I had my masking and photo editing class with Andrew today. I’m getting a more powerful and more precise feeling for my photo painting idea – fusing black and white and color to create a different kind of photographic art.
I’m also zooming through the Lightroom masking and photo editing process, which had me stymied for more than a year.
This is a primitive part of the photo journey, and I’m just making my way. I’ve learned a lot and have a lot more to know. I am getting more comfortable and calling more of my moves. I’m experimenting and innovating with some confidence.
It feels rough to me but also exciting. It isn’t so much competition between one kind of photo and another but a learning process that is challenging me to understand these powerful new tools – Lightroom AI and masking and my Iphone 13 and my Leica.
They all are stimulating and sometimes unnerving options for me, and I need to learn how to use them to be the photographer I hope to be. I get flashes of exhilaration at times.
But more work to do.
In these workouts, I take a black and white image that I love into Lightroom and colorize part or all of it to learn more about each option and hone my skills at taking photos and editing them. I know something new each time and discover what I like and what I don’t like. Any good photographer has to learn that.
First, I posted a color version of a black and white I love just below), I called it the Halo Cloud, and I posted it last week. I think it’s one of the most gentle and calming photos I’ve ever taken.
Then I re-imagined and brought some color into another of my black and white favorites, my cumulus photo, also shown in black and white.
Again, it isn’t a question of which is better; I don’t decide that or try to, each one offers a different way of taking pictures and looking at the world, and some are showing me how to fuse the two. That is the exciting part. I wanted the sky to light up the halo cloud. Photo painting requires precision and attention to detail, two new things for me to learn.
I’m not where I want to be, but I love the process and the learning. I feel I am getting better.
Here’s Cumulus One and Two
This is one of my favorite cloud photos; I love the texture, softness, and feeling of this sky/cloud shot. The one above is the original Leica black and white. Below is the one I played with to sharpen the cloud a touch (it didn’t need much) and brighten the bottom of the photo.
I didn’t want to mess much with the beautiful cloud; I just sharpened it and brightened the dark landscape beneath it. And I know the name of it now; it’s a cumulus.
It’s like painting in a way, and I find I enjoy it and have the patience for it more than I thought.
These lessons are excellent for me, but my bank account says it’s time to think about stopping and breaking out on my own.
In May, I’m going to Boston for a final face-to-face lesson with Donald at the Leica Akademie. Then I’m on my own.
I’m also slowing down the photo editing lessons; the next one is two weeks away. We’ll break for most of the summertime to fly on my own.
Love the black and white Cumulus, but colorized is great also! You are going to have to do a show or something, eventually. Or sell pics as a fund raiser? Not giving advice. Just saying your work deserves to be seen.
Thanks Carolyn, that’s advice a person can love..I don’t see doing a show, I just like putting them up and watching them fly….
The bottom picture! Wow! What you did really brought out the detail.
Thanks, it was intense..
Jon…
The last photo reminds me of the painting “View of Toledo” by El Greco. Intense.
From the ground, it’s easy to become mesmerized by cloud forms and shapes. But flying through them, one can see they are all forms of water.
In Arizona, this is a good season for clouds. But soon they will diminish until the summer, when they become harbingers of the monsoon rains. In the winter, they become associated with incoming Pacific storms. But for much of the year, the skies here are cloudless.
In South Florida (and in Houston during the summer) most clouds were cumulus, often transforming into rain bearers later in the day.
Hurricane clouds depend on your viewpoint. While the classical hurricane’s donut-shape can be seen from high-flying aircraft, from below, what you see is gray, windy, and wet.
The most interesting weather I experienced occurred in North Central Texas, where we got all kinds of extremes. People around there say, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.”
One “blue norther” winter front dropped the temperature 20 degrees in 10 minutes. Not many natural barriers exist between Canada and Dallas. So as Texans say, “Once a norther starts dropping down, the only thing stopping it is a barb wire fence in Amarillo.”