The famous saying "pictures speak louder than words" perfectly describes what I think of photography. As someone who isn't the best at words (ironically I own a blog), I prefer to express myself through photos. That being said, you can say my favorite social media app is of course, Instagram.
While I am aware I am not a professional photographer, I want to share how I personally edit my photos for creative content. I am also going to share my favorite spots to take photos in Philadelphia and which local photographers inspire me creatively.
Location
The wonderful thing about Philadelphia is that the city has a variety of scenic views. There is Old City where you can find historical buildings and streets, while Center City gives you the view of one of the most beautiful skylines. My favorite spots to take photos are Loews Hotel and Race Street Pier. I instantly fell in love with the view up in the hotel the first time I was there. Although the glass reflection could be annoying at times, the magnificent view overcomes that. I once spent an hour there watching the sunset. On the other hand, Race Street Pier has to be one of the most popular spots for local photographers. Nothing beats the view of the iconic Ben Franklin bridge.
Editing
Before I discovered Lightroom, one of the creative cloud softwares, I used the app VSCO and the photo editing function in Instagram to edit my photos. For a beginner, VSCO is a well rounded app that gives you basic editing abilities and also unique filters. My favorite filters are A6, C1 and HB2. For Instagram, I mainly use the Lux function to increase the overall vibrance.
Now comes Lightroom. And let me tell you, once I learned how to use Lightroom, I rarely go back to VSCO. This software may seem intimidating at first, but you just have to mess around, click a few buttons, and watch some YouTube tutorials to learn how it works. Practice makes perfect. In short, Lightroom allows us to drastically edit a photo from lighting to even colors. Lightroom provides some presets (located on the left-side of the photo below), which are settings that the software already created for you to use. In another words, they are pre-made filters. Some online sites provide free presets for you to download. The best part about Lightroom is you can also edit certain parts of a photo, for example, the Adjustment Brush Tool. To learn more about Lightroom, watch this tutorial.
Here is a BEFORE and AFTER using Lightroom:
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
RAW vs. JPEG
My photography friend Shayne (@shaynemalcolm) is always kind enough to teach me photography skills and why shoot in RAW. Essentially, shooting in RAW format allows more room to produce higher quality pictures since information is not compressed like in JPEG format. Check out some reasons why shooting in RAW is better.
Inspirations
I have been following more useful and creative accounts such as professional photographers and community influencers from around the world—majority of them are based in Philly. Some notable Philly influencers I like are @urphillypal, @phillyunknown, @phillyfocused and @hytha.cg. Of course, the famous New York based Brandon Woelfel is a must-follow. He is known for his cotton candy aesthetic on Instagram.
@phillyknown and @urphillypal are super cool in person!
Bottomline: there are no wrong or right ways to edit photos. My style is more colorful and vibrant but you can edit your photos to whatever suits your personal style. And those YouTube tutorials... go watch them.