Weekly Photo Challenge: Seasons

While in theory I do love living in an area where there are four distinct seasons, I will admit that I often long for warmer weather during the winter.  So on a particularly cold day this past week, I headed to an indoor garden to take some photos:

ISO 500 50mm f/4.5 1/125

This is an Aphelandra, a version of which is available for sale on Picfair, and here is what the photo looked like originally:

ISO 500 50mm f/4.5 1/125

It’s beautiful as is but when I was editing it, I wondered if I could make the yellow tips glow in a black and white version. I am new this week to Lightroom, so I went ahead and did some of the editing there.  Specifically for this final version I looked at all the black and white presets that were available to me, picked the one that I liked, and then adjusted from there.  Prior to doing that though, I did start with my color version in Photoshop. I chose to do my cropping and sharpening there, and then did the black and white transformation in Lightroom.

It’s been a bumpy few weeks for me.  I’m in the process of taking an on-line course in Lightroom, so that hopefully I will be able to use it fully.  It means a lot of stops and starts in my work as I have to google instructions on how to do things, and then look at those instructions again a few days later as I am still learning and don’t yet have even the simple things down by rote.

How are things where you are, are you enjoying the current season or do you find yourself longing for another one?  Do you like the black and white edit?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Time

I enjoy walking through graveyards, but that was not what I was doing this past week when I saw this grave marker:

ISO 800 120mm 0ev f/11 1/125

I was walking through a garden at the time, and this grave marker just happened to be in it.  I was happy to have my longer lens with me so as not to be tempted to trample in the garden even in its off season.  I bracketed this photo and later created the HDR version that you see above.  I also used several filters in Photoshop that, while I think still look realistic, dramatically changed the photo.  Here is the original:

ISO 800 120mm 0ev f/11 1/125

You will see that I cropped the photo as well, mostly to remove the plant label, but also to get rid of some of the sky which I felt wasn’t particularly helping this photo.  I had never been to this garden, but as I was walking though I thought that it was a place I would like to come back another time. I love visiting gardens as they go through their yearly cycle of blooming and dying.  I feel the same way about graveyards, which tend to be gardens in their own right.  It might seem dark and creepy to some but to me it is the opposite.

How about you, do you have a favorite place to visit in all the seasons?  What do you think of my edits?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

The WordPress photo challenge for this week is changing seasons.  I have put together a few photos from different times from this past summer and fall of a local park:

ISO 100 28mm 0ev f/20 1/20

ISO 800 135mm -0.33 f/22 1/160

ISO 100 28mm 0ev f/9 1/80

ISO 64 4mm f/2.8 iPhone

Cheers!