Photography Manipulation

I have never considered myself a professional photographer but I do feel like I have such a strong connection with this type of art. It is being able to capture the unique moments through my lens that blossoms inside of me. As part of the photography elective that I'm currently taking, I would love to share two of my recent photos and their "before and after" editing process:

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

The above photos were just taken 2 days ago with my Fuji X-H1 and then were all edited with Adobe Lightroom (which is also one of my favorite app for image editing). The two after-edited shots were posted on my Instagram account right after and I have received many comments from other social media users saying that the weather must be very nice in Toronto currently (which is ironic because it's totally not!), which gives me the idea that if no one has seen the before-edited photos, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference! People might also say that my edited misguided them or indicated something untrue, which I have nothing against. In my defense, my photos are more about my perspective about things that are happening around me and how I would perceive them using my imagination. My ultimate goal is to create something that is special and artsy in terms of how they should look like. From the photos, you can obviously see that I cropped and re-framed them so that audience can focus on what I am trying to tell. Also, to make them pop and eyes-catching, I added a bit of color correction to manipulate it and make it a little more on the moody side.

I believe my photos are also usable for news media depending on what topic they would like to cover. But if it is mainly used to represent a story based on true facts or associated with historical values, my photos won't be the best choices for press photographs since they don't actually tell any specific stories other than just some personally-considered unique moments.

As far as I'm concerned, both art and press photography are used to convey a message through visual presentations. They also both require an individual who is creative and has a taste in art. In press photography, pictures are used along with wording as additional support to better explain stories visually which usually focus on current events or news. On the other hand, art photography is more of a vision of the person behind the lens and is mainly based on a person's creativity. As for my photos above, I would say they are more on the art photography side as it is my vision about what is happening around and how I perceived it.

Thank you for your valuable time.

Have a great day!

Joy Nguyen