Here is my third entry for the One Four Challenge for the month of January. For this version I decided to take more of an artistic approach. To give this photo even more mood and to make the pumpkins stand out even more I knew I need to start pushing the envelope and start thinking more extreme. I thought to myself, “What’s the least important part of the photo, the part that nobody will miss?”. The answer I came up with was the sky, the upper left part of the frame. I used the graduated tool to darken that part and have it gradually get lighter as it approached the lower right side of the frame. I also brightened up the pumpkins a bit while making the inside of the bucket just a tad darker. I did play around with lightening up the inside of the bucket to show a bit more detail but then it started to take some focus away from the pumpkins, which are the main attraction on this carnival ride. Also on that note I knew I had to give them a bit of extra oomph so I added just a tad of saturation back to just the pumpkins in the bucket while leaving all the other items a little more de-saturated. Think of it like a bit of de-saturated selective color.

I really like the way this version works as I am immediately drawn to the pumpkins. I then notice the detail of the straw which leads me to the edge of the wagon then along towards the background. I scan the other objects as my eye travels towards the sky and clouds and in my mind I can’t help but wonder if there is a storm coming. Looking between the RAW version and this version reminds me how powerful it is to work with RAW files vs. JPEGs.

For reference I have also included the original RAW and first weeks photo below.

RAW

Week 1 Processing

Week 2 Processing

ONE FOUR CHALLENGE – January WEEK 3

/ Justin Avery / 34 Comments

34 thoughts on “ONE FOUR CHALLENGE – January WEEK 3”

  4. To me this is a grunge type of processing with the first pumpkin highlighted. It is unbelievably moody and perfect for the image. Great job!

    Like

    Reply

  10. Justin I really like what youve done for this week – giving it a night time feel.
    I dont miss the sky too much, although I like it, especially in #2. You are right. The pumpkins are in the ‘spotlight’ here. This works so well. 😃😃

    Like

    Reply

    • Thanks Laura! I’m wanting to try some high key photos with snow but once the snow falls here it’s been melting away within a week or so which has been making it difficult. I did take a photo this past weekend that to me looks nice as a high key photo though and I might post it next week. I’ve got quite the backlog of photos so it’s just going to be a mixture of photos for different seasons I guess.

      Like

      Reply

    • Thanks Sue! I used to not be so great at editing. The way I learned was just one step at a time. Instead of trying to figure everything out all at once I knew I didn’t need to know everything right away so I just worked at learning different pieces little by little. Once you start to master how to do one thing then it makes it easier to move to the next and start incorporating that as well. I’ll most likely be going back to previous photos and re-editing them in order to get the look I was trying to go for but didn’t quite know how to do it.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  16. Justin love the dark moody feel, esp in the sky. For my personal taste with the image this dark, the left hand side is now not really adding much to the image – I would have cropped it back to the laddery thing in the middle or thereabouts and bought the visual weight back to the barrel and the pumpkins.

    Like

    Reply

What do you think?