BENTTREES
POST PRODUCTION - Bring out the drama
These wind bent trees in Western Australia had been given a decidedly crappy location to survive in. But survive they do, albeit with a unique curve. I was asked to shoot them to try and show the perpetual winds that created their signature lean. Yet in (1) in the RAW captured image, it shows little of the background cloudscape that created the winds giving the trees their shape.
So this had to be ‘pulled out’. It was there in the RAW file (1), but you could hardly see it.
But, if you tried to darken the clouds with Levels (2), the clouds will darken, but so will the trees, thereby ruining the point of the image. So treating the image as a RAW file is the best option. You can use the Highlight & Shadows command in Photoshop, which offers a good solution as well. The final edited version (3) has balanced the image and is more in keeping with what I saw, and more importantly, was what the client had asked for.
Adjusting the shot
Editing the image often involves more than colour corrections. Optimizing has a very broad meaning really - making the most of what you have captured. With these two images, I have removed elements that to me (and the client) were not needed. The couple frame was for a story on retirement, in this instance the fence, whilst there for safety, had to go. The same applied to the people and bollards in Dinan, here I corrected the vertical lines as well. The latter is pretty well mandatory for all assignments. So the reason for the shot governs the outcome - if your conscience can handle it!.
All photography and information © Jon Davison 20232.