Small Break, Big Learning Curve

My two faithful readers thought I been out of town or sick between Sunday and Wednesday. I assured them not so. The break in posts was due to a perfect storm: rain on Day 1; more than two hours installing Photoshop CC on my computer and six hours working, leaving no time for composing, uploading snaps, and posting on Day 2; and more work, walking, shooting, and working to figure out Photoshop on Day 3. At least I took some pictures, and at least I managed to do something with a few of them. They will have to do.

I Am Not Really Writing About What I Could Write About

which would be the horrifying images of families stuck between borders, late in the fall, moving into winter, sleeping on the ground, in tatters, because I thought of them when I saw this Common Buckeye, warming himself after a cold night and a long season.

Instead, I'll write about my double vision in general. 

Sometimes, I see something and think of another thing (see above), and sometimes I see something and think I am seeing it in a way that wasn't possible before Photoshop. Like the trees along the path where the Autumn Meadowhawks mate in droves and their reflection in Lake Cheston. 

I played with the photo, processing the top and bottom in different ways and adjusted the color and contrast separately until it looks like what I saw, but what I saw is not what it looked like to someone else.

Nothing looks the same to anyone.

Witness, photograph number 1.

Witness, the current xenophobia in this country.

Even on mornings like this

when I can't take a single respectable photo, causing me to PhotoShop one with my favorite Poster Edges option, the colors and shapes that light reveals lift my spirit,

and I open myself to another day.

Learning Not to Rely on Auto

Digital photography means adjustments with photography software. In my case that means a program so complex that I use only a few key commands. But . . . I do not use Auto Levels, Auto Contrast, or Auto Color. I used to, only because I didn't know how to do anything else. Then my friend Greg showed me a few things, and since then I have relied on my eyes and Shadow/Highlight, Brightness/Contrast, Exposure, Hue/Saturation, and Photo Filter. 

Take color. I went out today to shoot some pictures on an assignment. 

Here's the raw image right out of the camera:

It's a little light.

Here's the Auto Levels version:

It's too golden sunny.

Here's the Auto Contrast:

The sky is too turquoise.

Here's the Auto Color:

There's way too much sun.

Not one of these represents what I actually saw (or what I think I saw),

which was more like this:

I'm not sure any of this matters to a reader of this blog (if there are readers). What matters is that I am beginning to exercise more control over what I bring home, and that makes me almost as happy as this view from the old cloister.

Now I need to branch out.