I learned about warm-toning in the mid-1980s. At that time, everybody created selenium-toned images that had a slight purple cast. Contrary to the popular zeitgeist of the times, I discovered Kodak Brown Toner and Kodak Polytoner and fell in love with warm-toned images. In the digital workflow, warm toning is very tricky because brown is such an odd color.

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My approach to processing is that with every image, the end point of processing is unknown. Aesthetics can evolve, ideas can blossom, expectations can change. Perhaps counterintuitively, I find that beginning the process at the same starting point is a surprisingly useful strategy. With every image I start with input sharpening, some tone mapping to make the image look normal, and even some cropping to straighten horizon lines or verticals. Essentially, I start with a normal looking image a straight photograph, without visible processing. That common launching point provides a solid foundation for exploring more exotic processing.

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For several decades after the invention of photography, the goal for all photographers was to make an optically accurate image. That meant with technical perfection, emulating human vision. Somewhere I can't identify in the history of photography, that objective was expanded and a few photographers began thinking about the medium as something else, something more pliable, something more personally expressive. I think this evolution also occurs in each of us individually and is a watershed moment in our photographic career — assuming we recognize it and embrace it as a new way of photographing.

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