The Before and After series focuses on the two or three key creative choices, in terms of composition and processing, that go into creating an image. Specific technical details about the shot have been left out — you won’t hear me talking about tone curve adjustments and whatnot unless it was a key component of the end result.
Some brown and green leaves along the Skyline to the Sea trail in Big Basin State Park.
Exposure
- Shutter: 1/125
- Aperture: f/2.8
- ISO: 800
- Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
- Lens: Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
Composition and Processing
- Almost everything was green during the late spring when I did this hike with my dad. We used to go all the way to the sea and back when we were both younger, but this time around we only went about 4 miles out before turning around and heading back. Everything along the way was green due to the wet winter and spring, so these reddish brown leaves easily stood out. I switch to f/2.0 to really isolate them, and then shot at an angle that would position more green foliage in the background. In hindsight, I think f/4 would have been better: the background still would have been pretty soft and the green leaves in the foreground would have been as sharp as the brown ones. That would have connected the foreground leaves better to each other and limited this to two planes of focus instead of three.
Original:
April 03 2012 | Photography | No Comments »
The Before and After series focuses on the two or three key creative choices, in terms of composition and processing, that go into creating an image. Specific technical details about the shot have been left out — you won’t hear me talking about tone curve adjustments and whatnot unless it was a key component of the end result.
Stephanie poses in an accidentally over-exposed photo.
Exposure
- Shutter: 1/250
- Aperture: f/2.0
- ISO: 640
- Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
- Lens: Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
Composition and Processing
- I’m usually pretty good at just guessing the exposure settings I need for a shot, but every now and then I go ridiculously wide of the mark. I kind of liked the pose in this photo though, so I thought it would be worth seeing how far I could take it in post.
- Once I’d brought the exposure down as far as I could in Lightroom, I had to acknowledge there was information missing from parts of the arms and face that simply wasn’t there. The key then was to make sure the stuff that was in range was actually pushed up further relative to the blown out spots so they’d look less blown out by comparison.
- I sometimes like this sort of crop with lots of negative space, but it has a secondary purpose here. As above, having a lot of the image blown out to white de-emphasizes the blown out skin areas, making them tolerable.
Original:
March 30 2012 | Photography | No Comments »
The Before and After series focuses on the two or three key creative choices, in terms of composition and processing, that go into creating an image. Specific technical details about the shot have been left out — you won’t hear me talking about tone curve adjustments and whatnot unless it was a key component of the end result.
A patch of green three leaf clovers in Big Basin State Park, along the Skyline to the Sea trail.
Exposure
- Shutter: 1/60
- Aperture: f/2.8
- ISO: 800
- Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
- Lens: Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
Composition and Processing
- This felt like a shot that should be pretty flawless as far as the subject goes. Patching the chewed up leaves on the right, not to mention the larger gaps on both the top and right, was more work than necessary for this image. So I simply cropped in tighter and removed some of the twigs and dirt on the rest of the leaves.
- There’s no specific focus to this image, the eye simply wanders. It’s all pattern and color. Given that, I really punched up the green. Shots like these are always the ones I look back on years later and cringe at the processing, but for now I’m ok with it.
Original:
March 28 2012 | Photography | No Comments »