Today I have ventured into the world of color and flare. Every time I take a photo, I see what I have in mind, take it, and photograph probably 15-20 more times just at that angle just to make sure I get it right. It’s no small task afterward sifting through the photos and picking out the best ones. I think the term is culling? Strange term, don’t you think? I prefer sifting through, but I suppose if I want to be a professional photographer one day, I probably should get my terms right.
So lens flare. I’m sure every one of you have see what that looks like. Some ethereal glow above the subject’s head or wherever the sun was when the photo was taken. Sometimes you know it didn’t exist at all if you get good at looking through many photos. I see it on my friends that I follow, and they are quite good at it. Sometimes? I think, nope, a photo needs to be left alone and carry no lens flare. But art it art, and I don’t judge on why one is placed when I feel it shouldn’t be. They had a vision and ran with it, and it works.
I experimented with a simple photo I took a few weeks ago of Hannah. And today I added flare and adjusted the color, added vignette, etc. (The list goes on.) See the difference?
Is it perfect? No, I could still go on and doctor up the photo. And in truth, I still like the original. It’s edgier, and carries more weight, but we’re talking lens flares, so I wanted to show you how I added one on to this photo.
So color hue was a bit more tricky, and took some time to learn. I don’t have photoshop yet loaded only my REALLY old computer that is barely hanging on; so everything I do edit is done through 3 different programs on my phone. Really makes for long editing per photo, but so worth it. When I have the ability to purchase a good computer and get hard drive space, I will dive in! But for now, these are the things I can work with and it’s good!
Here is a photo I had taken a few days ago, and today I edited the colors. I still need to work on fine tuning this, but I’m pretty happy with my very first try. What do you think?
The interesting thing about playing with the hue is you can make an ordinary early fall day look like it is “prime time autumn.” And our weather here in the south is rather warm, I need to be more creative to make fall look like it’s here. I still have much to learn, but remember, this is my first time trying it out.