I’m an awkward adolescent, coming to grips with the real power of digital imagery. It’s an amazing, scary time. I’m thrust into a world of possibilities, but sometimes in my naive enthusiasm I make the photographer’s equivalent of putting on too much makeup or trying to hide a zit with a hat.

Right now I’m using Adobe Lightroom, a photographer’s editing and workflow application that lets me manipulate the raw (excuse me, RAW) images from my camera in complex and novel ways. Some of this maps directly from basic photographic theory: burning, dodging, cropping, color balance. Some knowledge comes by proxy through my many years of Photoshop wrangling: curves, spot removal, channel futzing. But Lightroom also introduces a new set of metaphors I’m still groping my way through, sometimes with really embarrassing outcomes that leave me dashing for the girl’s room in tears (this is a metaphor, too, OK?).

For example, Lightroom emphasizes control using the HSL model (Hue / Saturation / Lightness). Using sliders, I can control the overall hue of each major color (red, orange, yellow, green—you get the idea), saturation or even lightness thereof. The latter is interesting because I can make all of the blues in an image, say, immediately appear darker.

Lightroom also introduces such things (to me, at least) as split toning, vignetting and really nifty graduated filters that I haven’t quite mastered. Haven’t really mastered at all, really. Don’t actually really get, for the most part, but can tell that they are cool (but what does the center dot even mean when I’m creating one and why is it so hard to rotate?). And gone are the Curves controls I’ve been using for so many years, replaced by a tone curve and sliders for fill light, blacks, exposure. How are these things different? How are they the same?

It’s like learning to drive, and sometimes I run into the garage door when I’m trying to park.

Take this mediocre photo of some hills I took in California last week. The unedited version straight from the camera:

I could tell that it was yellower than I’d like, that I’d like the sky a bit darker, and a bit stronger of contrast. But five minutes later I ended up with this monstrosity:

This is about the time I left the dance in a huff and called my parents for a ride home.

And then there are the times when I know a photo needs correcting, know how I’d do it in my dim Photoshop past, clumsily push buttons and twiddle knobs until I get something half-assed and resembling nothing less than those wretched HDR nightmares that I rail against so often:

Edna Valley, California

And then, quelle horreur, I make the lifetime-regrettable decision to post something like that to somewhere public, like Flickr. Looking at it even moments later I can tell it’s the doppelgänger of my Body Glove and Hypercolor fashion choices of the early 1990s. I kind of want to set it on fire and ritually bury it.

Then there’s the times I get (O, woe! I hate admitting this) smitten with the new Lightroom plugin (a user-created preset that apply certain settings to a given photo) in class and forget that no matter how much mousse I use, I can’t cover up an average (or worse) photo:

Fast Food, San Joaquin Valley, Calif.

What’s the point here? I’m asking for your patience and forgiveness. Please don’t ground me. I will grow up, it will get better. I am learning from my mistakes, and cringing in their recollection.

And to prove that everything I put out there is not just smoke, mirrors, and Adobe-based manipulation, here is a photo that I made no changes to, just pulled from photo and posted (it’s been resized and converted to JPG, that’s all):

Twilight Commute