Monday, January 18, 2010

Max Ash Blue?

I had a shoot planned up Provo Canyon today, but the weather snuffed that idea. It snowed about an inch, then froze, making the roads an absolute nightmare. Needless to say, my urge to drive in the canyon dwindled quickly after that.

Instead, I went outside and took some photos of my swing set. The monkey bars had a cool line of water drops, and I thought the chain that the swings hang from would make a cool macro too. Since it was cloudy, and early in the morning, there was a very defined blue tint to the light. I set my white balance to "Cloudy," and my photos were still really blue. I probably should have set it to Tungsten or something to compensate, but I figured with "Cloudy," I would be getting an accurate representation of the light temperature.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.6
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 80
Tripod






click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 80
Tripod



The first photo was unadulterated as far as color goes. I didn't touch the levels, saturation, or anything else that affects color. I just added a bit of contrast and slapped on a vignette.

The second photo, which I'm much happier with, was played with more. I took some blue and a little green out and added a bit of red via the Levels box, and bumped the contrast down a little. It wasn't until after I cropped to square and added the vignette that I realized how close this looked to a Max Ash photo, whose effect I tried to copy in this post. Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that his photos are HDR processed first, and THEN converted to monochrome, etc. I'll have to try that sometime.


Either way, not bad to have one and a half keepers from a shoot that consisted of 10 photos in my backyard. These will go into my "blue" mosaic, which will be similar to the "green" mosaic I did in this post, which is why I cropped to 1:1. I hope to do a lot of themed mosaics, as they're fun to put together.

3 comments:

  1. I really like them both. What editing program do you use? I've seen you talking about white balance in a few posts -- you know that's easy to change in post, right? If you open it as a RAW file (even if you didn't shoot in RAW, which you should if you have the option), you can adjust exposure and white balance and a bunch of other stuff really easily. But I like the cool light in both of these. I wouldn't change a thing.

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  2. I found your blog via ^^ Amy's. I like both these shots, but number two really speaks to me - great work! Do you use a macro lens on this? Lovely shots!

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  3. I like the chain too! Sometimes it's the simple form that makes such an impact in a photo. I like the first one too - it has an industrial feel to it, but the water dripping from it makes it so interesting to look at! Nice job with the cool tones and the vignettes - I think these will look very cool in your mosaic!

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