As with most places I have lived, I know that I am only going to be here for a few years. It’s an evanescent way of life, when you know you will be packing soon. I think my photography sometimes captures that as well. Last week, I took this image while out on a walk:
ISO 500 50mm f/16 1/200
It was a beautiful day, and it wasn’t raining in England! Ok, well maybe somewhere in England it was, but not on the little part that I happened to be walking on. This spot was near the end of the walk, and I knew I had to take a photo as I approached, who could pass on a scene like this?
This image is quite a busy one in my opinion, full of texture. When I went to edit it I could see that there were a lot of competing elements. In this version I wanted to highlight the church. I did a few things to accomplish that. First was cropping. I have cropped the image so that using the rule of thirds grid. The right side of the church runs along the right vertical guide grid and the top flat part of the roof, meets the top horizontal of the grid. Here is a screen shot that shows the grid:
The faint lines you see are the grid that is referred to as “the rule of thirds”
Once I had the church situated in what I thought was a good spot, I did my other edits. I gave the photo a bit of a faded look overall but then used the radial filter in Lightroom to bring a bit of focus to the church. By making the church brighter than it surroundings I am making it stand out. The radial filter controls in Lightroom are nice in that you can make the focus point as large or small as you would like. I ended up including a bit of the land in front of the church because I thought it helped draw your eye to the church.
I liked this version, so I added it to my Picfair portfolio. Do you like the edits? Do you ever think about the fact that you are capturing a fleeting moment when you are taking a photo? Feel free to leave a comment below.
Cheers!
Photography Journal Blog 
Excellent. I like the muted colours.
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Thank you, I found that it took a bit of a bite out of the busy feel of the image.
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Yes. It does.
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Lovely shot. I do so like old churches, and I like the faded, slightly aged look. Photography is definitely the medium of ephemera (and evanescence)
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I agree with you, evanescence is the perfect word for a photography challenge.
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It has a nice nostalgic quality and the fleeting clouds add to the sense of a moment captured.
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Thank you, I do love a beautiful cloud filled sky.
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I like it. It has a nostalgic, dreamy feel to it. As much as I love blue clear skies, I too like clouded skies. They just give photos more texture and with post-processing, you can lighten or darken clouds (shadows) and change the feel of the image.
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Yes, I love a clear blue sky, but there is nothing like clouds to evoke feeling. It is interesting as well how much just editing the sky can change the whole feel of an image.
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Loved this shot and edits it is delicate, almost intimate, like a sort of personal dialog you had with that location. Very pure. Very hearted. That’s what I get from the pic… perfectly matched “evanescence”!
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Thank you. It’s funny because I wrote in the post that you couldn’t walk by this moment and not take a photo, but just about everyone in the walking group did walk by without taking a photo. Just goes to show how a moment or scene can mean vastly different things to people. I guess it would be boring if we all had the same reaction to everything.
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I totally agree, that’s the beauty of differences and share our experience could give us new points of view that maybe we wouldn’t never even figured out 🙂
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Thanks for sharing your editing approach. I like your description of the edits you made. The outcome is very good and a nice match to the challenge.
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Thank you.
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“I have cropped the image so that using the rule of thirds grid.” – I’m always amazed at your generosity in explaining your techniques for achieving a certain effect. I loved that you included the screenshot of the grid overlaid on the photo – so visually effective. Thank you, Amy!
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This is one of those times where I really think just looking at the photo with the grid on it is much easier to understand than the written description! 🙂
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Yes! That was really helpful.
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Beautifully done, Amy!
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Thanks 🙂
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