My First "Real" Digital Experience
by James Hodgins CPA

All photos copyright James Hodgins 2006

 

  
   

Standing on the beach in St.Lucia, pearing through the viewfinder at a rusty old chain, just trying to figure out how I can make this interesting. Then I saw it.

Click..........Chimp..............OOOOOOOOOYA!!! My life & photography was forever changed.

It all started several years ago when my now, wife and I were traveling to Sandals St.Lucia to be married.

I was still shooting film with my Canon Eos & AE-1's but had a Canon D30 3.2 MP DSLR on my hands as well. I just got it, and I was contemplating bringing it with me on this trip. I was leaning towards the "What If" Scenarios... "What if I drop it? What if sand get's in it? What if someone steals it?". I knew I just couldn't take the chance.

But then my good friend/mentor Rob Provencher said 1 little thing to me on the phone that changed my opinion 100%. He said "Your a professional, take care of your equipment, you will be fine."

So I was decided, I was going to take my first DSLR on my first digital photographic experience. Now I have used my D30 in the few weeks before, but just goofing around. I even took it to my last wedding of the season, figuring I was going to shoot digital, but I was so nervous about screwing it up somehow, I took 10 frames and put the camera away and went back to film. So this trip was really the first time I could truly enjoy the world of digital photography.

Shooting film for years before that I was well aware of the stages of creating a good/great image. It came in two stages. You and the Lab. You were responsible for the capture and creativity, the lab was responsible for the processing, enhancements, and completion of the print. This was sometimes a time consuming process. Not anymore. I know this is redundant, and your probably thinking, "did he just start shooting digital or something? We know that digital is faster." But in 2001 when people were converting they didn't really know this, me included. We all know that we now have the "POWER" to take 100% control of our photography. We can now do all the custom work on our images that we relied on other people todo. If you were proficient in Photoshop, your images were limitless now. We can now put what we have in our heads out in the world for everyone to see.

When I snapped that first image of the rusty chain, just seconds before that, I had the finished image in my head.


   
I knew exactly what I was going todo to it, how I was going to present it, and how I was going to complete it as if I was entering it into a print competition.

That quick release of the shutter was
my first step of getting it there. After that experience, I was looking at the world in a way I never have before.
I was like giddy kid again with $5 at the candy store, the immediate feeling
was something I havent felt in a very long time, and I knew I was addicted.
The rest of the vacation was a digital marathon, I was seeing and creating images on the fly that I KNEW would have impact. Just like the first image of the chain, all my images from now one were previously invisioned in my head, only seconds before I actually laid them down on the censor, and recorded them to the card.
When I saw the bird hanging on this small vine, and quickly shot the camera up to my eye and tripped the shutter. During that few seconds, an image burned into the back of my head. Vertical, slim, saturaded, burned edges to draw attention to my little subject, black matting with a glow pinstripe (the glow-strip was a fad I was going
at that time). I double checked my histogram to ensure I recorded the image properly, and smiled. I handed the camera to Jocelyne to show her the image, and she gave the reply "oh that's nice." Nice. NICE? I saw the AWESOME!!! But of course, I saw the finished image before anyone else ever would.



Lonely boat was created on the fly. I only captured 2 images, as we were in a boat zipping by. I saw the boat there, and pictured how I could make this image have "impact". Crop out distracting elements, enhance the colors, some selective burning to bring the attention to the boat, and a solid contrast matting to finish it. What I had, was the image I intended.

The Image of me walking down the beach, originally wasn't taken by myself. Since I was on a complete kick with "digital envisionment" I knew exactly what I wanted, so I set the camera settings, placed my wife where I needed her to be, handed her the camera and told her to trip the shutter when I was in the specific spot on the beach. I told her exactly what I wanted to accomplish with this image.

Lower 3rd placement of me, darker edges to draw attention to myself, motion blur the water to give it that soft smooth look, low saturated color to
give it that pastel/muted look, a bit of oversharpening to add that somewhat painterly feel, and a softening to bring the whole image together. What I had on the LCD didn't really look like that, but it was the "shell" I needed to complete my final image.
The image below confirmed my "digital envisionment" theory. "Daniel" was a local St.Lucian beach vendor, and we quickly became friends during my week there.
He created a necklace for me and gave it to me for free. For gratitude I wanted to take a portrait of him. I also knew that I could take it one step further, by not just taking a portrait of him, but also placing a print in his hands before I left the next day. I did a casual portrait of him, and took my card to the resort lab.
I obtained access to the resort on site photolab and managed to use their

computer and photoshop to download the image, manipulate it a bit, and print out a 4x6 gloss print. Later that day I took it down the beach to give to Daniel. He was so overwhelmed that I almost saw a tear in his eye (but I think he just had beach sand in there). How often have people taken his portrait I asked? He told me well over 100, and he has NEVER seen a picture of himself. You must remember, that digital photography was relatively new to consumers and not everyone had a digital camera.

I took hundreds of images during my weddingmoon, each one continuing my digital envisionment. I was so excited to get back home and start applying the post processing to my images to confirm that my thoughts
could be made real. My business associate Robert Provencher also went on a carribean vacation that winter, just before I left for mine, and the images that he captured were "sound" to say the least, and after applying some simple digital darkroom techniques, he had some outstanding images to present to me. After workflowing a few of my own, we decided to enter a few of them in the Central Ontario PPO Branch. Out of the 8 we submitted
we walked away with 6 merits, and 2 awards & Rob took Best Portrait. We even had the images printed 13x19 on an Epson 2000.

This was unheard of, images taken on digital, with a 3.2 mp camera, printed on an inkjet printer, winning competitions? Blasphemy.

I will never forget my first digital experience, as it ties in with some of my best memories, getting married, traveling to St.Lucia, and creating some of the most memorable images I have taken to date. The lesson I learned from that whole experience is to have understanding of all the tools needed to complete the processes. Not only the technical issues of the digital darkroom (which are carried over from the wet darkroom), but the ability to capture a solid image that has the qualities needed to take it to completion (light, exposure, composition, subject matter). Once you have all these skills under your belt, digital envisionment just becomes second nature, like a 6th sense.

Now I see things in a new way. Before I even bring the camera to my eye, I have seen my final result. Everything I look at, I envision it as a finished image hanging on my wall. It's like looking at the world with new eyes.


Written by James Hodgins
Edited by Gabriella Wright

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