Tag: winter

Below is my second collection of Winter Gold images, a few of which are variations in color or point-of-view of those in the previous post Winter Gold (1 of 2).

I was highly entertained working on the last photo. Aside from the (interesting?) fact that it’s a photo of some dead leaves, it came out of the camera looking like this:

The underexposure was a mistake, something that happens when I misjudge what I’m seeing in the camera’s viewfinder immediately after looking at the sun while trying to hide it behind a tree trunk — one of those goofy photographer moves not unlike wondering why the viewfinder’s so dark… then realizing you haven’t taken the lens cap off. 🙂

Anyway!! The underexposure didn’t concern me that much, though this example does help demonstrate how much detail you can recover from a too-dark RAW file, especially if the subject is in focus. What I hadn’t noticed while taking the shot, though, was the blob of yellow light that had crept onto the entire right side. I initially tried getting rid of it using Lightroom’s spot removal tool, then tried running a graduated filter from the right edge toward the center — but wasn’t satisfied with the results. So instead I used a radial filter around the leaf clump to lose most of the background by reducing highlights, shadows, whites, texture, saturation, and sharpness to eliminate color and detail, then reducing exposure to make the remnants of the original background darker. This approach usually produces good results for me when, as in this example, the coloring in the background is essentially a blown-out highlight, and the dark colors (such as those around the leaf) are not actually black, but are shades of black and gray. Reducing the six elements I listed, and only then reducing exposure, creates a more uniform background — very close to pure black, but still containing softened shades of black and dark-dark gray — and provides a smoother visual transition between the subject of the image and the background.

My previous winter 2019-2020 posts are here:

Work, Walk, Discover: Hydrangeas in Winter

Southeastern Winter Abstracts (1 of 2)

Southeastern Winter Abstracts (2 of 2)

Winter Gold (1 of 2)

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

From “Sesame Mountain” in The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, translated and edited by Jack Zipes:

“[He] went up to the mountain and said, ‘Sesame Mountain, Sesame Mountain, open up,’ and the mountain opened before him. Then he entered, and the entire mountain was a cavern filled with silver and gold, and in the back there were large piles of pearls and glistening jewels heaped on top of each other like grain. The poor man didn’t know what to do or whether he should take any of the treasure. Finally, he filled his pockets with gold, but he left the pearls and jewels lying there.”

Like the Poor Man in Grimm’s “Sesame Mountain” story, I, too, am now in possession of a collection of gold nuggets… photographed bits of found winter color featuring yellow-gold, pale-gold, orange-gold, harvest-gold, and of course, gold-gold. Here is the first of two posts showing the results of my gold rush, photos taken during late December and early January visits to Oakland Cemetery’s gardens.

My previous winter 2019-2020 posts (looks like we’ve got a new project going — more soon!) are here:

Work, Walk, Discover: Hydrangeas in Winter

Southeastern Winter Abstracts (1 of 2)

Southeastern Winter Abstracts (2 of 2)

Thanks for taking a look!

Hello. Here’s an additional set of abstract photos from my recent photo-jaunts around the neighborhood.

More on this series here: Southeastern Winter Abstracts (1 of 2).

Previous related photos are here: Work, Walk, Discover: Hydrangeas in Winter.

Thanks for taking a look! Hope your new year is off to a GREAT start!