I find it quite interesting in these days of digital imagery and manipulation that it is so easy to transform a quite uninspiring photograph into something with quite a high degree of artistic merit. Take this image for instance:-
there is, it can be safely said, nothing about it that would set the world alight. This is exactly as it came out of the camera, and in no way reflects what I saw at the time of shooting, some great harsh directional winter light highlighting these, very early, Buddleia shoots.
With a little post-processing however all is not lost (especially as I ALWAYS shoot in the RAW format) and some of that light can be retrieved:-
OK, so I have chosen quite a boring subject, this is still quite a nothing image. However this is quite deliberate, because I want to make a particular point here. This is still not what I saw in my mind when I shot this image, as I have, over the years, taught myself to look at subject as potential black and white images, and I saw a high contrast B&W image in this subject
So, the next step is to convert to B&W:-
Interestingly a simple B&W conversion seems to be a step backwards, and the lovely contrast of the post-processed image has been lost taking it back to, more or less, the same sad state of straight out of the camera.
But, this is where the artistic side comes into play. I reverted to the post processed image and added an adjustment layer with a deep yellow filter before adding a second adjustment layer for a high contrast red filter B&W conversion followed by yet another adjustment layer to up the contrast and reduce the brightness to create a high contrast but low key image:-
which is what I saw in my mind’s eye when shooting this subject.
I know that this is not a great art photograph, but I think that most would agree that a pretty mundane, nothing image ahs been transformed into something that has substantially more aesthetic appeal than the original.
