A high-key treatment of these little wildflowers in the snow. Not sure what they are exactly, but I liked the look of them in this fresh powder. They’re probably completely buried now since it’s been snowing for the last 12 hours or so. When the snow is this featureless and isn’t picking up blue sky, I do tend to crank the whites even more.
It was snowing the whole time I was out, so I generally use the medium telephoto for these shots because it has a deep lens hood and helps keep the front element clear. Plus the light wasn’t great for landscapes although I did a couple anyway with the wider lens.
Specific Feedback Requested
Thoughts, impressions…ideas for improvement for processing & field technique are fine.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: Yes
Handheld
Lr processed for initial RAW development which like I said was mostly upping the whites and contrast. Cropped to 1:1 and brought two photos in as layers in Photoshop to blend them because each had a really crisp plant and combining them would be easy. It was.
High Key works for this image, Kris. I like the simplicity and the way the two lean away from each other. Kind of like natures “peace sign.” (ok, aging myself)…
I really like this version, but wonder what it might look like toned down and with some texture added to the snow…It would not be as good as this, just another version…
I can see if there’s texture at the base of them - probably. I’ll mess with it. Not sure I have the Photoshop chops to get a different size on one of them, but I can always try.
Assuming each plant started on its own layer, just enlarge the top layer and mask it to let the other plant on the bottom layer show. I just did a marquee selection here and Cmd-J to copy it to its own layer and Edit> Transform > Scale. That way you can see the proportions live. The enlargement algorithm is very good so quality will hold up a long way. The snow BG made it easy with no worries about the edges of the selection showing but a feathered selection is always a good idea. To be obsessive, do a Curves above it and push the contrast as far as you can to see any mismatch in the edges, then mask further or clone. I do that curve trick to check cloning in low contrast areas where it’s hard to see if I did a good job, like in a bright sky with thin clouds.
