Little tip makes big difference

The week before last, I attended a workshop by Trey Ratcliff. It was a great day with lots of useful information. But, it's turning out that the most useful takeaway from the day was a very simple tip about not processing all your photographs as soon as they are taken.

My habit was to return from a shoot and then process that shoot before embarking on the next shoot. This created a lot of self-induced pressure to complete processing quickly so that I could move on. The consequence was that processing often didn't get the attention it deserved, and sometimes good pictures got passed over completely. Since the workshop I have been processinga shoot quickly in Lightroom (quick adjustments only) and then moving the very best pictures into a 'To be processed' collection. Then, when I am good and ready, I can dip into that collection and process a few photos.

Without this approach I would never have made this picture from the Weka Pass Railway - it simply required too much work to complete as part of the 'shoot and process' workflow. But I had gone back and dragged it (with many others) into my newly created 'To be processed' folder where it later caught my eye. Thanks Trey.

PS. See 21 October for the original picture.