How to kill your darlings

In your Photography venture, you may have dedicated a "maybe" bucket where you dump photos that you think may be ok. These are most often than not bad photos. Perhaps you find something in them, but regardless they are bad photos that you should have deleted.

Humans, especially artists, are sentimental creatures. They have peculiar ways of attaching themselves to their artwork in ways quite different than how public sees them. An Artist's subjective vision is often what makes their art unique after all. But sometimes sentimental attachments can backfire when they impose a blinding effect in seeing detrimental faults. The artist refuses to see those faults that would otherwise convince them to dump their work which is objectively inferior. 

It is a pity, as recognising what is not right is an opportunity to get it right, whereas not recognising mistakes will stall progress.

My intention when I took this picture was to capture viewers' reaction to a busker's show. It was not about the busker or his show, but the emotion of collective bewilderment I was seeking.

I failed. So the question is what went wrong. 

The fundamental problems with this picture are:

• There is too much unused reflective space in the foreground stealing viewer's attention (orange area.)
• There are 4 foreground subjects, the busker in yellow suit and the children (circled by green.) We cannot see the closest subject's expression, the girl on the right is looking at a direction the busker is pointing to. The girl in the middle has an interesting expression as she is puzzled by the show. The boy on the left has a funny expression. He seems to be amused by what he sees (so as his mother enjoying her child's fun time.) The problem is these subjects are too far away from the viewer. They are too small. 

If it's not good enough, you're not close enough - Robert Capa


I imagine my photographs are printed in A3 and exhibited in a well lit room. A viewer half a meter from my photograph should be able to get what is going on. This is my litmus test for attention. 

• Beyond the immediate foreground subjects, there is a crowd watching the busker (see the plane enclosed by red lines.) When you digitally zoom and look at their expressions you will find them interesting. But they are standing too far away from the viewer who can't see them.
• Overall, there is too much going on. The foreground subjects and the ones at the background are competing for the viewer's attention, even if we could see their expressions.
• Therefore as a whole this is a failed picture. 
• It is a darling, but we must kill it.

Details that might have worked if I was close enough and shooting at a different angle:

The lessons I took from this failed photograph are:

• If it's not good enough, you're not close enough - Robert Capa
• Limit subjects to a single plane but not two. Either choose expressions of foreground subjects (enclosed in green) or background subjects (enclosed in red) but not both. Have a single story that steals the attention span of the viewer. 

Affinity Photo Workflow

What is a Digital Photography Workflow

A Digital Photography Workflow is a process that begins with shooting photographs and ends with image files edited, exported and archived in a recoverable fashion.

There is no magic bullet for workflows. Every photographer has different needs, depending on their work, genre and style. They may also use different tools. 

In this post I will document my Affinity Photo workflow and the reasoning behind it. This doesn't mean that you should adopt it as is. 

You may however take on the fundamentals and tailor them to suit your needs.

Specifically I use Dropbox for offsite storage and Affinity Photo for editing.

Workflow Constraints:

1. Recoverable, portable and secure storage.
2. Non-destructive editing.
3. Minimum storage space with zero redundancies (no duplicate files.)

Dropbox is a paid Cloud service for secure, offsite storage.

• Dropbox folder structure is transparently synchronised with local file system structure. By using Dropbox, recoverability, portability (ie. Mac or Windows) and security constraints are met. 
• Affinity Linked mode minimises storage space usage as editing information is completely separated from RAW (DNG) files. This way zero redundancies constraint is met.

NOTE: You do not have to use Dropbox or other Cloud storage for recoverability. You can use NAS storage or external drives, such as USB SSD drives. But then you need to find a way to synchronise storage with them to meet recoverability constraint. Ideally you need to store external drives in physically separate places, against catastrophes such as fires. Cloud storage is not free but they include 100% availability (wherever you are in the world) and physical separation.

Embedded and Linked modes

In Affinity Photo 2, saving DNG (Digital Negative) files can be done in two primary ways: Embedded mode and Linked mode.

In Embedded mode, the DNG file is fully incorporated into the Affinity Photo document (i.e., the .afphoto file). This means that the DNG file is stored within the .afphoto file itself.

In Linked mode, the DNG file remains separate from the Affinity Photo document. Instead, the .afphoto file stores a reference or link to the external DNG file. The DNG file must be kept in the same location or path so that the link remains valid.

I use Linked mode. The rationale is:

• Smaller File Size: The .afphoto file is much smaller because it doesn’t contain the actual DNG data, just a reference to it.
• Efficiency: If the same DNG file is used in multiple projects, there’s no duplication of the file, leading to more efficient use of storage.

Storage folder structure

I partition my work by year, then date. i.e. "yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd" as shown below:

You can have collections as folders under the year (yyyy) folder like Street, Street Monochrome, Landscape, etc. These folders will have specific output files based on your needs.

Workflow Summary

CAUTION: The following workflow assumes the storage you use is synchronised with an offsite storage system, ie. it is not just stored on your local storage. Either use a structured Cloud storage service like Dropbox, or an external drive, such as a USB disk or NAS storage to meet recoverability, portability and security constraints against loss or corruption of original file data. These details are beyond the scope of the workflow documented here.

1. Import your DNG files from your SD drive into a storage partitioned by "yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd". 
   
2. Create a sub-folder, for example "Street" under your yearly folder, for example "2024". This folder will hold all street photographs you shot for the year 2024.
3. Create a sub-folder called "Affinity" under your daily folder named as "yyyy-mm-dd", for example "2024-08-16". This folder will hold all the .afphoto files shot the same day. These .afphoto files refer to raw DNG files in the parent folder.
4. Open the DNG file in Affinity Photo. The file should automatically be opened in Develop persona.
5. After editing adjustments set Output to "RAW Layer (Linked):
    
   
   
   
   
6. Click Develop to move to Photo Persona.
7. Optionally do more editing in Photo Persona.
8. Save the .afphoto file under the "Affinity" folder you created above.
9. Export the file as JPEG to output folder such as "Street".
10. Close the .afphoto file.
11. Repeat step 4 onwards for processing the rest of your DNG files.
12. If you need to change something, simply open the .afphoto file in Affinity Photo, make changes and Save.
13. Format your SD drive for the next day of photo shooting.