I came very close to deleting this shot, but instead, I made up my mind to save it. Now, it’ one of my favorite art pieces.
By the time I had followed this stunning specimen around the lake, the sun was really about to give up its light. What was still beautiful to the naked eye, wasn’t so hot for a camera, especially the point and shoot I had with me that day, and unfortunately, there are many shots like this that were noisy and the colors seemed washed out in.
Some of the effects used on this to make it work were mostly done with textures. For the effect I wanted, to give this an antique feel, I went over to Picmonkey, where they have a Daguerreotype frame feature that produces terrific effects. When I used it the first few times, I didn’t realize that you could choose to leave some or all of the color, or go with the traditional black and white or sepia tones. For this one, I chose some color, but it’s very diminished. I used a texture that added some very cool tones, and so I used the blush feature with a slight peach tone to "airbrush" on little bit of warmth around the water areas, and on the back of the bird. It’s subtle, but it changed the dynamic entirely. I used the mascara tool to outline the feathers and all around the image of the Wood Stork, which made the bird pop and not blend into the background. The Daguerreotype filter I chose was slightly brownish, rather than the black and white one I often prefer, and it darkened the entire image more than I wanted, but still gave the tones I wanted, and the aging effect around the edges, so with a bit of work I was able to bring the bird back up.
This is why I love post processing. That moment WAS art, and without being able to turn it into what it felt like, I might as well have deleted the shot entirely, as you can see below.
I hope everyone had a great weekend, and those here in the U.S. I hope enjoyed the Veterans’ Day holiday to honor our service people in the military.
I haven’t had much time lately for editing, or commenting, since I’ve had a lot going on in my "real" life! I will be back to working on my pics more this week, so please bear with me and I will catch up with the comments once I make some kind of a dent in all these unprocessed shots! Hugs to all….Chris
