Lately, I have been wondering about when and what colors to use for which purposes.  I often like to play with, or change, what an image looks like.  For example, I like B&W images since they remind me of the past and enable me to make images with less distractions.  At other times I will boost or change colors or other characteristics of images for effects when I think they make a better image.

I have been looking at older travel images made by others who traveled to foreign, and rarely visited areas.  I have been struck by the colors of the scenery and especially the dress and houses of the people.  That rapidly drew me back to how I photographed the places where we traveled many years ago and started me wondering how much, if any, they had changed now.

Naturally, this brings up the question as to the purpose of photography.  Is it to make “art” or to record how things were when photographed?  In both cases, they are mere representations of how the photographer wanted to show them.  Even in “recording” scenes, the film, or color presets or profiles, and what was included or not, prevents the actual scene being exactly as everyone would agree it looked like.

Since I hope to eventually get out and about more to see other areas, I started thinking about how I should photograph them.  Should I think about them as “travel pictures”, and if so what color renditions should I use.  First off, I will continue to store raw files since that gives me the opportunity to display the images differently at different times for different purposes.

In the past year I have found that I like Fujifilm’s Classic Neg film simulation, but only for some images.  It does not work on flowers, especially if they are red in color since it really changes shades of red.  That rules out that film simulation for broad use across many different scenes.  In addition if I want some degree of uniformity across a wide set of images, I need to stick with one camera manufacturer since they all treat colors differently, or stick with using only one Adobe color scheme if I use multiple cameras.

In my situation, I think I will stick with using my Fujifilm cameras and the Classic Chrome simulation for my version of reality.  I used it for the above images.  I will see how it goes, but I think that this color, etc. treatment will hold up best across the “travel type” scenes I would like to make.  Now, the remaining big issue is, will I go anywhere else to make those style of images?