There was no way to gracefully title this: it is, in fact, a mud puddle on the trail frozen with ice. I first processed it as a color image, mainly because I loved the blue sky reflections off the ice, but as I looked at it longer, especially the brown, I thought I’d try it in B&W. There I pushed contrast hard and sharpened it more. I offer both images to show what can come from a frozen mud puddle. It will never be in the Met but it was fun.
Specific Feedback Requested
What works for you about both images? Should mud puddle be a Weekly Challenge in the future?!?
Technical Details
Sony 6000, 1/250, f/5.6, 145mm, ISO500 with significant adjustment to contrast (+75) for the B&W, and cropping , tone curve adjustments and sharpening for both.
Wonderful! Love the “fractal” nature of this - at least the patterns give me this impression. I think the colors - the blues especially are what help define the patterns and actually make them stand out. And because of that, the b&w just doesn’t work for me - in this particular image. I thik the details and structure are greatly diminished with just the monochrome presentation.
Having said that, my suggestion for the color version may help the b&w too. And that suggestion would be to increase the luminosity. I think as presented it comes across as slightly underexosed. I think it needs a bit of a boost. How much, totally personal preference.
No other suggestion other than perhaps a slight burn down of the larger bubble feature up top.
Love what you’ve seen and captured here. A few tweaks and this will be stellar.
I GREATLY prefer the color version and honestly I was like… dang, I wish this photo was mine, lol. It’s so nicely done. I love the color contrast in it. I do see what you would like the B/W image for - it has a lot of character and texture too! It looks like something trying to emerge from another dimension!
Hi John, fascinating ice patterns you have recorded here! I like the patterns and intricate details in both images. The black and white version shows the geometric shapes a bit more than the color version but I have to say, I prefer the color image. Great job either to spot this and photograph the scene.
Some recommendations that I would like to offer for the color image:
Increase the exposure as Lon suggested. I prefer using the tone curve in Lightroom over the Exposure slider as I can target the midtones.
As you increase exposure, you’ll notice saturation will increase especially in the blue colors. In the HSL panel, you can reduce the saturation of the blues and cyans.
