Personal Projects

Even in creative professions, there comes a time when you feel your work process starts to become repetitive, requiring mostly the same tools and similar approaches to problem solving in the field and in post-production. Hence the virtue of embarking every once in a while, on a personal project, letting you explore new ways of doing things without having to live up to any expectations other than your own. Free to experiment and free to fail, these projects have the potential to prime your creative juices and extend your barriers. And what better time to germinate a project like this than last spring’s home confinement period!

In March this year, screen writer Ignasi García presented me with a script with the action set in my wife’s home town of Martos, and a cast comprising exclusively members of our (very large) family. With time on my hand and the potential to produce a 30-minute comedy thriller short film, I took to the task of pairing film characters to members of the family and to create a story board.

Easy enough. What was a lot harder was to create a shoot schedule lining up the 24 scenes, 14 locations and 25 actors with dates and times, all within reasonably tight shooting blocks. Eventually, with some tooth grinding and last-minute improvisations, we managed to shoot all the material over two weeks of time in July and August, respectively. Equipped with exceeding enthusiasm, but limited in time, technical resources and with no previous experience on behalf of any of the people participating in the film, we shot the last scene under a sizzling hot sun on August 25.

Filmed completely out of its chronological sequence, post-production is where you get to finally see how the bits fit together. This is also where the magical ingredients of music, sound effects and color grading all contribute to making the short truly come alive, allowing you to look back with satisfaction at the hard and long on-location hours. Being an amateur production, the editing room is also where you get the solve all the mistakes incurred. It’s hard to have fun and be perfect at the same time, isn’t it?

This film gave our family a common project to develop and execute together, and will provide a lasting memory for all involved. That having been the main objective, the production crew feels confidently satisfied with the result. But beyond its makers, we also hope it will serve to entertain many more people.

The short film “El Secreto de Martos” will be premiered on Facebook and YouTube on October 31 this year. Stay tuned!

Surely you can just photoshop that out?

From an era in which dark room manipulations were an almost unknown wizardly competence of the professional photographer, to decades of public outrage over excessive model retouching (“real” vs. “fake” photos), we have arrived at the now extended expectation that virtually anything posted on social (and many non-social) media has been digitally altered prior to publication.

From an interior photographer’s perspective, this sometimes presents a bit of a conundrum when clients who have not made their properties “photo-ready” drops the so often heard line: “surely, you can just photoshop that out, can’t you?”. (See my blog post on “What do I do Before the Photographer arrives”)

Well, as a matter of fact, often it can be just that easy. Stains, cracks, yellow grass spots, night table lamp cables, and straightening the odd painting are pretty quick fixes which a professional photographer should attend to in post production without even having been asked.

I always shoot with the editing process in mind, and will take care to arrange the scene in ways that will help reduce unnecessary and time consuming retouching. But I will admit to having had to “photoshop stuff” both in and out of images due lamentable oversights of my own whilst on location. Opening up the picture on my computer only to find a piece of my own gear sitting in a corner would not be my first. As the song goes: “We’re all human, after all”.

But there are other things for which the request to “just photoshop it out” will make a photographer start to cringe. Whilst not impossible by any means, removing anything partially concealed by bars, plants or wicker furniture, cleaning up textured surfaces or fixing dirty windows are some examples of things that will make the editing clock start ticking quite fast.

At the end of the day though, a skilled photographer will be able to address any digital alteration required. Which brings us to something of much greater importance than the technical difficulty, namely the lines of ethical responsibility. Is it OK to remove a power tower? To conceal the construction site next door? To fix paint peeling due to a water damage? The key question to ask here is what the purpose of the image is. If the photographs are used to sell or rent the property, the ethical standards regarding what can be altered are rather strict. However, if the purpose is to showcase the work of an architect or interior designer, more retouching latitude is available.

Whenever there may be some doubts about any of these sorts of issues, I will always confer with my clients prior to delivering the final images.