm shooting bird photos is, is are they in focus in the right place?
is the exposure where I want it to be so that I have the best data for doing my editing? And is the framing, approximately what I want it to be? It-
Casey (she/her): Okay.
Amy (she/her): It's a, an intentional approximation, not just a, "I'm gonna shoot this really wide and then crop into, you know, this big." Um, so it's, I wanna get it as close to composed in camera as I can, which mirrorless has made possible. Side tangent, um, one of the things I adore about mirrorless is I can compose even action photos as they're happening, and I couldn't do that with DSLR, um, because of the way the focus tracking worked on that.
Um, I try and get the white balance, like, in the ballpark for my, my bird, bird photos, but I certainly don't put a lot of emphasis on it. Usually, it's just a Kelvin I'll dial in, you know, approximately what'll make things so that it's not too blue or it's not too yellow. It's just kind of a real middle ground.
That's my emphasis in the field, getting the settings right for, for sharpness and for exposure, um, and then an approximation of the framing and an approximation of the white balance.
Casey (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Amy (she/her): because I know that when I get to the computer, the computer is much better at, um, contrast, saturation, final color choices, and composing.
I can go from my approximate white balance and dial in what I really want it to be, whether that's a, just a straight up neutral, you know, white looks white, or if it's some sort of mood shifter like, you know, golden hour or blue hour or, you know, whatever. the camera does contrast like with a sledgehammer.
it is just a, here's all the contrast and it's like super bright here and super dark there, and it'll fool you into thinking that you're blowing out your highlights when you're really not. so I don't like the camera to control, the contrast
Same with saturation.
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): light touch, um, unless you're making saturation what the photo's about. Like, you don't care what the subject is, you want your, your viewers to go, "Oh, look at all of that color.
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): Lightroom, you can, you can do much more subtle and refined, um, adjustments to contrast saturation.
Um, you can do the, the fine-tuning of, of whether or not the horizon is straight, um, do your crop for composition, tighten it up. Um, you know, all of those things are much better at editing. And so understanding where you should put your emphasis as you're shooting can help you narrow down what it is that you have to th- to think about, but in a strategic way rather than a, um, oh, I'm just gonna fix it in post.
So
Casey (she/her): Okay. That makes
Amy (she/her): I think, yeah. Now, the idea of editing X000 number of, of agility photos before I can put them up for sale is a non-starter for me
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): I would rather have that effort go to making sure my customers can find their photos really quickly
Casey (she/her): That makes sense. And then we've kind of talked about this, but then if you see that you're constantly editing the same
Amy (she/her): Mm.
Casey (she/her): then that's that kind of cue if you, if you want to have things... If, if you don't wanna keep having to always fix the horizon, I'm realizing I don't pay attention to horizons.
I've, I've done that a couple of times. I'm like, "Hmm, that's like the first thing I fixed in like the last several sets of photos I've taken," is I'm realizing that's one thing I'm not paying attention
Amy (she/her): Hmm.
Casey (she/her): be a thing that I edit and need to think about in my editing process, or add it to that list of like puzzle pieces when, when I'm shooting and like, you know, okay, mental checklist of composition and movement and depth and, oh, yep, horizon and
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): is...
That can be an indicator of skills to then bring back to the, the field.
Amy (she/her): Yeah, and horizon is really hard when things are happening fast because it's, it is so easy to lose track of it. Um, it is the thing-- My, my poor crew apologizes to me like, "Oh, Amy, I, the, my dog walk pictures today are all crooked." I'm like, "It's okay." And I, I'm not so concerned about just a little bit, but when they've got it at like a 30-degree angle, then I, then we have a conversation.
I'm like, "Okay, let's talk about your body mechanics that are making this happen," because it is body mechanics. It is about I just have my, my monopod planted between my feet, and I just leaned over to get that dog walk photo. Well, of course then it's gonna give you a crooked horizon. So let's talk about where you need to pick up your monopod, move it, so that you can keep your verticals and your horizontals looking vertical and horizontal.
Um, so, and, and it also, actually that's another, uh, leads me to another thing of if I'm doing something repetitive like agility, I plan as I'm sitting there waiting for the first dog to come, I'm, I'm planning my shots and putting my body in the position I need to be to get that straight horizon, and I'm paying attention to how that feels in my body.
Because once things start moving, I don't have a lot of time for adjustment and refinement and paying attention. I need to just be able to snap into as I just about take out my microphone with my elbow. Um, I need to be able to, to like have that muscle memory already there as the first few dogs are come- running the course.
So, um, paying attention in, attention to it beforehand, pay, figuring out how I'm gonna frame an image so that even when the dog is moving, I know where I should stop moving so that the, the jump and the dog are in the right place where I want them for the, the composition,
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): of time as much as possible.
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): gonna be. It has to be between the two uprights of the jump. So, you know, make some plans about how you're gonna frame it.
Casey (she/her): yeah, as I said, I like that and, and I had never thought about, like, the, the muscle memory side of it is...
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): could see that even with, in certain situations with birds of, you know, oh, like, like I was... When I did the crane festival is I've got this big line of cranes on the horizon, kinda out near the horizon, and I'm kind of watching the whole thing, and you can tell when they're, like, getting ready to take off or when they're getting ready to have a little squabble, and you can, like, see that motion out of the corner of your eye, and I was shooting with a monopod.
And I did that a couple of times of where, like, I didn't pick up the pod, I just kind of twisted my body and tried to grab the shot versus, like, okay, if, if something happens over here, I know I want to
Amy (she/her): Uh-huh.
Casey (she/her): the camera and the monopod and twist myself, not just lean or, you
Amy (she/her): Or I need to, I need to move myself around, like s- let it swivel and move myself so that I maintain... Like, I want myself to stay upright rather than leaning, you know? If you start to lean, then you know your horizon's gonna be leaning, so yeah.
Casey (she/her): Yeah. Uh, like I... It's just, it's so funny. There are so many pieces to photography that like, oh, duh, the, the way my body is leaning is gonna impact the horizon of the shot. But had I thought about that? No. Absolutely not. Like, it's on a monopod. All I have to do is, like,
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): the glass that direction and I'm good to go.
Actually,
Amy (she/her): No.
Casey (she/her): that
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): secondary set of problems. And
Amy (she/her): Yeah. And you can turn ... There is a way to
Casey (she/her): salvageable to crop because at that point they were
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): them back to level, I couldn't... It fucked up the crop too much that now they're not salvageable. They just have to be
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): angle or go in the trash.
Amy (she/her): Yes. Yes. Um, you can turn a level on in the viewfinder so that,
Casey (she/her): Oh.
Amy (she/her): I mean, it, it takes up a ... I don't like it because it's, like, right there in the middle, and I'm like,
Casey (she/her): Oh,
Amy (she/her): "That's too much." But if you ... I will sometimes turn it on if I'm planning a shot.
Casey (she/her): I
Amy (she/her): Like, I'll see
Casey (she/her): I could see that'd be interesting in
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): setups, yeah.
Amy (she/her): Yeah. I don't like it on while I'm shooting, but I certainly have used it to, to set up shots,
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): make sure that what I think feels level actually is level.
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): it's not. Sometimes it is. Sometimes I have a pretty good sense of, yeah, this is level. Um, I, I will key off of what I see in the background, um, a lot. So, you know, finding something that I know it should look vertical. Verticals actually are the first thing I go to rather than horizontals when it's, when it's agility.
So looking for something like if a, there's a, a post in the background, like, for the building. Um, uh, like, if you're out doing birds, if there's a tree that is vertical and is gonna be in your shot, you know, making sure it actually is vertical. Um, you know, find little, little visual cues to help you do that.
Um, so that's-
Casey (she/her): That
Amy (she/her): But, but yeah, the whole process, I think we started or we, we were on the idea of taking what you see in your photos and bring it back to I need to-- I am doing this thing wrong, or I, I'm doing something that makes me unhappy constantly. So how can I take a step backwards and look at what I'm doing in the field and improve it there so that I don't have to be making these edits when I get it back to the computer?
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): so.
The Difference Between Planning and Playing
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Casey (she/her): Yeah, and I think also then this kind of taps into, like, there's kind of different... I mean, this is the editing versus creativity, like editing for fixes versus editing for creativity. There's also, like, an eye for and an eye for creativity, if I'm saying that in a way that makes sense, of like, I, I think, like, 'cause all of a sudden, this is one thing I run into, is my brain starts to get too analytical and I start to like, "Oh my gosh, I've got to worry about the horizon and the depth and the, is there too much between me and the bird?"
And all these things that we've talked about, and my brain starts running through the list. Yes, and also, like, practicing for the sake of creativity and knowing that there's, like- I would imagine for you, it kind of sounds like you described this when you talk about getting into that flow state, is like when you get to a show and set up, there's an element that is this like editing eye where I'm setting up, I'm picking the shot, I'm thinking about how the dog's moving through the course, yada, yada, yada, is this editing eye.
But then like once the dog starts running, your brain switches into this like
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): like, okay, now we're in the flow and we're taking the shots and we're double checking, and maybe we're tweaking a little bit, but
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): it's almost a different mental space. And so
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): about like taking that into the field for myself, great, I'm gonna go out. Uh, we're getting to a season soon where the great blue herons are-- the, the chicks are gonna start
Amy (she/her): Mm.
Casey (she/her): enough that you can see them from the nests. It's like, okay, great. I know where these birds are. I've seen them before.
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): set up. I can take a minute, think about composition, think about horizon, blah, blah, blah, and then take a deep breath and like, okay, now we're just gonna have fun.
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): I kayak out to them. It's like now I can just drop the boat in the water
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): go look for birds and go look for turtles and try not to dump my ass in the river.
Amy (she/her): Yeah. That seems like a good goal. Don't get wet. Better yet, don't get the camera wet.
Casey (she/her): I get wet.
Amy (she/her): Yeah, yeah.
Casey (she/her): camera wet, yeah.
Amy (she/her): Yeah. That, that can be a thing.
Casey (she/her): the-- so kind of back where we started of editing for fixes versus editing for creativity is also shooting for editing versus shooting for creativity. Not quite the right words on that, but I think
Amy (she/her): Yeah, I do, I do. I, because yeah, my brain, I do know that my brain definitely shifts from the strategy of, of how I wanna set up my shots to taking the shots to now doing the rest of whatever I'm gonna do with the shots. And it, and it does not switch quickly be- I mean, it, it switched kind... I, I shouldn't say that.
It does switch quickly. Like, okay, we've done our, our... We've watched the walkthroughs, we've s- picked our spots, and now I'm in shooting mode. If I have to go back to picking my shots mid-run because something is just dramatically not working and I, I can't make the shot work, and I wanna make a change, that's a really hard shift to do because I have to stay shooting as I'm figuring out, okay, am I gonna move my chair 10 feet that way or do I have to pick a whole, you know...
And how can I do it between this obstacle or this dog and that dog when there's only like a few seconds there? So getting back into s- you know, serious problem-solving or serious, you know, strategy is, is a hard thing.
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): it. For instance, I had a, an event recently that was held indoors, but it was in a big giant d- tent, um, a permanent tent.
Um, I, I don't quite know. So like a, a semicircle long tube, um, and, and the, you know, the sides up to a certain point were, were opaque and then it, the, the top of it, the curved part of it was translucent and I'm sure that at some point it maybe was white, but because of its age it was, it was yellow.
And so, um, the light coming in was, was even more yellow than regular, you know, sunlight. Um, and the light was changing so it was like being outdoors only it was being outdoors in- inside of a giant softbox and the color was really wonky and so I, I was, I was not only worried then about changing exposure, I was worried about changing white balance on the fly.
Now, would I have done this 20 years ago? A- absolutely not. I would've put it in auto white balance or I would've just stuck with whatever, but I tried to keep up with it. I was not always successful, um, because it, the, the way the light would, the color would change would distort how I was seeing thing. It wa- it was a thing.
Casey (she/her): This
Amy (she/her): But I was never in any kind of flow state because I was constantly monitoring the amount of light and the color of the light as well as what was going on in front of me on the course. And in some ways it, it's exhilarating because I'm like, "I can do this."
Casey (she/her): Right. Yeah, a challenge when a lot
Amy (she/her): yeah, yeah.
Casey (she/her): more routine for you. Yeah.
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): Spice it up a bit,
Amy (she/her): Yeah. But that, you know, that was...
So I think if you get into a place, and I feel like I'm, uh, this is a little role reversal. Like, you have to decide how much you can process at once, right? Brain person. I mean, y- and then you have to make decisions about can I do all of this or do I have to knock some things off the list so I can...
Casey (she/her): Yes.
Amy (she/her): and that's where understanding the priority comes in and being able to say, "Okay, I have to get the things in focus."
Casey (she/her): Yeah, like, that's... Yeah, like, I know for me, and obviously we fixed this partly switching to mirrorless, but, like, getting the right focus and getting approximately, like, the right white balance, light exposure, that's the word I was looking for, the right exposure is, like, if I've got those, then I can kinda work on the rest. Like, that's where my brain starts, because obviously if
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): like, what's the point of the picture?
Amy (she/her): Right.
Casey (she/her): And
Amy (she/her): There, yeah.
Casey (she/her): the... Like, if I can get those, great, and then, like, if I've got more time, then I'm gonna start worrying about the next
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): like, the, the fox who I ended up just flipping it to auto, and I got the couple pictures I wanted.
I wanted to get a picture of this fox. I'm obsessed with foxes, if y'all didn't know. Um, and so I was so thrilled to get a picture of her, but I knew she was gonna look up at me any second and spook, 'cause we were 100 feet away from each other, just- And she didn't realize, when she walked out of the tree, she didn't realize I was standing there. And so I was like, "Okay, I got my photos," flipped it back to manual, and I'm like, "Okay, now I can play with settings and, like, try to compose." And she looked up and was like, "Boop, nope," and trotted off. And I'm like, "Okay, and at least I
Amy (she/her): Yeah. Yeah.
Casey (she/her): you know?
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): yeah.
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): There's, there is only so much you can think about
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): time. And, and I, I think also, too, for, like, newer photographers, you did... I did a challenge with you a while back, the Get Unstuck Challenge, and one of the first assignments, one of the first challenges was to just go take, like, 20 bad photos.
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like deliberately bad. Like
Casey (she/her): yeah, like
Amy (she/her): try to take bad photos. Yeah.
Casey (she/her): and so, like, I literally just walked around my backyard, like, kind of swinging my camera around, and I was like, "Oh, pine cone," snap, snap, snap. "Oh," like, "tree branch," where's... You know. And it was interesting to think about any of that. Like, I don't know, part of me says, like, if you've been ph- doing photography for more than a year, you should go do that once in a while. Because all of a sudden I stopped thinking about anything, and I got, like, a really cool pine cone picture, and I'm like, "Crap, now how do I recreate that?" Like, oh, okay, like something here doesn't work, you know? And so, like, taking that time to your brain do both,
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): part of what we're doing here, depending on maybe not so much for the dogs, but, like, part of this is art, part of this is creativity, part of this is joy. so making sure you don't get too locked into the rules and the analytics
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): all of it, and that you let yourself also remember to just play.
Amy (she/her): Yeah. Um,
When Fixing Photos Starts Killing Creativity
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Amy (she/her): I think that comes to a, a, a really important thing that I always think about is even once I get to the computer, how do I wanna spend that time? Do I wanna spend that time fixing mistakes, fixing things that I really could have caught in the field? Or do I wanna spend that time doing creative things with the photos that I've taken?
Because if you're, if you are w- are spending all your effort, your, your precious brain energy on, on fixing things, uh, it's really hard to then go, "Okay, now what do I want, what do I wanna do with this creatively?" Um, so I'm gonna toss that at you and let you talk about that a bit 'cause I... That feels like in your wheelhouse too.
Casey (she/her): I mean, y- you're spot on, is like we can't be in... So in the nervous system sense, this kind of translates to, like, we can't be in fight or flight and use our logical brain at the same time. Like, uh, literally how our brain is designed, you hit a certain level of reaction, and your logic, your prefrontal cortex shuts off so that you just are in this reactionary stay alive state.
And so there is, like, a similar thing, I think, when it comes to creativity of, like- If you're too into the analytics, you almost create a, a fight or flight type sense. Like, you get into this... For a lot of us, we have our own shit around shame or whatever is like, or I'm not an artist, I'm not creative, like we've talked about, is like your creativity turns off because you turn on all of this judgment stuff. And then, and I've, I've done it. I can picture myself sitting there with all the stupid sliders cussing myself out 'cause I don't know what I'm doing, and none of this is fun, and I'm terrible at all of it, and I might as well sell the camera, versus like, we're just gonna play. We're gonna have fun.
Amy (she/her): Yeah. I think even if you're not beating yourself up about it, just even the sheer effort of taking the ti- the, the sheer time and effort it takes to make those fixes,
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): even if you, if you're beyond the kicking yourself about it,
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): takes away from... 'Cause we all have finite a- amount of energy, so I just don't have anything left for doing the creative stuff if all I've, I've had to do is fix all of the stuff in the photos first.
So
Casey (she/her): and just wanna be done with this photo. Yeah,
Amy (she/her): yeah.
Casey (she/her): so yeah. Okay.
So I think there's kind of like the next step of this conversation is actually next week's episode when we talk about perfection and this kind of trap of overly worrying, 'cause a lot of... I feel like there's a sense of, like, everything we just talked about today, now there's so much to remember, but also I have to remember to have fun, and now, like, I'm not having fun, and I'm... It's like- Take a deep
Amy (she/her): Yep. Yes.
Casey (she/her): perfectionism and kind of getting stuck in some of these things that we've been talking about, 'cause we've been throwing a lot at folks today. And so we're gonna leave it there for today. Come back next week. You can follow us at The Focus Trap on all of the social medias. Um, and then in the show notes there are links to find Amy and myself and learn more about either of us and the work we're doing. And we'll see you next week. There we go.
Amy (she/her): Perfect. Nailed it.