Read till the end for the inspiring story behind this photo. Lets get started.
Before and After
In 1973 Motorola released the first portable phone. It was huge in size and cost. In today’s value one of those phones would have run you $10,000.00. Sixteen years would pass before the first pocket size mobile phone would be released. It was a flip phone with no more capabilities than a wireless home phone. There was no camera, internet, text messaging or apps. Nineteen years latter text messaging was added with the camera coming another decade latter.
In just over fifty years we have arrived at the modern iPhone, a mini supercomputer with camera phone and "boudin" busting apps. Today 92% of Americans own at least one smart phone. Though some may think it's ancient history, life without smartphones was only a few decades ago and people got along just fine. I'm not sure all the progress in gadgets has really improved people's lives. Today, it is common for someone to shell out a whopping $1000.00 to have the latest greatest iPhone with cameras considered science fiction only a century ago. Let’s just admit it…the camera drives people to abandon perfectly good phones, despite the extreme cost, just to have the latest greatest pocket photographer.
Making a living as a photographer is a tall order today, with these astonishing pocket rockets. The market is saturated with capable photographers and overflowing with people who "get a box business cards as soon as they acquire a new camera." So why hire a professional? Isn’t your cell phone good enough? Unpacking the answers to these two questions could take a book, but for now we will consider only one reason in the sea of many.
Serious professionals, worth hiring, possess elite skills and experience at processing photos. Being good at composition or having a great camera is no longer enough with the ability of most people to let their phone apps spit out descent images. You don't like the way you look? Want to look thinner, taller, have more curves or even different hair? Just plug that photo into AI and out comes the new you:) It's not that easy or is it?
Even with all this photo power in your hands, there remains that special something you can not create without professional tools and know how. What discerns professional photos from the layman is often skills and experience at post processing to create photos you adore. We could go on and on talking about this, but lets see an example in real life.
The photo above was taken with a Nikon Z9. This is Nikon's flagship camera, at the time of this writing. It can shoot up to 128 pictures per second. Now that's crazy! When this photo was taken, the camera was set to record 50-megapixel RAW images at twenty frames per second. This is molten hot fast compared to most cameras today. But even with superior equipment and ability the photo ended up being disappointing at first glance. Why?
Though it had incredible composition and timing, there was a horrible shadow on the left side of the athlete's face caused by the bright sun and ball above. The image found in the middle of this blog only received minor cropping. No other editing was applied. In contrast, the fully processed image, at the beginning of article, was run through four professional software packages, each with unique capabilities.
There are no AI tools to solve the shadow issue found in this photo. Doing this required years of experience, training and use of pro software. The process of removing the shadow is involved, so I won't get into that now. Fixing the photo took about a half hour. Compare both photos closely. Did you notice the person removed from the original? This was achieved using an AI removal tool. Doing this required all of five seconds, versus hours of work in the past.
Once the shadow was dealt with, three additional programs were used to achieve the final image with my signature processing touch. Total time to achieve the final image was about 45 minutes. Most photographers would have simply deleted photo. But then, I’m not most photographers. Running through my blood is the “disease” of perfectionism. It can be a good thing when it drives you to excellence but must be used wisely to avoid insanity😊
Story Behind the Photo
This photo is extremely special, though I must admit, when I first put eyes on it, I didn't know why. It was taken nearly ten months ago. Why did I wait so long to get to it? Right after the tournament, I processed a few of thousands of photos taken. A week latter we would find out NCAA denied my request to photograph the National Beach Volleyball Championship, because they deemed me not significant enough. It blew the wind out of my sails. Years prior I had been invited, but now they were only accepting photographers from major media. They had no interest in giving access to my wife and I, who had worked tirelessly to support college volleyball athletes over eighteen years as athletic ministers in the sport. On top of this, I was simply burnt out.
At the time of taking this photo, only seven months had elapsed since I had life saving spinal surgery. For nearly a year prior to surgery, I was unable to walk more than ten yards due to damage caused by a spinal infection, which should have taken my life. Getting back on sand was difficult with my spine healing. On top of this, the sheer volume of photos I collected to process became overwhelming. So I put the albums from the rest of the season aside and took a break from volleyball photography. For some reason I decided to return to these photos this past week, though I have a lot of other work to do. Actually, I know the reason...it was the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
I culled through thousands of photos to arrive at the ones I wanted to process. Then I went through another sorting to hone in on the best. For some reason, when I got to this photo, my technical brain said to toss it, but my gut told me to dig in. As I was writing this blog, I looked up who the player was by jersey number. As soon as I saw her name I was blown away. She had actually written me not long after the tournament to ask if I had any photos of her. Morgan and her family suffered the dear loss of her mother months prior. I knew she played for Southern Mississippi, though I didn't know her jersey number.
This is why this photo is so special! It is not just another volleyball photo. It is a photo of an amazing athlete and woman I hope it will bless, including her wonderful family.
God is good all the time and all the time God is good.
Comments