A recent article in Amateur Photographer described post-processing as the most ignored part of photography. In my experience, that’s very true. Among my photography-minded friends, the folk who prefer their photographs straight out of camera significantly outnumber those who tweak and tinker with their images.

Is either approach to be preferred over the other? Well no, of course not. These are our photos, it’s up to us to decide how we present them. And yet for me, straight out of camera rarely works. That’s why I shoot RAW and process my images before sharing them. Sometimes my edits go too far. I look back at some of the over-saturated, high dynamic range images that I was producing in my early days using Paintshop Pro, and I shudder at my naivety.

But taken much too far, over-editing becomes a conscious decision, moving further and further away from reality. Keep moving in that direction and you end up with Fractal Blossom which, according to my notes, started out as a photograph of spring blossom. Is it photography? No, but it’s mighty pretty, and it was a whole lot of fun making it. I wonder if I could get it made into a fabric?