In the photo world, there seems to always be a debate about technique vs. concept. Some people feel passionately about technique and are very technically minded. Some people focus on the concept and say to heck with the technique. I fall into the latter category, if any, but that doesn’t mean that I dismiss technique altogether. In fact, for a while there I was so far on the side of dismissing technique that I had to pull myself back, and one big thing did that for me:

Portfolio reviews and competitions. I review a lot of portfolios, and I noticed two things.

1. A lot of people have great technique but not-so-great ideas, and…
2. A lot of other people have great ideas and not-so-great technique.

It really does take both. If your technique is flawed, the concept won’t really matter. The viewer just won’t get past the technique.

I’ve always been a believer in editing a picture until it looks and feels right; that doesn’t mean I’ve always followed through with that. I’ve certainly posted pictures online that could have been better, but impatience got the better of me. I’ve shot pictures in poor light or of bad quality simply because it was easier or faster.

But over time, I’ve come to appreciate pairing good technique with good ideas. The combination is the only thing that will propel my career. So, today I’m focusing on technique!

In this video, I…

• Pull back the Photoshop layers to glimpse at the original images before editing.
• Take a look at what my SOOC (straight out of camera) pictures were like, what decisions went into the edit, and how they ended up the way they did.
• See how I made stuffing come out of my back, created a long, swirly dress out of a bed sheet, and changed a nearly white dress to deep red.

And more, of course.

I hope you enjoy this glimpse inside. And tell me…

What technique from the video did you like best?

What is your favorite technique in your craft?

These images are available as limited edition, fine art prints on thick, matte fine art paper. Each print is proofed and signed by me, as well as numbered. Print prices begin at $450 for my small size. A number of galleries carry my work, and if you are interested in owning a piece, get in touch with the gallery nearest you: http://www.brookeshaden.com/prints

If you would like to see how I edit more in depth, check out one of my Creative Live classes for hours upon hours of photo, editing, business, and inspiration education: http://www.brookeshaden.com/classes

I think that we have an innate desire to put our stamp on things, whether that is as a person, as an artist, or something else. In my years of teaching photography, I’ve never once conducted a workshop in which no one asked how to build a recognizable style. I’ve asked myself that question plenty of times.

It is a beautiful thing to look at someone’s work and know, without looking at the name, who made it. Those are my favorite artists. Their essence is in their art. It feels like a natural shine.

As an artist, I have thought about this topic for years. What makes someone stand out as being original? What makes someone’s work recognizable? What makes mine?

Here’s the truest answer. More true than any technique in Photoshop or lens choice.

If you don’t like that answer, you’re not going to find what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a certain technique to set you apart, stop.

Yes, they help tremendously. Yes, they can make you stand out. Yes, they are the medium that us visual artists exist in.

BUT, and I believe this firmly, there isn’t a successful artist out there who doesn’t have their art in their bones.

If you gave your favorite artist a guitar instead of a camera, it’s very likely that their original music would match their original images.

What we want our art to look like is in us from the beginning. From Day 0.

My art is not just what it looks like or feels like. It is the culmination of who I am – visually, emotionally, experiences and reactions and decisions combined. It is my expression of myself.

That is not to say that finding a style is instant. Why? Because we hardly know ourselves. The more we understand who we are, the more fluidly our style can evolve.

At least that’s what I believe. And I really, really believe it.

There are certain visual ways that my style has evolved. I used to create very monochromatic images, almost always indoors. I shifted from that to incorporating more color in my wardrobe and visiting new locations outdoors. I then started to get into more complicated composites, more detailed sets, more props. I evolved. And I am evolving.

If I had to choose 3 visual cues to my signature style, I would say:

Square Format
Yellow highlights/blue shadows
Painterly

There are more:

Feminine
Dark
Cinematic

It’s hard to define a style with just a few words, and not entirely productive, either. We shouldn’t feel trapped by a style, but able and willing to move in and out of it.

I used to fear my style. I felt stuck in it. But now I recognize that my style is mine because that is what naturally comes out of me. No matter what I pursue, it will be mine.

I hope you enjoy this video detailing how I found my style and a few different tricks in the editing room to achieve a polish to my work.

How do you describe your style?
How do you hope to evolve?

Whenever I see a composited image that doesn’t seem to quite work – my own photographs included – it is always because I am distracted by the editing itself. Case in point is an image I’m working on right now, in which I am editing someone half underwater, but the water line is just too distracting – too white, too big, too in your face. It isn’t blended properly. And because of that, I notice the editing before the concept.

One way that I deal with removing distractions from my edits is to know the order that I like to edit in, and to finish that stage before I move on to the next. My first step is always the actual compositing – literally stitching together various images so that they blend well.

When I was editing this image of my friend Jen Brook in a chateau in France, I had to edit on about eight other images photographed all around her to build out the room she is standing in. Each piece required that I do a couple of things before moving on. First is to blend using a big, fuzzy (soft, 0% hardness) brush to erase where the harsh lines of the edge of the image are so that there were no mistakes where the image was blended. Next was to match up exactly where that new piece of the picture had to go on the underlying image so that everything lined up. This often requires warping (Edit–>Transform–>Warp) so that I can maneuver each piece of the new image into place. Once everything lines up, I click that layer on and off (using the eyeball symbol in the Layers palette) to make sure I’m not missing any pieces. Finally, I retouch the color or exposure of the new piece that has been added, in case the color shifted slightly or the light did.

Once I have all of my images stitched together, and only after they ALL blend perfectly, I move on to lighting. The most common pitfall of compositing is thinking that it stops at blending the separate images together. Compositing must often go beyond stitching because when we enhance light, we take the viewer’s gaze away from certain areas and put it on others in the frame. I like to drastically enhance light, thus doing things like darkening the background and highlighting my subject. In this case below, I selected only the background, feathered my selection (in this case it was about 30px), and then darkened that area using curves and pulling down from the highlights only. This allowed the highlights on the curtains to become dark while maintaining some of the mid-tones, which would include her hair, so that they were not as greatly affected. The result is a more natural fall-off of light.

Working in light and color is rarely necessary in compositing, but it can drastically help the believability of the image. For example, in the above image, by adding blue to the shadows, and by skewing those blacks to be gray, I created a more muddied look in the shadows. This allowed the image to blend together more by taking away some of the sharper details in those areas and creating a painterly look instead. By changing the color of the dress to better fit the color palette, the viewer immediately sees a greater connection between all pieces of the final image. The colors all work together, the light is motivated and draws the eye to a certain part of the frame, and the compositing has no stitching flaws.

Even though my methods may change and evolve over time, my theory on compositing remains the same. I stitch, I enhance or change light, and I enhance or change color. Those three items, in that order, follow me through every edit that I work on.

Are there any go-to methods that you use to create your images, composited or not? Share them below!

I’d love to see your favorite editing tips!
Share a bit of your process in the comments so we can all learn from each other!

I hope you have a very inspired week!

Model: Jen Brook