April 24, 2007

The Old Country

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Photo Friday's current and all-encompassing theme of the country made me head into the vault for a suitable image to represent, and also give me an opportunity to "paint with pixels" (as the Photoshop nerds say) – a technique I hadn't given much of a go ever before. And even this shot dabbles on the surface of what more patient people can do with this form of photomanipulation (click here to see another recent attempt I did, posted on Flickr), essentially a base image, along with a duplicated layers set to screen and multiply modes that were then modified to create this end effect.

The image itself is of a cultivated, early-autumn field at sunset outside the hamlet of Stevington, England where a whole branch of my family tree resides, taken in 2003 with my old point-and-shoot camera. Below is what the manipulated image started as; decent, somewhat washed-out, but still the elements that I exaggerated with light and shadow were all there to begin with ... just, you know, exaggerated. Click here for a closer look at the final black-and-white image.

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2 comments:

lew! said...

Very nice Jeope.
I like your adjustments, focuses your eye very well on the tree.

I have been meaning to take a similar photo for my old man. Once a long time ago he mentioned how he liked the look of big old field trees.

But in theses times of volume = $$$ I see less and less grand field tress anymore. I need to take the cameras out searching some spring/summer weekend one.

Thanks for the reminder!

Jeope said...

Thanks Lew. There's not too many in these parts either, single trees. Lots of bluffs, wind-rows; just not the "singles" like this one.