Interpreting the Red Rocks – Juuuust a Little Different
If you have followed this blog and my work for any length of time you know that I often like to take my images further than a ‘straight’ photograph. I have found a weird thing while working on this process. There are times to get a certain look you need to make what I would normally consider a ‘bad’ photograph. One that is either under or overexposed to create the vision in your using certain textures.
Here’s a case in point. The density range for this image was huge in that I was shooting the flower in the shade and the background was in full sun. I originally bracketed this scene to get a ‘correct’ exposure. I processed that, but when I went to work, I found that I had better results with the image that was a single exposure rather than having all the detail that Aurora HDR 2018 software would provide.
Here is one of the bracketed images slightly over-exposed. Little to no detail in the sky.
The little to no detail in the sky gives the texture a chance to shine. I used texture from a small section of an old painting in various blend modes to achieve the image below.
Here is my artistic rendition of the image.
I think the plain image needed some help other than making a full range of tones visible. I work photos in many different ways before I find the vision for which I was looking.
Here is the Photoshop Layers Palette from the image above. Note: all Layers had a different blend mode applied and Masks were used to extract or cover the information I did or didn’t want.
Lumix G9 with the Leica DG Vario-ELMARIT Professional Lens, 12-60MM, F2.8-4.0 was used for this capture. The fully articulating screen is helpful when framing an image where the camera is low to the ground. Saves getting down to try and look through the viewfinder and also save work in the laundry for clothes that have been doused in dirt!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
