"Yeah, taking out shadows shouldn’t really be necessary. You should have plenty of control over this when shooting flashed photos, and removing it from a natural light shot would probably look really weird."

"First and foremost, all photographs are inherently lies from their conception, no matter how much or how little post work is put into them afterwards. With that said, editing things out of photographs is something I’ve always hated doing but have done it from time to time. As you’ve mentioned Allen, sometimes changing the angle is not possible though and can even completely ruin the aesthetics of the image by altering the composition. I feel that the line definitively gets drawn (for me) when it comes to removing/changing aspects of the skater and and skateboard itself. By this I don’t mean selective contrast adjustments, but work such as moving the board closer to his feet and etc. Removing powerlines, garbage cans, lightstands and the like can obviously visually strengthen the image and if it is absolutely unavoidable on the scene without compromising the image compositionally, then I think it can be acceptable. On the topic of street photography and skateboarding (tricks), I feel like they practically cannot coexist. I think the basis of street photography is capturing spontaneous, unplanned, “real world” moments as they unfold to the photographer and this is generally not the process of shooting skateboarding. Maybe if you photographed people skating spontaneously through a city or something. I understand where you’re coming from with shooting natural light in this “street style” though. Flashed skate photos have lost a bit of appeal to me and are looking more and more like an overproduction…although good ones can still look super rad. I’m having mixed feelings about this method of working, especially since rolling around with a huge bag and lightstands ruins the skating experience in a lot of ways."

"Word, thanks man. Actually Allen, you’re right, I should have asked first. Live and learn I suppose."

"I’ve recently had some work published in the newest issue of Focus and was wondering if anyone has experience with them in terms of if they pay for published content? I know Zander is on here but not sure if he visits the forums regularly. I’ve never had anything run before and I’m not really sure how to go about this stuff. I’ve actually not even seen the magazine yet but from the preview on their site it looks like it was used as a 2 page spread as the “Humble Bragging” article. Any advice?"

"You’re killing it man! I think this one was my favorite so far."

"Yeah, not sure whats up with that purple stuff you showed in the 100% crop. Probably won’t be noticeable unless you print it huge, but I understand the concern. I’ve also used camera raw before as Sam suggested…it works fine…not my preferred method but whatever works best for you. I feel like photoshop gives you more control over color balance with the individual curve channels but if those are actually included in the new ACR then that would be rad (I’m using CS4 so I have no idea). Camera raw is helpful though with getting rid of color noise like stated. I’ve never been a fan of photoshop’s noise reduction capabilities. As for messing with the color tools in scanner software, I personally never do. I just use the auto correct to create a starting point, then scan and do any fine tuning in photoshop. May as well give it a go and see how it works with your scanner software though."

"Honestly, I think the correction you’ve done on those look alright. Maybe the warmth in the one of the dude pushing could be bumped down a tad in or something, but otherwise it looks nice to me. It’s all personal preference of course. Staring at it too much will make things look weird. I usually try to correct then come back the next day and It’ll be easy to realize what needs to be changed. Color neg and color positive probably won’t ever give the same look in terms of color…no matter how much you correct them. I’m not sure what film you shot here but from my experience color neg tends to have that slightly warm cream color in the highlights and normally neutral tones like you see in you’re examples (sidewalks, highlights, white t-shirts sometimes). The way you’ve described going about color correcting via the individual curves channels and midpoints is the same way I do it. I usually just have 2 adjustments…one curve for color correcting set to the “color” blending mode and then one curve for contrast adjustment set to “normal” blending mode. Sometimes for color I have to make points at the highlights and shadows to balance them out but getting those curves too “fine tuned” can make things look odd sometimes. I try to stay away from messing with the highlights/shadow color balance too much. Usually it’s the reds that need to be decreased in the highlights a bit if anything. I’ve found with the new kodak portra 160 I hardly have to do any color correction… and once in a while none at all, just contrast. Fuji superia 400 too. Also, if you’re scanning flat and then increasing contrast in photoshop, from my experience scanning too flat starts to introduce more, and unneeded warm casts into those highlights from the film base that can become harder to correct while maintaining accurate color in the rest of the image…at least for me using an epson flatbed…not sure how the imacon handles it. It can also help to try to correct a cast using 2 channels..decrease green until it looks a little red, then decrease red in the other channel, for example. In the end, I know as photographers we care about all the technical stuff, but the audience generally won’t notice it unless it is a really strong cast. Nobody is really gunna give a crap if that blue isn’t 100% true blue..they will be more engaged with the image as a whole and whats happening in it. Sometimes you have to tell yourself this if you find yourself going back and trying to make it too “perfect”."