Monday, January 31, 2011

Conjuring Light (sometimes, Reality Bites)

So this is a bit ironic. After teaching a class on how to find great light, I find myself having to shoot in non-ideal light conditions - near sunset and in long strips of shade cast by buildings, fog creeping in and severely diluting warm late afternoon light. A flash would've helped, but I didn't want to use flash on a 7 week baby close-up, even if his eyes were closed. I could've tried some white balance tricks, but it was getting cold, and he'd finally stopped fussing and gone to sleep ... didn't want us all to have to stand around more than necessary. Blue shade plus blue blanket resulted in a very blue picture - so I put my faith in photoshop rescue skills. You can see my embarrassingly blue picture at the bottom left.
Please don't dwell on it for long. 

I tweaked the colors using curves in Lab Color Mode, which I've mentioned in a prior post. Warmed up the entire pic, lightened the face, to further separate from the blue blanket, and added a wash of pale pink over the face. It is still a cool picture, but way better than the original. I just wanted to let you in on a bit of my reality. The ideal natural light doesn't always exist within the hour that I spend with a family, and sometimes I have to conjure it up.

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