The Clearasil of photography

Today was one of those days again: editing portraits in Lightroom and Photoshop, my weapons of choice. I edit a lot on the move or on the sofa, so the cloud and editing programs that work on my laptop and my tablet or phone have my preference.

I do not really like editing at all. Do you? What I dislike is changing the situation as it was. That will be my deep-rooted love of street photography. That is more about recording. Of course, I am nearly fifty too, so slightly less deep grooves in my face suit me fine. “If it is still there in two weeks, I will try to take it out”, that is usually my promise.

There are people who can lose themselves in touching up cheerful matters such as blackheads, red patches on a neck and dry flakes. Who love playing with layers in Photoshop and the transparency of those layers. Who change the texture and give people in their late thirties the skin of someone in their early thirties. Those people can rid a street of carelessly discarded Starbucks cups, cigarette ends and spilled oil without you ever noticing. But portrait photographers with a passion for fashion and Photoshop are, I suspect, rarely contented street photographers. Street photography is also letting go, and letting what is there be.

Worth mentioning is that the street photographer is almost never only a street photographer. Often he or she is also a consultant, or sells cars. She has a paper round, or he works in the corner shop. Or does, like me, a lot of work for companies as well. Making social media content, website material. Street photography, but inside a business. There is simply no living to be made from street photography, but that is where my heart is.

A street photographer would rather have the finished product straight out of the camera. On my Fujifilm I use Acros+Yellow and set my shadows and highlights to +1. The JPEG that comes out is essentially ready for Instagram, or ready for the wall. Because I also make portraits, I have had to get to grips with the Clearasil of photography: retouching. That we use such a fancy word for it says enough. Polishing up. Making people prettier. Frustrating yourself, because the norm is different from what you see on your screen.

A question of conscience: if the portraits are only for the website and social media, how far should you go? Is it then reasonable to charge your client for an hour of editing? Or would you do better to sit back, look at the photo from a distance, and decide like a street photographer that the world is as it is? The end justifies the editing time.

Something to think about, then, next time you find yourself worrying about that one spot that will not go away. Perhaps that spot is allowed to be there.

This article first appeared in Focus Magazine (the best photography magazine in the Netherlands), for which I wrote a column in every issue in 2023 and 2024.