{"id":25646,"date":"2021-07-01T18:21:21","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T18:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=25646"},"modified":"2021-07-01T18:52:18","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T18:52:18","slug":"a-photographers-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=25646","title":{"rendered":"A Photographer’s Standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Respect the Viewer. Never harm the viewer.<\/strong> What we choose to share should bring, wonder, excitement, concern or compassion, never harm. This old photograph of my late son, Wesley and my daughter Catherine reveals a sister’s love, and the magnetic personality of Wes. \u00a0A slice of life captured in and instant of family love and harmony. These are the images that have a lasting place in my heart.<\/div>\n
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Respect the Subject. Never harm the subject.<\/strong> \u00a0Sometimes we have the chance to capture an image that will be compelling. \u00a0In this situtation I was walking down the sidewalk in St. Petersburg, Florida when I came upon this homeless man. I knew as soon as I saw his face that I wanted to photograph him! \u00a0This is a tricky situiton, I would never just shove my camera in his face or try to secretly shoot him form a distance with a long lens. \u00a0I approached him and starting talking with him. \u00a0I was wearing a photo vest and had a camera on a tripod slung over my shouder so I knew he would supect I wanted to photograph him. \u00a0I was “genuinely” interested in him, how he got there and what his state of mind was. After a few minutes of talking I asked him, “You have an amazingly expressive face, would you allow me to photograph you?” To my surprise he agreed and went on to let me direct him to a good location and then gave me a variety of great expressions. \u00a0After we were finihsed I asked him if he would join me for breakfast, and he did! \u00a0During breakfast we continued to talk. \u00a0He blessed me, I hope I blessed him to!<\/div>\n
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Practice your art for yourself, don\u2019t depend on the acceptance of others.<\/strong> Photography “can” bring you great joy and satisfaction, “if” you make it about joy and not about acceptance. \u00a0If we live in need of others praise we are a prisoner in a cell that only the viewer holds the keys. \u00a0We can only be free to express what we see and capture it when we shed those shackles!<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s your art, but be honest about it! \u00a0<\/strong>Today we can make amazing changes to our images after they are captured in the camera. \u00a0Post processing today offers amazing opportunities to rescue our \u00a0highlights and shadow detail, adjust color temperature and saturation. We can go even further with HDR, and AI adjustments. \u00a0If you are so disposed, even new skies can be dropped in a photo with a less than interesting sky. \u00a0My background is photojournalism and this is a harder hill for me to climb, but I am not judging whether it is right or wrong, it’s your call, you’re the artist, just always be honest with the viewer. \u00a0Below is the Nubble Lighthouse, a lighthouse I have dreamed of shooting and on a sunrise morning I caught a magical moment as the flag was backlit. \u00a0The following two images are a monochrome conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 with AI sky replacement and a sky replacement and other AI work in Luminar AI. \u00a0You be the judge! After all you are the artist!<\/div>\n
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Have purpose for the images you make.<\/strong> As a pilot I have a long standing love of airplanes! \u00a0When at the Reno Air Races, one morning with a great sky we were able to \u00a0photograph the Blue Angels Performance FA-18 Hornets.<\/div>\n
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Have purpose for the images you make.<\/strong>\u00a0 With the exception of my Savior Jesus Christ and my family and friends, my greatest treasure is my buddy, Chester Roscoe Fortney our 2 and 1\/2 year old Golden Retriever. \u00a0Throughout 14 months of being home during Covid, he has become a great buddy, I owe it to him to captue him in his most common state, resting on the couch with me!!!<\/div>\n
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Photograph what or who you love.<\/strong> Every November since we lost Wesley the family gathers at a lakeside cabin in North Carolina, to celebrate his birthday and remind ourselves that though we have lost him from here, that we are still a family and love each other as he loved us. We will have each other until that glorious day we can join him and our Lord in Heaven!<\/div>\n
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Share from an open heart!<\/strong> \u00a0One day I walked into the Primitive Baptist Church in Cades Cove and heard the most beautful sound of a violin playing the most wonderful rendition of Amazing Grace<\/strong>. \u00a0This gentleman was alone in the chruch playing and I was stopped dead in my tracks….. I sat and thought just how amazing God’s Love is for us. \u00a0He was sharing his God given talent with the world or a very small apart of it! \u00a0I pray I’m doing the same!<\/div>\n
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Try to think about these ideas and I hope you will commit to making them yours too!<\/div>\n
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May I suggest four other key factors to making wonderful images!<\/strong><\/div>\n
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1. \u00a0Don\u2019t obsess over the gear, obsess over the light, conditions, and subject.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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2. \u00a0Slow down.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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3. \u00a0Simplify. Your gear, your composition, your concept, your technique.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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4. \u00a0Spend 80% of your time finding your image – 20% making the image!<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Be blessed,<\/div>\n
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the pilgrim<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Respect the Viewer. Never harm the viewer. What we choose to share should bring, wonder, excitement, concern or compassion, never harm. This old photograph of my late son, Wesley and my daughter Catherine reveals a sister’s love, and the magnetic personality of Wes. \u00a0A slice of life captured in and instant of family love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25646"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25659,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25646\/revisions\/25659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}