My Photography Production

Sheikh's Productions
Sep 22, 2016
3 min read

I’ve shared a lot of my photography via social networks – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Flickr. It’s generally unlike other photography that you may see around the web. I generally don’t shoot people, unless the people are part of a greater narrative or scene. Never as the object of focus in the scene. I also have embraced the surreal… more commonly known as Sheikh's Photography. You either love it or you hate it. You can see some of those on facebook.

Photography Page:-

https://www.facebook.com/sheikhproduction12

Last night, I was showing this picture to a friend who exclaimed, “How the hell do you do this?”… and while he is no photographer, I have had that question enough to answer that question here. Take this as a tutorial.

I will take you through the steps of processing a photo using my workflow. Photography is an art, though, and while the steps I use achieve the aesthetics I am comfortable with, you should absolutely tinker and play. You never get any better if you don’t. And obviously, know your camera… know how to see a shot. Composition is important and I don’t think it can really be taught… it’s an innate sense that you get simply by using your camera and practicing!

Camera

Obviously, you have to start with a camera. In the photo I am processing here, I am shooting with a Canon T5i and an EF 28-135mm f/3.6L lens. I’m shooting in Aperture priority mode with autofocus turned on. What this means, in laymans terms, is that I have a wide lens (28-135mm… it’s a zoom but the lower the number, the wider the field of view), with a middle of the road aperture (aperture is how wide your lens opens up when you snap a photo… the lower the number, the more light and the less depth of field). It’s also important to shoot RAW, as RAW captures much more image data than JPEG and allows for manipulation in software like Lightrooom.

Note: Shutter Speed is how fast the shutter opens and is, as it sounds, a time thing. Aperture is how wide your shutter opens… the wider (or lower number), the more light and the shallower the depth of field is brought in. ISO is your light sensitivity. Use this in combination with Aperture to enhance the exposure of light. A lower ISO means more exposure. A higher number represents less exposure (and more noise…. fine grained splotchiness… in the image). They are all important to know and use appropriately.

This is the photo of my fur kid on Christmas Day. We will be developing this.

Lightroom Processing

I import all my photos into Lightroom. Once I’m there, I have access to all kinds of non-destructive settings and if I shoot RAW (which I do), all the visual data, including visual information you can’t see… shadows, highlights… they are all there waiting to be drawn out.

In Lightroom, I have a few steps. I want to setup my key image (the image that we’ll do all other processing from, with the enhancements I’d like. In Lightroom, visit the Develop tab and work from the top of your toolbox to the bottom. The toolbox is on the right.

The initial list of settings I make on this photograph (and usually the settings I tinker with) are as such:

Contrast: +40
Highlights: +20
Shadows: +89
Whites: +30
Blacks: No change
Luminence: 86 – Luminence is important for noise reduction. See this great article on noise reduction

NOTE: DO NOT CHANGE EXPOSURE DURING THIS STEP