q & a

my desk Tuesday afternoon while racing down the back stretch preparing for my Wed. Design Basics presentation (avec lovely handout) + nasturtiums & constant companion in her bed under my desk Missy Darn D ;-)

I love the smell of nasturtiums the stems & the blossoms

Thought  I'd begin a regular q & a post - any burning questions you'd love to ask of me, Oliver or any of les Gang ? Personal, art, design, creativity, photography, Nova Scotia related ?? Ask away in the comments ;-)

This question from from Norman (we've been friends forever & met while both at art collage - NSCAD)

a technical question- do you fiddle with the individual colour levels in photoshop? pump up one or more over others? not so much picking your brain as wondering if your previous experience hand-printing/developing colour photos skews your "colour thinking" one way or the other. I never printed colour myself - just b+w - but i know you could mess with individual colours to a certain extent. filters, weren't they? like the contrast filters for b+w? - n

I do fiddle with almost every photo, in Photoshop, before posting it but never with colour balance. I think I've trained my eye to seek out super vivid colour & light. That said I do almost always shift the "lightness" or "darkness" just a titch and I boost the contrast which does help make vibrant colours even more so. I sometimes remove a blemish on a flower, remove a cat hair (ya huh ?) or 2 or 3 or a neon for-sale sign on a lawn off in the distance of a landscape - I will remove the little things that end up looking like lint to the eye. I also do occasionally crop my images & sometimes drastically. But overall I am pretty much from that purist camp that the art & magic should happen with the shutter opening & closing. Hmmm do digital cameras even have shutters ? I know nothing about the technical aspects of photography - it's shameful and a tad embarrassing.

Presentation workshop teaser - I'll post about that fantastic experience tomorrow but let me leave you with these hints. An audience of 50+, a podium (shut Up !!) and a microphone .... I die ! (Rachel Zoe-ism) stay tuned s'il vous plait.