Textured Tulip from my yard
I spent some time photographing this morning pretty close to home, about as close as I can get actually – our front yard. My wife Lisa has done an amazing job with flowers around our house, and I often take advantage of having a lot of great subjects around. Today I photographed one of our tulips that has not opened yet. I was immediately drawn towards the tear drop shape formed by the petals, and knew I wanted this to be a focal point in the photograph.
Identifying what you are drawn to up front can help a lot when you are forming your composition, and also focus your post-processing. It helps guide your entire decision making process on how to approach your subject, and how to ultimately represent it.
The color of the tulip was pretty vibrant pink, an overpowering pink actually. Color can quickly become a rock concert when you are only after a light ballad. The color quickly became a dominant feature of the photograph, giving less emphasis to the small shape I was attracted to. That color needed to be tamed!
So in post processing, I muted the colors quite a bit to create a pastel like glow to to the image. Good! Color tamed. However, now, with a soft, dreamy type image, the shape was again somewhat lost. I also wanted to give the image a bit more character. So I then started to play with adding some textures one by one, and adding a few different masks to make sure the teardrop didn’t become obscured with texture.
This is the discipline part, because once you start adding textures, it is like trying to take only a single potato chip out of a bag. So I stopped with 3. I also didn’t want it to be overpowering like the color was, so I took a fairly subtle approach. The final touch was a little bit of selective High Pass sharpening around the edges of the shape to make it pop a little more. This is a great technique for really drawing attention to certain areas of an image, especially soft ones.
I probably could have taken a hundred different directions with this image. I wasn’t after an in-your-face flower closeup, but a rather soft and subtle one. I started up front with a goal to keep the teardrop shape my intended focus. This helped guide my decision making process on where I wanted to go in the processing of it. It helped me determine how much texture was enough or too much, how much color vibrance to include or exclude. This post was just to give a little insight into my thought process in creating this photo.
Beautifully done Mark. There are countless styles and techniques for processing an image, and they’re all equally valid. As far as I’m concerned anything goes as long as it is done well. You certainly did this well.
Thanks a lot PJ! It is quite amazing the number of different directions you can take, and what leads us on the path we choose.
This is a beautiful creation. Of course you know, as you mention, that there are many who would say it is great art, but it is NOT a photograph. Nearly everyone has a strong opinion on this type of work, one way or the other. So it’s not a photograph in the strict sense. What’s so bad about that? Or it could be argued that it is a pictorialist photograph. Either way you argue it, nobody can say it isn’t art.
Hey David, don’t go opening that can of worms of “What is a photograph?” 🙂 Thanks a lot for your comments.
Has a painterly feel to it. This is where the artist within you shines. I like the sharpening to help it pop.
Thanks so much Monte. I appreciate it.
lovely image Mark. The textures compliment the image greatly. I don’t do much PP on my images underwater, not because I’m against it but because I don’t want to spend so long in front of my pc and make my RSI worse. I always appreciate seeing what lovely enhancements people can make if they care to take the time. I think its looks great and thanks for telling us the back story.
Do you make your own textures out of other images or use texture filters? I went through a phase of creating completely new and unrelated images from old images in my collection. Now I don’t throw much away – even if its out of focus 😉 This is an example of what I mean: http://www.pbase.com/suzy_walker/image/112937661 created from 3 or 4 different images.
Suzy
Thanks Suzy. I use a little of both on the textures. For this one I used some pre-existing textures from Flypaper. I like the traveler photo!
Thanks Anita. Yes, it has certainly opened up some other possibilities with my work. I really enjoy using them.
The textures add just the right touch to this already beautiful image. Your venture into the use of textures has taken you into a new and wondrous area of processing. I love being able to see what you saw in your mind’s eye. And, what a bonus to have you describe your thought process, as well as the method and means of achieving the final piece.
Mark, I certainly like the results you achieved and you’re thought process to get there is interesting to follow. My compliments to Lisa for providing you the inspiration for a beautiful image.
Thanks Earl.
Beautiful image, and it’s interesting to read your process in creating it. Hope to see more!
I only hope my thought process can be communicated as clearly on future shots. :-). Thank you Roberta.
Beautiful image, Mark and very well executed. I really like how you visualize what you would like to do with the subject because I’m not able to do it in most cases. Sometimes I am but it’s rather exception. In most cases I just take a photo and then during processing I am deciding how would it look like with this or taht processing. Keep up good work!
Thanks Tomas. Sometimes it is that way for me also. It mostly happens when it is a broader interest that attracts me to something versus the very specific feature here.
It’s a great image and your post processing is excellent. The purists out there that might give you a hard time about this type of editing but it’s narrow minded thinking. A photograph is a personal interpretation of a scene and that’s what makes it special.
Thanks Ken. The purists are entitled to their opinions, sometimes I am just not interested in their reality. 🙂