Weekly Photo Challenge: Variations on a Theme

One of my favorite things about photo editing is that is fairly easy to create many variations on a single photograph. When processing my photos I create many versions, saving various edits along the way. For example, I started with this photograph:

ISO 320 50mm f/16 1/320sec

Created many including these below:

ISO 320 50mm f/16 1/320sec

ISO 320 50mm f/16 1/320sec

ISO 320 50mm f/16 1/320sec

Before settling on this one:

ISO 320 50mm f/16 1/320sec

This final version perhaps sums up the title of the post, Variations on a Theme. I’ve created a combined color and black and white version. I then boosted the overall warmth of the whole image to unify the piece a bit, as the starkness of combining the two seemed a bit jarring.

It was an interesting experiment, but I like the original color version better than any of the other versions. What do you think of the various takes, do you have a favorite? For the purpose of this post, I kept all of my variations, but eventually, I will go back and delete the ones I don’t care for. I may even make another one.  This ability to create and destroy is a very liberating advantage to editing digital photography, do you agree? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silence

When I set out to take photos, I often think first about which cameras I am going to take with me.  When the answer includes my Canon 50D, the next question is which lens to bring. For my trip to the Serengeti, the answer included my 70-200mm lens, which broadly speaking, was chosen to help me get close up photos of animals that were a bit farther away from our vehicle. However, there were times when after taking a closer shot at 300mm, I would put the lens to 70mm to get a shot of the animal in its environment. And what a beautiful environment it is. This week I was editing one of those shots:

ISO 1000 70mm f/14 1/2000

This version shows the giraffes we had been watching amble away from us in black and white.  Here is a color version:

ISO 1000 70mm f/14 1/2000

Both of these versions were edited first in Photoshop. I did my basic edits there, cropping and sharpening. Then both were sent back to Lightroom which I use for cataloging my photos. Lightroom is also a fairly powerful editing software package and I often use it on its own. For these photos though I have used the plug-in, Google Nik Collection. I’ve added the link to the free plug-in version that I used.  The top photo started in the Silver Efex Pro and the bottom in the Analog Efex Pro. The plug-in has a lot of nice preset options which I think are good starting points for further editing.

At this point, it would be fair to ask why I have chosen this image for a post called Silence. These giraffes were amazingly quiet as they made their way through the landscape. We were quiet too as we were watching. Well mostly. Our driver was cleaning the windshield. The noise of the wipers attracted the attention of the giraffes. They stopped to take stock of the situation before deciding to move on. It was a reminder to me that these animals depend on all their senses to stay alive. It was an interesting moment, and I got a few photographs as well.

What do you think of my edits? Do you have a preference for either version? At the moment I’m happy with both. The lens used here is not generally used as a landscape lens. Do you sometimes use lenses outside of there “intended” range?

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Weathered

The Colosseum in Rome is beautiful.  We walked through it, admiring it, amazed at how well it has weathered the years considering how long it has been a part of the landscape.  But it was a bit tough to photograph.  Of the photos I have edited so far, my favorite view is one that I got from the nearby Palatine Hill:

ISO 640 22mm f/10 1/800

This version, actually an HDR version, three exposures of the same photograph blended into one in Photoshop.  I wasn’t crazy about the way it turned out. Particularly the sky.  So, I created a black and white version:

ISO 640 22mm f/10 1/800

It’s ok, but still not crazy about the sky.  One of the reasons I thought to edit it into black and white is that a lot of times a very vivid color photo makes for a nice black and white version. In this case, it falls a bit flat I think. So I created another version:

ISO 640 22mm f/10 1/800

To create this version I opened both the color and black and white version in Photoshop as individual layers.  I put the black and white on top, then I lowered the opacity of that layer so that some of the colors would show through.  It’s this version that I ended up liking best and it went into my Picfair portfolio.

Do you like the combination image that I created, or do you prefer just the color or black and white version?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

It’s been a busy few weeks off my blog. I enjoyed my break but I am glad to be back. While I was gone, I went on a safari in Tanzania.  This is the first photo from that trip that I have edited:

ISO 800 200mm f/9.0 1/1000

It’s a Thomson’s gazelle in Ngorongoro crater. It’s fair to say that this was a trip of a lifetime for me.  I think it’s also fair to say that I will be editing photos from this trip for awhile. This photo I straightened, did a levels adjustment, and sharpened a bit. It’s the latest addition to my Picfair portfolio.

I like to think that I am growing as a photographer and blogger. Over my break I changed  the theme of my blog. If you have a minute to give it the once over and let me know what you think, I’d appreciate that. My older theme was retired and I was actually having some trouble getting my posts to look how I wanted, hence the change.  Also, thanks to Jessie, I discovered a new photo challenge that I am going to give a try this year. I’ll probably incorporate most of those posts in with this weekly photo challenge, but it gives me something additional to think about as I am taking and editing photos.

I’m looking forward to another busy photography year. I do hope you will follow along.  Feel free to leave a comment about my photo or my blog’s new look in the comment section.

Cheers!