Sea of Glass, Tritone

I'm finally happy with this image. I took this shot two years ago and processed it then but haven't visited it much since, and I was never happy with the processing.

The full set of adjustments here is long, but the basics are: curves to boost brightness and tweak contrast, +saturation to bring out the reds and yellows, -saturation to make the sea more gray and neutral, separate black and white conversions for everything above the horizon and everything below, and then a final tritone and curves adjustment to arrive here. And an 8x10 crop. Oh and near the beginning I removed a large support pole in the foreground. :)

Noir

I love this look and this image. I really wanted to try something different with the lighting, so the key light is a 16x20" softbox to the model's right, aimed across her face. Then I used two hard lights (grids), one to put a splash of light on the back of her hair, and one to fill just a little in front and cast a slight shadow against the background.

The goal was to keep some softness in her face while still creating a hard lighting look overall. I love the kiss of light from the softbox on her near cheek, and the barely visible shadow against the background. I may need to kick the shadow edge contrast up a bit.

Houston, from Houston

The moral of this story: carry your tripod! I didn't take it today... and as a result I had to hand-hold this (braced) at 1/6th to get the shot at a decent ISO (200), underexposing a bit. All but this one were too blurry.

But I love the shot, the setting sun made gorgeous golden light, reflecting off the buildings here.

Take your tripod!

House, Galveston, TX

There are some really beautiful houses in the Galveston neighborhood near the Strand... we had to park there to get to Dickens on the Strand, and I was really surprised to find all these incredible houses.

Something about this shot just felt vintage to me, so I went with a vintage/antique treatment.

Boy

I love this shot... the motion, the texture, the focus, the bokeh, etc. I wanted muted color tones, but not black and white. The muted tones allow the motion and texture to be the focus and not contrast or color. The emulsion border effect just adds to it IMO.

Maybe my favorite thing is the focus on his grip on the rock. It's the only thing in any real focus and brings out something raw or primal, in a subtle way. A boy hurling a stone is pretty universal, and to me that is most evident in his hand and grip.