Video summary
The video explores why many photographs often feel flat and lifeless despite technical corrections applied in post-processing software like Lightroom or Photoshop. The speaker argues against the common misconception that one can simply "fix" a dull image later by using tools such as dehazing, comparing this approach to trying to put lipstick on a pig; no amount of digital editing can truly add depth if the essential elements are missing from the original capture. Instead of relying solely on technical sliders to create an illusion of atmosphere, photographers must recognize that cameras only record light and cannot inherently document feelings like wind, heat, or silence. To overcome this limitation, creators need to actively incorporate these sensory dimensions into their images at the moment of shooting rather than trying to manufacture them artificially in post-production.
To illustrate how to convey intangible sensations visually, the speaker cites examples from masters such as Joel Meyerowitz and Robert Adams. In one instance involving a windy scene, using a slower shutter speed allows laundry to blur slightly, thereby implying movement and wind without needing to explicitly show it. Similarly, when photographing a hot day in Baltimore, the photographer chose high contrast and allowed dust on the lens to create sunbursts that visually represented the intense heat of the sun. These techniques demonstrate that great photography is about making conscious choices regarding exposure, composition, and timing to reflect how an environment feels—whether it is isolated, burning hot, or energetic—rather than just capturing a static visual record.
The discussion further highlights Ansel Adams' philosophy, where he viewed his raw negative as the musical score of a piece but considered the darkroom processing as the performance that brought emotion and life to the work. Unlike modern workflows where photographers might take mediocre shots intending to "fix" them later in software, Adams integrated all creative decisions into the field before ever entering the lab or digital workspace. The speaker warns against adopting a mindset that relies on post-processing rescue missions because it encourages taking pictures without fully engaging with the scene's atmosphere. By shifting focus from technical fixes after the fact to thoughtful observation and intentional capture during the shoot, photographers can ensure their images possess genuine depth and personality rather than appearing as flat, boring representations of reality.
Ultimately, the core lesson is that while post-processing tools are valuable for refinement, they cannot compensate for a lack of thoughtfulness in how an image was originally conceived and captured. Photographers should approach every scene by asking themselves what specific feelings or conditions exist—such as whether it is windy, cold, exciting, or still—and then determine the most effective way to convey those ideas through their camera settings and composition. This proactive engagement with the subject matter ensures that photographs resonate emotionally with viewers because they reflect a deeper understanding of the moment rather than just serving as polished but hollow images. By prioritizing these conceptual elements over mere technical correction, photographers can create work that feels alive, textured, and truly connected to the world around them.
Read the full video transcript
There's a video, it's got 500,000 views
about how to fix flat photographs that
you know you you how do we look at a
picture and go I really this is such a a
photograph that I can't be doing with it
feels flat and this guy's promising to
teach technique on how to make the
photographs feel like they have depth
and as it's got 500,000 views I thought
well I'll have a look see what see
what's all about it and the video itself
is fine. I'm not going to talk about the
the contents of the video because he
made that video. Good on him. Right. I'm
talking about the comment sections.
There are a lot of people in the comment
section were saying that when the chat
was doing like a before and after that
the the the after version with like
dehazing kind of stuff on actually
looked worse than the before version.
And it got me thinking about a phrase
that uh that stood me in goodstead for
most of my photographic career. And that
is that you can't put lipstick on a pig.
I remember when I was younger getting
started in photography that when I took
photographs there would be a lag between
obviously taking the picture and seeing
the results cuz I was shooting on film
and often get the images back and I'd
like look at it and go you know what
everything was like so cool that day.
Why is the resulting photograph just
like it just has all the impact of a
damn flannel? I just I feel really
disappointed with it.
And for a long time I I thought, you
know, there's some there must be some
sort of trick. There's like a secret
that I'm not kind of privy to that uh
that all the pros know. And that's how
the photographs look like. they have a a
depth to them, both visual depth and
also like an emotional like there's
something sticky about those photographs
and it's only laterally that I sort of
figured out what the problem is is that
the the problem is that we our cameras
only can record
light,
right? That that's all they can do. They
can bring light and they can put it onto
the film and the sensor, what have you.
They cannot record how warm it was or
how cold it was. They can't record if it
was windy or still, if it was silent or
if there was noise, how we felt. All
those other dimensions that influence
the way that we feel when we take our
photographs. That's missing from the
photo. I think that's what's missing
from those photographs that that we feel
like just like they're just they're just
flat.
We haven't taken into account
the fact that we need to make an effort
to bring in those other ideas to build
up around the visual visual motifs in
the photograph.
There's an image that I love using as an
example of all this. It's a Joel Mayitz
photograph from Cape Light.
I don't need to explain the image to you
to have you hear
that laundry blowing in the wind.
And because you can see the laundry
moving because Joel's chosen to use a
slowish shutter speed, that implies
wind. So you're we are painting that in.
Shoot it with a fast shutter speed and
wind disappears from the equation. and
and the feeling that we might get
standing there. I can feel you could
probably feel it as well standing there
wind [laughter] blowing sand getting
everywhere kind of stuff. That's what
we're talking about. Joel as a master
able to bring in that that feeling that
emotion.
But what is it that that he's doing that
we are missing out on? I've got I've got
two photographers here. We got uh both
Adams. Got Robert Adams and I have Anel
Adams. Adams and Adams. This one's quite
heavy, so I'm going to go with this one
to begin with. So, this is uh this is
Robert Adams. And I first saw Robert
Adams as a image on a TV.
There was a silhouette of a woman
framed in a house. I thought, "Oh my
god, that's amazing. I love that." It
really connected with me somehow. It it
made me feel about a sense of just I was
about to say loneliness, but that's not
quite the thing. The isolation might be
the thing. I was encouraged to go and
look at more of his work. And I and I've
seen his photographs, especially the the
images he's doing around Denver and
Colorado, you know, these these
photographs that by no sense of the
imagination have dramatic lighting or
real sort of depth way, you know, going
off into the distance and and leading
lines, all that kind of stuff. They feel
very flat. They feel very ordinary. They
feel like the sort of photographs that I
may have when I was younger, thought
these are wrong because they feel just
gray, like there's nothing dramatic
going on in them.
And that's where I would be wrong
cuz Robert Adams is connecting
with his environment. He's showing the
places in a very matterof fact way
because that's exactly what them is.
He's part of a whole big wider group of
photographers called the the new
topographics.
And we're not really here to to get into
them. This is more about like why our
photographs feel flat. And so it's not
about dramatic senses of of of black and
white of light and shade. It's never
about the light. It's about what we're
not bringing to the pictures when we
take them. So, if we need to make sure
that we're not polishing a pig, we're
trying not polishing pig. If we if we're
trying to not polish pig, we want to not
photograph a pig in the first place. Uh
firstly, we shouldn't go near a pigory,
but we should I think approached
photography with a view to going, you
know, I've seen this scene. This is
awesome. What is what's else is here
that is making me feel this is an
awesome place? So like right now right
now here in the UK it's very warm in
here special. This is a outside part of
the house. It's not there's no
insulation or anything. This is actually
just a box. Really fun. Right. How do I
convey those ideas in my photographs?
How do I bring a sense of that to to you
as the viewer? And and I I use this
example a lot probably because much like
the Joel Mitz example, I think it works
well. Number of years ago, I was in
Baltimore at the inner harbor again on a
very hot day. And if you know Baltimore
at all, if you've been to the inner
harbor, it's all just like bricks and
concrete and stuff. So the it's just
it's just hot. And I'm thinking, how can
I convey this in my photography? And I'm
using a couple of things
to bring that feeling across in the
images. Light. This is a hot day. I
needed to convey it somehow by that
burning,
bleaching light. Robert Adams's
photographs have that quality to them,
that flat, burnt out, bleached look to
them. I want something more. And I
thought, if I place the sun in the
frame, that's a very on the nose way of
saying, "Yes, it's hot. Look here." But
you know what? It worked. And I
discovered also that if I if I kept the
lens of my camera a bit mucky, I've got
this kind of cool starburst, sunburst,
whatever. I suppose it was a sun, so it
would be a sunburst.
And then I was like, okay, well,
exposure. It's Robert Adams's
photographs, they they have a flatness
to them, like a bleached out quality,
but I wanted something different. I
wanted like a very hard and comfortable
feel to it. I wanted to almost make make
the the light itself visible, like it's
a burning stuff. It's like a laser beam
coming from the sky and melting my
underpants. It's that. So, so I chose to
go for a very contrasty look. Now
earlier of course I mentioned about like
hey do you know what we can't process
our way out of a of a bad photograph but
that is not to say that processing isn't
an important part of this whole process
as we'll see with Robert Adams not
Robert Adams Adams in a second then I'm
also thinking about placement so so far
I've thought about exposure
how am I going to expose to to bring
that light in. So I'm actually exposing
almost for the sun.
The processing I'm knowing that if I
process a very contrasty black and
white, this is going to enhance this
feeling of like is also it brings out
those wonderful sunbursts.
Then I'm think about placement.
Placement is something we don't often
think about like this tension in the
that the sun is often just off to one
side. Some of the things that just
narration everything within this these
these images feels like it is in a
position where there's like there's
there's something going on doesn't feel
quite right because nobody I feel sits
in a boiling cauldron of heat going I
feel so relaxed and calm right now I
think you're just like I'm trying to
convey all those things through so I'm
making conscious choices
about what's going to work, how it's
going to feel, and and seeing if it
brings some more of how I'm feeling into
the photographs so that you can see that
they have something for you. They don't
just like as I said have that
personality of a fitted kitchen where it
just sits and you look at it and you go
that's just so flat and boring. We've
got Anel Adam. Look at this. This is a
book called The Making of 40
Photographs. And this is what people
like about Anzel Adams. Yeah, obviously
he takes good photographs. He makes
them, but he spends time. He thinks
about it. He is not I think the very
definition of somebody polishing a turd.
Now he has this uh uh this this idea
attached to him that the negative
in this our case maybe these days the
raw file is the score of music that's
the base that we have and he thought
about the processing as the performance.
He he was a a concert pianist before he
decided to dedicate his life to
photography. He was like, "Hey."
And then in the dark room, he's like,
"So, so a nice little sort of sequence
there." But what he isn't doing to come
full circle through to to the beginning
is is he's not taking some photographs
out in the the wild and then coming back
into the dark room or light room as you
may do these days and say, "Okay, I need
to fix this. I need to make give this
photograph depth. I need to do this,
that, and the next thing. He's doing all
those ideas in the field when he's
taking the picture.
And as
cunning, cunning, yes, I think cunning,
maybe cunning is a bit hard of word. as
as tempting and as as as nice as it
feels to to have people walk you through
a process like this is what if you if
you take like a picture that's not quite
living up to expectations. This is what
you can do to to rectify things in
Lightroom and Photoshop. If you do those
things and if you if you get into that
mindset of like, hey, I'm just going to
fix it later on, which is kind of
something that I had for a long time
because it's like, you know, it's it
takes a lot of pressure off, especially
when you're shooting film. Again, hey,
you know, I'm just going to take some
pictures and if something's not right, I
can go into the dark room and I can I
can do some bits and bobs because in the
dark room, like a wet dark room, it was
a lot harder. are a lot harder. So it
was kind of it was better for me to ask
some people say look what's going on
with my photography and I was very
fortunate to be around people who
understood photography. I was a photo
school so you know that that kind of
helps right but these days a lot of
people learn photography by themselves
that's absolutely fine but then also
because of the very nature of YouTube
videos like that will get a large amount
of views Denchmont you know his his
videos they're all about technical
things and that's easy for YouTube to
understand it's easy for for
photographers to put into practice. It
is a lot easier to say, "Hey, just use
the dehazing slider and that will create
depth in your photographs than it is for
me to sit here and go, do you know, I
understand where this is coming from,
but also at the same time, we want to
bring in some other ideas. We want to be
aware of what's going on." That all
feels
harder to explain. And so, the simpler
route is to go off and just go, "Do you
know what? I'm just going to fix it in
post. But trust me,
when
we spend a bit of time
just thinking about the photograph when
we're taking about how what else is
going on? Is it windy? Is it hot? Is it
cold? Is it exciting? Is it slow? Is it
still? Is it energetic?
When we think about those things and go
all right what is the very basic way
that I can convey this idea
then your photographs
they they become so much better
because you're giving it just a bit of
thought
instead of going oh I'm just going to
just take the thing because there there
will be to to kind of use a phrase from
Apple there will be an for that. Now
that my light's gone off, that's time
for me to leave.