The Daily Photo 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.
Laura leans against the wall in the soft light of the overcast sky.
Exposure
- Shutter: 1/250
- Aperture: f/2
- ISO: 200
- Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
- Lens: Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
Composition and Processing
- I frequently process an image multiple ways, comparing different styles until I find something that best matches the image. Sometimes that happens entirely in Photoshop — perusing various Nik Color Efx filters, for example. Other times I’ll actually save the different versions and come back to them later, after I’ve had time to think about it or want to view them in a different context. There’s danger in either approach though, because color is relative (as is lightness/darkness/contrast/etc). As I mentioned a couple posts back, how we perceive an image is dependent on the context we see it in; equally important is what we saw immediately before. Try looking at the first image below without looking at the other versions I included after the original. Remember your impression of it. Then look at the others, and come back to the first one again. Does your impression still hold?
- The large windows in my apartment don’t quite cover the entire south face. There’s a small strip of wall, maybe 12 inches at most, that adjoins another wall running perpendicular. On cloudy days, the shadow cast by this strip creates the nice soft gradient you see here. One of the reasons I chose the cross processed version was the way it brought out the gradient (which appears in all three images) and offered a more interesting background for the subject.
Original:
Version 2:
Version 3:
March 13 2009 | Photography | 1 Comment »
The Daily Photo 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.
Jamie shows off her latest hair style.
Exposure
- Shutter: 1/1600
- Aperture: f/4
- ISO: 100
- Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
- Lens: Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
Composition and Processing
- Many of the lines in this shot lead to the corners: the mohawk points to the upper left, the body is leaning out of the lower left, the gaze directs you to the upper right, and the braided hair extends to the lower right. More important though is that these lines all contrast with the vertical lines of the pillar, helping separate the subject from the background. At the same time, the profile posture, lean and gaze align the subject in a parallel plane with the background, tying the subject to it both physically and emotionally.
- It was cold and very windy on the day of this shoot, forcing us to retreat to the relative comfort of a nearby parking garage. There’s only so much you can get out of a setting like that, creatively speaking. I hunted around for interesting textures and found this pillar. By itself, there’s really not enough there to work with. But knowing what I could turn this into later, in post processing, led me to compose and take this shot rather than abandon it for being not quite right.
- The shadow in the original is a scrim being held by Janus Anderson to block the hard light of the afternoon sun. I didn’t want a distracting shadow cast across the pillar from Jamie’s hair, although I did take a second shot, composed differently, taking advantage of the fauxhawk shadow (I’ll cover that in a future post).
Original:
March 10 2009 | Photography | No Comments »
The Daily Photo 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.
Laura relaxes against the pedestrian railing of the First Street Bridge in Austin, Texas.
Exposure
- Shutter: 1/1000
- Aperture: f/2
- ISO: 100
- Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
- Lens: Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM
Composition and Processing
- This was originally shot as a vertical composition. I was thinking about the lines of the railing and wanted to align the frame in a way that emphasized that. Which really didn’t make any sense, because the more important transition in the frame is from left to right, from near to far: the heavier horizontal girders and the rapid soft to sharp to soft focus. Laura was looking slightly to camera left, so I put her on the right of the frame (losing the rest of the receding rail, which was ok).
- Cross processing (with a Photoshop plug-in) really separated the railing from Laura, subject-wise. That’s not a reason to cross-process, but I happen to like the way this particular combination of colors complement each other — the blues of the rail and the yellow tone of the skin — while also highlighting the texture in both. The lips may be too red to the point of distracting; I chose to leave them alone rather than de-saturate.
Original:
March 02 2009 | Photography | 2 Comments »