Photos by Calvin

Never Done…

I’m no pro, so there is always something that can be done to enhance my pictures. I just don’t always know it right away.

Marcus Cooke posted a couple pictures from a friend of a friend that inspired me to try new angles. Up until today I have been shooting my rig shots from the same angle with the same crop. I’ve always used tight crops because the locations I’ve shot at were rather dull and empty. Today I went up to GMR for a bit of scenery so I could shoot wider. I must say that I am very pleased with how they came out, especially after some advice from the wonderful members of POTN.

I thought I was done processing the two photos until a member on POTN brought to my attention that the white balance was completely off. In the back of my mind I knew this, but I didn’t think anything of it. I thought that the cool tone of the photos would help portray the early morning cold when the shots were taken. Wrong. I was looking at the photos from my point of view only, assuming everyone knew or had some idea of how cold it was when I took the shots. Stupid.

Version 1

Version 2

Version 1

Version 2

I’ve always wondered if those amazingly dramatic and ridiculously vivid skies/clouds that I see in many of the pictures on POTN are real. And yes, they are. BUT, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are originally from the pictures that I see them in. Apparently, it isn’t all that uncommon to lift a sky/clouds from one picture and place them in another. And where one frustrations ends, another begins! Now that I am not stressing about being blessed with cool skies/clouds on the days that I shoot, I am hung up on Photoshopping convincing skies/clouds into my pictures. Here is my first stab at it. It’s a little messy around the trees/branches, but it’s a start.