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The day I figured out why my mall photos all looked washed out | Abandoned Mall Stories - Librear

The day I figured out why my mall photos all looked washed out

I've been taking pictures at abandoned malls for about three years now. Always wondered why my images never had that moody, atmospheric look other folks get. Last Saturday I was at the old Meriden Mall in Connecticut, shooting the empty food court, and this younger guy walks by with a camera. He glanced at my screen and said "you know your white balance is set to daylight right?" I had no idea what he meant. Turns out I'd been shooting with the wrong setting this whole time. The fluorescent lights in those empty corridors need a different balance or everything goes flat. Switched it to tungsten and suddenly the photos had that greenish, creepy glow I was always chasing. Has anyone else had that moment where a simple setting change made all the difference?

3 comments

3 Comments

iris_stone284mo ago

Felt this so hard. I had the exact same revelation when I realized I was shooting in JPEG instead of RAW for like two years before someone told me the difference.

felixb254mo ago

Two years is rough but honestly JPEG vs RAW isn't that life changing for most people. @iris_stone28 unless you're printing huge photos or doing heavy editing, the difference is pretty small. I know a few pros who still shoot JPEG for sports stuff because they need speed. The whole RAW thing gets blown out of proportion online like you're ruining your photos by not using it. For social media posts nobody can even tell the difference. You're probably fine.

hannah_price794mo ago

And yeah @felixb25 has a point, I read somewhere that most pro sports photographers actually use JPEG for the burst speed too. But for me the big difference showed up when I tried to fix the white balance on a wedding photo I took. The JPEG was already baked in and I couldn't get the skin tones right no matter what I did. If I had that RAW file I could have fixed it in two seconds. So I get why people make a big deal about it, but it really depends on what kind of stuff you shoot.