Photography is a funny, funny thing. As a full time photographer, a content creator and someone deeply involved in photography with other people I have a huge workflow of images posted daily on my website, on numerous groups on Facebook and Instagram among other places.
Recently, and not for the first time, I have been called out on two very different things. People have said my editing has come on leaps and bounds and I even edit more than they think I should or have done in the past, while others have been disgusted at my love for only ever posting straight from camera images. You really can’t make up this shit.
One look at my Facebook photography page will see a huge selection of images, edited, unedited, cropped and more. The same for this website, one look and you’ll see the same mixture of edited and non-edited content. If you look at my Instagram, it’s nearly all edited content as I tend to do exclusive edits for that particular platform.
It doesn’t bother me, because I will use whatever gets the job done. But it amuses me that a certain group of people (the ones who only ever use their straight out of camera jpegs or the ones that spend hours editing) only see the opposite to what is actually going in.
My motto for many years has been, “Edit for a wall“. What that means is, get a photograph you’ve taken to a position where the image will make you proud to show it on print, hanging from your or someone else’s wall. More often than not, that will mean the image will either need a slight tweak no matter how good it looks to you initially (just to bring out the details and entrance light/shadows), or it’ll mean take the image into an artistic direction, where the image has a bit more flare (it may not look like the image you seen in real life, but it had more “pizazz“).
Of course, there are times when you or I are just documenting, so hardly anything will need to be done, and as it’s not going on a wall, it really doesn’t matter!
Whatever, I digress. Take a look at my images, and you’ll see, I’m an advocate for using whichever images suit the needs at the time.
Do you have an old camera in the cupboard that you don’t use? It could be your next everyday carry!
One Camera One Lens Photography 
You’re absolutely right, Mark — you use whatever fits the job, and that’s exactly how it should be. The comments you get are just the usual noise from people who see photography through a narrow slit and can’t imagine anything outside their own routine.
I’ve always been a RAW+JPEG shooter myself. Having both has always been an advantage for me, and I suspect for you as well. And let’s be honest: you can’t upload a RAW file to social media anyway, so sooner or later it all becomes a JPEG or something similar. Anyone with a bit of sense just uses whatever works — one format or both, it doesn’t matter.
I’m thinking of tweaking my own workflow a little, but the result will still be the same: JPEGs are simply faster to browse than RAWs, at least on my slow machine.
Good writing as always, Mark, and this debate will stay alive forever — mostly for the people who don’t want to look past what they already do.
Have a great weekend, Marc.
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It’s strange being accused of two very different and contrasting things… It can only mean I am actually putting out a mixture of content!
Enjoy your Sunday 🙏
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The critics are out there. If you don’t edit, they say you only take snapshots. If you correct horizon, contrast and exposure, they say you edit too much. I keep the editing to a minimum, but I DO edit, if the edit improves the photo. Proper triage and curation is also important. I might initially keep a shot and when I look at it in post find it is not worth displaying. As long as I don’t turn the sky green, I think I should still have the creative say. Cheers Mark and edit as you think you should. Allan
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Exactly, we can never go right for doing wrong. Enjoy your weekend Allan 🙏
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I too find it strange how some people fall into different camps. Getting the job done in whatever works for you is the way I work.
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