I’m living in England. Some weeks that means that I feel like I am living in shadows. This has been one of those weeks. An idea that I tried to capture on Instagram:
The photo has a filter on it, but the reality is that it was a very rainy and dreary morning in my office. I liked the photo though, mostly anyway, so I decided to pull out my larger camera to see if I could create a photo that was more exactly in line with what I was thinking. Here is the photo, taken with my Canon 50D, as it was before being edited:
ISO 800 50mm f/18 5.0 sec
One of the first things I did when shooting this version was to turn the red candle around so you can’t read the label. Also, with this being a standard photo, I can allow for more space around the candles, something that Instagram is not set to do. I set the f-stop to f/18 because I wanted the photo to be in as much focus as possible. This of course means that there is less light for the exposure. You will see that my shutter speed is a full 5 seconds. So this photograph does require a tripod to be in focus. In this case though, I just used my desk as a tripod, it just happened to be perfect for the angle that I wanted for the photograph. Here is the final version:
ISO 800 50mm f/18 5.0 sec
I suspect the first thing you will notice is all the blur that has been added into the photograph. You might find that odd considering I just made mention of how in focus I wanted the shot in the camera to be. What I was thinking here was that I wanted the unedited version to be as close to reality as possible so that I could then decide what reality to keep in and what to edit out. I’ve used the field blur feature of Photoshop to blur this image while keeping most of the candle sharp. I’ve used the healing brush tool to remove a few marks and dust on the candles.
The final image is what I had in mind when I was originally looking at the scene. It retains a lot of the reality of the scene but is a more subdued and meditative version. It is the version that I added to my Picfair portfolio.
What do you think of my various versions? Feel free to leave a comment below.
Cheers!
Photography Journal Blog 
Love the warmth of this image.
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Thanks!
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I like the third photo the best 🙂
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Thank you 🙂
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I have NO idea how to ‘edit’ my photos other than basic cropping. Do love the eerie feeling in your very first edited version, well done.
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Thank you, I’m glad you like that one.
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Nice enhancements, Amy. Just glad it is not my eyes playing tricks with me 😉
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Thank you, also, I edited this comment based on your second comment 🙂
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Grazie mille 🙂
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I really get a cozy and warm feeling from the final edit. Nicely done.
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Thank you 🙂
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the second and third are very close for me – but it could be that it is late and I am off to bed! I really like hearing how you approach your photos – and the first one has a very simpleness to it…..and felt like film.
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How difficult it can be to capture simpleness! One of those counterintuitive things.
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well said
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An interesting process. Is there value to you in shooting a few versions at differing apertures? I like the warmth in the final shot.
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I would say as a general rule, yes there is value in shooting a few different apertures. I will fully admit that I did not follow that in this case. I was pretty focused on using post editing to create the blur that I wanted. I just shot the photo in focus and did not really use the aperture to create blur. It’s interesting for me to think about that because often I want the photo to look as much like its final version straight out of the camera but in this case I was doing something completely different.
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