Summer Time

Yesterday morning, an artist friend who is a painter called and told me that I had to get my camera out and head to a field where the straw had just been baled. So, since my wife is out of town and couldn't boss me around, I let my friend boss me around... ;)

Since the beginning of the year, I've been trying to develop my photographs more, to try to pull more emotion out of them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work for me, the file heads to the trash. And, I find that it frequently takes my several attempts to get these manipulated photographs to work for me. Mostly, I'm trying to go for a bit darker, moodier view of the raw photo, and do so in a way that - I hope - has the eye and mind wandering around the photograph more...

So, I hope that you enjoy and feel comfortable leaving critique, criticism and monetary tokens of your appreciation... ;)

Tim: I'll bite. I think you have achieved the goal of "darker and moodier." The foreground is especially nice. I like the composition and am jealous that you found a field of square bales like that. The are harder and harder to come by. I like the way they lead you into the image in an almost triangular shape to the middle.

Did you use a polarizer? The top corners of the sky appear to have that "overpolarized" vignetting we hear so much about. I can also see the selection line haloeing at the tree-sky border, where it appears to me that you darkened the sky. Maybe trying to use the quickmask mode at a much higher magnification and paint or erase that line -- I know it is really picky work. Also, maybe using the refine selection tool. Overall, the transition from foreground to the background trees and sky do not seem as "natural" as I would like. I cannot see the entire image at one time on my monitor, but I wonder, too, if maybe less sky overall might be effective?

I like where you are going with it, though.

Tim
I can see what you were trying to do. Get a sunset/sunrise glow in the bales of straw with dark clouds/sky in the background. I managed to capture that a few weeks ago when photographing the grain elevators in Superior. I like the location and composition of the shot but I would like to see more of golden glow on the straw. It looks like you tried to artificially darken the sky and ended up with a Halo along the skyline. I don't think it works for me.

Andy & Phil,

Thanks for the comments - I appreciate 'em!

This approach is still a work in progress. I, too, noticed the halo and decided to leave, mostly because I was out of energy to work on this image much more...

Basically, I'm taking a photograph that looks OK at the beginning, but to which I want to add more emotion. I then use a series of: darkening layer mask(s), through which I allow lighter areas to come through; and some hue/sat and color adjustment layers to mix things up. There are maybe ten steps involved, and I haven't quite found the magic touch. In particular, if I make a big change in one of the earlier steps, I haven't quite mastered how it follows through with the later steps. I did intentionally darken the sky/blues, and I also painted on some "vignetting."

I did a few landscapes this way earlier this year, usually with a lighter touch. This photograph and treatment of The Wave worked out better...

Thanks for the C&C!

Tim!

Agreed, Tim: you did a spectacular job with the wave.

Tim.... great job with the wave effect.... did you shoot this and process it in the normal Tim Mulholland way... I think I would have liked that better..... interesting though.JG