Earlier today, a factually inaccurate comment was made on social media about one of the photographs I had shared from my recent Emperor Penguin expedition to Gould Bay in Antarctica (Read the trip report). A screenshot of the comment is included below – the name and photo were removed to protect the guilty (perhaps I should not have removed them). I usually ignore this sort of snide remark as they most often represent nothing but ignorance or envy. This type of comment is one of the problems with an unmoderated social media platform where keyboard warriors attempt to discredit someone’s work from the anonymity of their private chairs and keyboards. The problem is that this comment is blatantly incorrect and seeks to cast doubt on the ethical nature of my post-production practices. It attempts to cast an ugly shadow designed to throw doubt into the viewer’s mind about the image’s veracity as faithful to Nature.
So that there can be no doubt, below is a jpeg copy of the finished photograph post produced in Adobe Lightroom as I posted it to Social media and a jpeg snapshot of the RAW file straight from the camera. I have even included a screenshot showing exactly how I processed the image. A white and black point was set; shadows and highlights were tweaked, a custom white balance was set to correct the camera’s auto white balance, and the image was sharpened. The entire post-production process took less than 30 seconds. No crop was made. Not even a saturation or vibrance adjustment was made. I don’t know what the author of the comment believes, but I would call that a straight shot. Wouldn’t you?
The finished Photograph
The original Canon CR3 RAW file (screenshot and uploaded as a JPEG)
The finished Photograph showing the adjustments in Adobe Lightroom
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