The unused railroad tracks in our town are overgrown with these beautiful yellow flowering shrubs - forsythia, perhaps? They are gorgeous, and I've been wanting to take some pictures there. After running a couple of errands with me today, my daughter kindly agreed to let me photograph her in that setting. Of course, I had to take a few of her with her newly acquired little stuffed koala bear - part of the cost of good behavior during a boring store run - as well as several of her being goofy (none of which are posted).
Same photo with less alteration
I'm also experimenting with using some Photoshop actions to alter the contrast, color, etc., of the image. My tendency with portraits has always been to try to keep the color and contrast pretty natural looking. But these actions can make nice pictures truly striking. I'm a little uncomfortable making very extreme changes - in fact, a friend mentioned she couldn't tell the difference between the two photos I posted. I'd dialed back down on the actions so much that it was hard to see the difference it made on the monitor. You could say I'm conservative in my use of actions, but I think I could get used to adjusting my photos to be more dramatic. What do you think - more dramatic or more natural, and can you see the difference?
