Photo of the Day: Not so Killer Croc

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The following is a crocodile that my family encountered on our River Wallace boat tour in Belize. I used this croc to play a bit more with the forthcoming texture pack by Karen Hutton and Tanya Wallis. I found a texture that contained a cool/warm tone split that conveniently ran along the same line as the fallen tree. I was going for a crocodile in Dagobah feel with this one.

Here is the croc as I processed it without adding textures.

Here is the croc as I processed it without adding textures. I used all the normal processing tools I normally use to try to enhance the texture of the croc’s scales.

Here is the croc as I added a two tone texture from Karen Hutton's and Tanya Wallis' forthcoming texture pack. The texture had a nice split tone from warm to cold that conveniently mimicked the line of the croc on the fallen tree. I like how the minty portion of the two-tone gave the background the Dagobah-like feel I was trying to suggest.

Here is the croc as I added a two tone texture from Karen Hutton’s and Tanya Wallis’ forthcoming texture pack. The texture had a nice split tone from warm to cold that conveniently mimicked the line of the croc on the fallen tree. I like how the minty portion of the two-tone gave the background the Dagobah-like feel I was trying to suggest. I also cloned out the distracting branches on the left side. The warm center of the texture, coupled with the vignetting also helps draw the eye into the subject more.

Photo of the Day: Happy Birthday Michelle!!!

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In a year full of travels, it was always the greatest joy to come home to you, Michelle. It was an even greater joy when you travelled with me. I took this shot when we were on our walk in San Diego. Given your love for all things vintage, it seemed like the perfect image to process for your birthday.

Unconditional Surrender

Unconditional Surrender statue in San Diego, CA. ©2014 Garber Geektography

The Evolution of an Iguana

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The original image of the iguana with only a few basic adjustments in Lightroom.

The original image of the iguana with only a few basic adjustments in Lightroom.

Over the past few weeks different people have asked me what I do when I process my photos, so I thought I’d share a bit of the madness behind my method (if there is one). We had a great time over the holidays with my family on a cruise. One of our excursions was on a boat ride down the River Wallace in Belize. We enjoyed spotting some wildlife and saw loads of iguanas along the way. This is one of the better images I got, especially since his eye was in clear view. I made some initial adjustments to the lighting, contrast, and clarity of the photo in Lightroom, but several things were bugging me about the results.

 

A tighter crop of the iguana, but the background still left me feeling, "meh."

A tighter crop of the iguana, but the background still left me feeling, “meh.”

So I ran the image past a few members of my cohort in the Arcanum. It’s always great to have a community of individuals with similar interests but different visions to help you hone in on your creative mojo. They ran several suggestions by me, most of which were to help me focus on the story of the image. This meant a major recomposition through cropping. I felt like I did when I write: it is very painful to cut down an image (or a piece of writing), but it often makes the work tighter and more impactful. So in order to avoid casting Mr. Iguana on the cutting room floor, I had to sacrifice his tail. This new crop eliminated much of the clutter that was distracting the viewer’s eye from the iguana’s face. Continue reading →