A Trip Through The Archives - Photo From Cannon Beach

What is the point of having a vast collection of photographs if you never look through them? If there is one big draw back to digital photography, I would have to say that it makes you photography collection easy to forget about. Instead of a collection of developed and printed photos, you have a collection of digital files with only the select few getting printed while the vast majority sit on the hard drive out of sight and out of mind.

Having a good photo management program helps alleviate the take, download and forget routine - as it makes it easy to browse through a large collection and review photos you may have forgotten about. With my photo management software, I like to look through my digital albums occasionally as a way to spark memories of the events and adventures they document. On one of these recent trips through the archives, I can across a photo that had been overlooked and for some reason I decided to look at the basic enhancements offered by the photo management program (Shotwell) I use - just to play around with it. Well, what I realized was that the photo long since dismissed when I first reviewed it simply needed a slight boost in saturation to really make the photo stand out.

Taken in Canon Beach on a typical Pacific Northwest spring day and coupled with the tendency of some digital cameras to render a colder color temperature - the unadjusted photo feels very flat and dead. But with a quick (and minor) adjustment to the saturation and color balance and the photo is brought to life.

For comparison, below is the untouched original.

Sometimes all you need is some time removed from when the photo was originally taken and sorted to appreciate it. So don't forget about your archives, and certainly make some time to wander through them - you never know when a new favorite will pop up or what you may have missed the first time through.


Blessings,

Jesse