A Floating Leaf on Carlito Springs Trail

We were almost back to the trailhead when I saw this patch of trees, none with new leaves yet, but there was one lone orange leaf still hanging on one of the trees.  I took a few images, and then picked the one that spoke to me the most.  I then played with various techniques to achieve different looks….. (Tip:  You'll probably need to click on each image to view it larger to see the different effects)

Original Image

Here’s the image as I shot it – true reality.  I converted it to black and white, except for the leaf.  Altho I liked it, all the branches of the trees felt a bit too busy for me, and I felt like I wanted to do something to soften those branches.

Impasto Effect

I next converted the image to a painting, with a technique my software program calls “impasto”.  I liked this better – the leaf is also a bit distorted, but you still know it’s a leaf.  Can I make it even cooler?

Watercolor

Well, I don’t know what you all think, but I think this coolest of the images.  I used an effect that is like a watercolor painting, and added a vignette effect around the edge of the image.  You can see the branches, but they are really softened.  The lone leaf is like a shining beacon brightening up the entire image.

Enjoy!



A Black & White Morning

The other morning, Miki and I went out for an early morning walk.  It was almost directly opposite from the day before, when the sunrise was incredibly vivid.  This morning, there was a softer light, and the sunrise was already over when we got out there.  A totally different feel to the day, as you can see...

 

 

As we passed the FBO (Fixed Base Operator), I noticed this plane.  It seems its flying days are over, and to capture the feeling of days gone by, I converted this image to black and white and then cropped it with a bit of a tattered look.

 

I noticed some patchy dried grass in another area, and liked the way the dirt was visible in places.  I added a sepia filter to this to capture the feel that I wanted, and again did a tattered crop.

 

Since the light was so soft and  there wasn't much color otherwise in the image, I again converted this to a black and white image to accentuate the contrast and applied the tattered crop again.

 

Enjoy!