Retro//Reflection - Issue #3

On how to get out of my (bad) habit of endlessly retouching my images without ever getting them ready

Nov 28, 2023

Retroreflection is a (give or take) monthly issue that contains a handful of (my) photographs and where I share a bit of insight on them. As an enthusiastic amateur photographer, anything goes.

Maybe you learn something?
Or perhaps it will spark some inspiration?

In this issue of Retroreflection I want to show you some photos from a project I started back in 2021, basically to try to get out of my habit of endlessly retouching my images without ever getting them ready for publishing. I call this project BeyondFocus and it’s one of those ongoing will-probably-never-end projects :)

At some point I noticed that I was working on dozens of images, but never really got to the point that I would say to myself “that’s it, done”. I endlessly kept opening the images in Lightroom or Capture One tweaking them here and there (and the images didn’t really change all that much), but I struggled to push that Export-button.

To get out of that loop, I thought of a project that had some simple ground rules that didn’t give me much reason to dwell on endless editing:

Only use my everyday smartphone (I basically never edit my smartphone images)
Shoot in black & white and in a square (1:1) format
Bare minimum in editing / retouching: crop, basic exposure, contrast, nothing more (any editing is done in Lightroom since I use the Lightroom app on my smartphone to take the images)
Think of a single word title
Upload / publish

But there’s more to it …

As you might notice in this issue, some images are not in focus at all. While taking photos with my smartphone I noticed interesting shapes and patterns when I set the camera to a shallow depth of field and trying to focus really up-close to light sources or other random (shiny) objects!

That’s how I came up with the project title: BeyondFocus.

That said, for good measure I do add in-focus shots as well to this project, as long as they meet the basic rules.

Since it’s an ongoing project, I’ll add more photos in the future (maybe eventually I have to split them up in multiple albums, or by year), click the button below to see the full album on my website:

BeyondFocus

How do you edit your images? How long does it take you between taking photos and publishing them (if you do)? Do you even edit images, or are you a SOOC-person? Let me know in a comment!

Each issue I want to end with mentioning a photographer, a photography-related website or publication, simply to shown my appreciation for what they do.

Today I want to give a shout out to Photography Life! There are many photography related websites out there with reviews, news and tutorials, but I think Photography Life is somewhat different in that their articles are well written, offer a lot of information and are often (a lot) less click-bait than other publications.

Here are a few articles that I think are well worth a read:

They also have a nice (albeit somewhat quiet) forum and they have a weekly photo challenge (where I participate once in a while) - just for fun :) Feel free to join!

Also, from now on, in each Issue I want to mention a photographer here on Substack, since there are quite a few active and they all provide a wealth of inspiration (at least to me ;) and I think deserve a little attention.

First up is

Neil Milton

. Not only because he takes interesting (street) photographs, which you can view and read about in his

Photos, mostly

substack, but also that he is the janitor (his own words!) of Photostack, a Google Doc sheet with a list of photographer’s here on Substack. If you’re new to Substack and want to find interesting photography, this is probably the best starting point you can get :) Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already seen it!

That’s it for this issue!

Thank you for reading until the end :) Feel free to leave a short comment or message. I appreciate the feedback!

Cheers,
Ronald
ronaldsmeets.info

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