The last week for the month. I find I enjoy this challenge. I like seeing how far I can push myself. Though this month I have intentionally picked something easy to help show you that you don’t have to do anything too complicated to change your image. I know changing skies can seem hard, but it is easy and lots of software makes it even easier these days.
Before we get started, for those of you who are interested in what the One Four Challenge is, you can find out by going to this link for more information.
As we always do, let’s look at the original.
What has been interesting, I think this month, for the last two weeks I have used the same image and the same sky, but just made small changes, and this week is the same. When I finished working on the image last week, I wondered what I could do to it.
I decided I wanted to use the 4:6 ratio, and then I had to work out how I would do that. I didn’t want to crop the original or what I had so far. That meant extending the image and then working out how to fill in the blank part.
I haven’t mentioned that this month I have used Photoshop to do these images, so that meant I could also use AI generative fill to get the the missing side, or fill in the empty part of the image. I think it worked okay. I did have to try a few times, but I’m happy with the result.
So, a bit different this month. Did you like this sort of thing? I’ve been thinking about doing more stuff like this. Maybe start with a simple image and then each week do something else to it so the processing happens slower. Then you will see the image progress over the 4 weeks. Not sure how I would go with that, but it is a thought.
To finish this month, here is a gallery with each week. Do you have one you like more than the others?
Impressive!!
Thank you Peter.
This is nice, Leanne. I like how you extended the photo to show movement of the clouds. It definitely looks like a volcano erupting. Well done series.
Thank you Donna, I’m so happy to hear that you can see the vision.
Nice bit of drama
Thank you Sue, Love me some drama.
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Quite dramatic Leanne
Thank you Brian.
I suppose this is why I don’t enjoy post-processing. When the photographer starts changing the sky, and various other salient details, it’s no longer a record of what was seen on the day. So for me, it’s no longer about photography, but something else which I don’t know the name for. I can see it’s creative, but I don’t ‘get’ it. The sky was lovely in your original!
I guess there are two types of photographers Margaret, those who take photos as a record, or those that take photos to use as a start for something else. I’m an artist and just taking photos would bore me and not fulfil my creative needs. When I used to do film I got so frustrated because I couldn’t change things and didn’t have the darkroom skills to do that. Photoshop made me fall in love with it again. I go out specifically to get photos for me to play around with. I like to see what I can do to an image to change it.
It is still photography, but it is different to what you do. Do we say paintings that don’t depict exactly what you see as not longer paintings? What is an abstract painting then? For me I call what I do fine art photography.
The reason I wanted to change it is because I thought the sky in the original was boring. I wanted to make the image more dramatic. I’m sorry you don’t like it Margaret.
We’re all different Leanne. Which is fair enough. To post-process or not to post-process is an ongoing debate within our photo club. We’re about half and half I guess, and I think our strongly-held views are all valid, though different. Though It’s interesting that few change sides from their orioginal opinion. There’s room for us all!
We are Margaret and obviously you and I take photos for very different reasons. I don’t go to places unless I think I can get great photos for me to play around with. I don’t much care about the memories. My photography has always been about creating my own world around me. I change things all the time. If there is something in the image that I think is distracting I remove it. If I think the sky is boring, I put in a new one. You probably have no idea how many times I do it. lol. As for photo clubs, there is a good reason why I’m not a member of one, their photography is not the type of photography I want to do.
I agree, you do you, you take and do the photos you want Margaret, no one is saying you can’t. If you don’t want to post process, then don’t, and I would hope that no one would tell me that I can’t do what I want with my photos. I think we all need to remember that photography means different things to different people.
Exactly. Fair point!
Thanks Margaret. Good discussion really.
I like the shape of this dramatic sky. It is reminiscent of a volcanic eruption but it is also otherworldly, like something from a scifi movie.
Thank you Laura, that is good to hear, that is exactly what I was thinking when I started this image, it is a volcanic plug, so I thought why not.