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Before
The philosophical quality of photography i find is most aptly found in picture of water frozen in time. Photography is freezes a moment for us to look back and see it unaltered. Sometimes it can take days, months or even years for a scene to change so much that we can spot the difference. However with water falling or splashing it takes only a split second more for the uniqueness of the moment to move on.
Every time i come to this quite simple fountain I try and take a picture of it, as I always seem to get a different image with a differnt feeling.
I had auto converted the picture to black and white as I felt that it created more impact but felt underwhelmed. The fountain obviously contained a lot of drama yet the picture didn’t jump out at me.
If you follow my editing steps in other images I always add a radial adjustment. One of the reasons for this is it can create an intense spot that of brightness, saturation, or contrast that can pull your eye to an single or multiple areas. It is also the case, as with this image, that I do it as an experiment.
I added the radial adjustment and reduced the exposure. This made the centre of the fountain pop. However I didn’t like the darkness around the edges. I went back to the tonal adjustments and increased the exposure here. This created a balance in the image, making the highlights pop while keeping the shadows in check.
Lastly I adjusted the camera calibration to fine tune the overall tone of the image. I also used the local adjustment brush to save the highlight detail in the head of the fountain.
One of the things I like about the final image is the action. The water spraying off to the side, caught in mid air, and the water cascading off the fountain unevenly, now frozen. It is a simple image but one that I think would look good printed more than admired on the screen.
Week 72 Entries For The After Before Friday Forum
Benjamin Rowe Aperture64
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- After
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- Before
Lore Dombaj Snows Fissures and Fracture
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- After
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Mary Hone Tales From The Back Road
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Amy World Is A Book
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Please check out the links to the other members posts to see how they make their image pop.
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Aperture64 
Great photo and that was the perfect edit. We don’t come across water fountains often, but now I want to find one.
Love the editing of this photo… I too am a great fan of the radial filter.
Great photograph!
Hey Ben .. Great edit! I really like them both .. Nice collection from everyone. Thanks for sharing