2541 - Las Simples Cosas

2013-10-01

Sometimes the simple things are the hardest. Let’s for instance talk about an image with foliage in a forest. Something like this one. Simple? Maybe, and I think it does not look unnatural, but in reality it was hard work to get there in post-processing.

One reason is color temperature. My OM-D E-M5 has pretty good automatic white balance, but I have not seen a camera yet, that was not fooled by the strong cast of forest light. Thus I had to work by the numbers, but I also tried to separate the different shades of green. Simply using the natural separation looks boring in pictures.

The next problem is of course dynamic range. Achieving a good tonal distribution with healthy contrast and without that sick, over-processed HDR look that is so popular for mysterious reasons, that all took me time.

In the end I am pretty satisfied with a result that varies strongly from what the camera captured, but that pretty accurately accentuates what I saw and what made me take the image. Photography? Photo illustration? Hope you don’t care. There’s no point in it 😄

The Song of the Day is “Las Simples Cosas” from the Martirio album “Flor De Piel”. Hear it on YouTube.

There are 3 comments

John   (2013-10-02)

Excellent image.

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Joe Jarosak   (2013-10-02)

Very nice depth.

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Cedric Canard   (2013-10-04)

I miss European forests. Our forests here tend to have thick underbrush making them impenetrable, forcing people to stick to the path (when there is one). I would say you succeeded in getting a natural feel and look for this scene. I usually find it difficult to render forest scenes to look as I see them. As you say, cameras tend to be fooled and the standard dynamic range of sensors simply can't cope with the contrast that is usually created by the dappled sunlight. Resorting to post-editing is the only way to try and save such images.

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