Shooting a new image every day for my 365 project is some days a real challenge. Especially if after a particularly challenging day work wise you find yourself with no photo, no idea, and no energy. 🙂
So as I was getting ready to leave work last evening it struck me. No image of the day. Ugh! I walked to the break room to dispose of a pop can and saw this Christmas wreath in the hallway just outside my office door. So I snapped a shot and headed for home. (My project parameters do not require that it be a good shot, just a shot.)
So this is what came out of the camera. Notice I didn’t say this is what the wreath looked like. The human eye can capture so much more detail than a digital camera can and more levels of luminance. You can look at the wreath in person and see all the texture, shades of green and other colors that the digital camera simply cannot capture.
I shoot is what is called RAW format. Meaning that I set all the parameters of the image. You cannot print or publish a RAW file. The only way to do that is to convert it to a JPEG or other usable format. So the RAW file is not white balanced, color balanced, sharpened nor enhanced in any manner. Every photographer tries to get the best composure and lighting they can but there is still work to be done in the digital dark room.
So after removing the lens hood vignette, setting the white balance, getting the colors corrected, bringing up the shadows and mid-tones and applying sharpening this is what I ended up with posting for my 365 project. And this is in fact pretty close to what the human eye would detect and interpret the wreath to look like.
Nice but what I love about digital photography is that you are not limited to what is. You can push the boundaries and break a few rules. Try different processing methods and different combinations.
I tried it in black and white and although it did have a certain appeal I much preferred it in color. So I tried a little background alteration.
Finally I came up with this rendition. I think I like it best of all. I like my images to be a little on the edgy side and so I really pushed the sharpening on this and did what is called a high-pass sharpening technique.
The cool thing about digital photography is a person like me with no artistic talent what so ever can express myself in an artistic way. And like I believe if I like it that is all that matters.
Of course the secret is that I really do hope you like it as well. 🙂 Thank you as always for stopping by the blog. I hope you have a great Friday and be careful.
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