Iced Pillars

I know how much some of you like my ice photos so I decided to use one I took recently for this month’s One Four Challenge hosted by Robyn G. When comparing the RAW and the first week’s edit you will notice right away the color difference. I decided that I wanted the ice to have more of a bluish turquoise look to it rather than the white. The way I did this was by using a feature in LR5 I have never used before. What I used was Split Toning. What this allows you to do is to set the Hue and Saturation for just the highlights or the shadows separately. I ended up setting the hue the same for both but applied a different amount of saturation for the highlights than I did for the shadows. It is something that I may play around with in the future, especially with photos with Ice.

I’m going to try and change it up a bit for this month. I haven’t done any other edits yet and am going to try for more dramatic differences between the photos rather than just creating a photo after I get to a certain point. This time around I’ll start from scratch to come up with something different.

 

Iced Pillars RAW

RAW

 

One Four Challenge – February Week 1

/ Justin Avery / 33 Comments

33 thoughts on “One Four Challenge – February Week 1”

  1. Yay, I love your ice images. Looking forward to seeing your process all the way through this month. I can’t believe how clearly you can see through ice as if it was flowing water, amazing.

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    • Thanks Carrie! I’m hoping to get more this month. I’m going to be working part time at home for 3 weeks once the new baby comes. If my wife is feeling better towards the end then I’ll take a couple days to go to some places I have in mind. I think I’ll try a high key B&W photo for next week.

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  2. Love this one and nice that you decided to keep it dynamic this time 🙂 what I normally have with the challenge is 1-2 pictures ready just to get the idea that I can actually make 4 pictures out of it and then I just go with the flow and see what people suggest 🙂 Love the idea of making this B&W and will look forward to your other processings!

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    • Thanks Sari! Next week will by my B&W but it’ll be more of a high key B&W and not a traditional looking one. I’ve played around with it a bit already and kind of know what I want to do. It’s going to be tough coming up with 2 more edits after that but I think some cropping may happen.

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  4. Oh very nice! Good use of LR. Processing is just right, not overdone, very realistic colors and much more depth than original. Looking forward to see what else you do. Good work!

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    • Thanks Joanne! It did take me awhile with moving sliders just ever so slightly to make sure I wasn’t over doing anything. I would constantly go back and forth just to make sure on some of the things.

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    • Thanks Katie! I agree with you. I have seen photos of ice with a similar color so thought it would work. It didn’t help that this was shot on an overcast day just as the sun was coming up so all reflections where white off the snow. But with the RAW file there’s a lot that can be done in LR. 🙂

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    • Thanks Sarah! He’ll be here next Friday. I’ve also decided to invest in a better portrait lens and a flash as I’ve learned a bit more about lighting techniques. I’m hoping to be able to get some practice with portrait shots with all my kids. I do good with natural light outside but I think I can do just as good indoors with the right equipment.

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  9. I definitely like your ice photos and I really like your first edition. The turquoise adds…. coldness… magic… mystery 😄
    When is your baby due? Wishing you and your wife a safe delivery x

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    • Thanks Robyn! I’m thinking it’ll be hard to pick a favorite this time around as I’m going to create 3 more that are just as great but take on a completely different look and feel.

      Due to how the baby is they have scheduled a c-section for next Friday. He doesn’t want to turn head down and has pretty much ran out of time. He still might at the last minute but the Dr. doesn’t think so.

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    • Thanks Chris! It was cold. In the mid teens and I was out there at sunrise. It always seems to get colder just right before the sun starts to come up but it was overcast with a slight sprinkle of snow. But I wasn’t looking for any sunrise photos so the overcast morning was perfect as I didn’t have to deal with any reflections off the ice.

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  11. That turquoise is a radical difference alright and yet I have seen photos if the insides of icebergs and they are amazing shades of blue, I can imagine that this one is melting and this is the colour of the water for real:)

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        • I am envious of your access to the coast and mountains. I do have access to one of the Great Lakes coasts, but it’s not like the ocean and I do have to travel quite the distance to view mountains. So we are even. 😉

          But as photographers I think that no matter where we live, we always want to be somewhere else because the views are different.

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          • Too true, my coast locally is pretty unexciting, lots of sandy beaches with not a lot of interesting rocks or piers or things like that, but a couple hours away its a different place completely and the mountains are about as far away too.

            I remember that every time Im driving past that it isnt that far away and I should make the trip more often!

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