In The Good Old Summer Time

This weekend is the Scott Kelby Worldwide PhotoWalk. It’s “the good old summertime” in this part of the world and it’s going be hot, dangerously hot on Saturday. Water is being stashed at the local YMCA at the far end of the route and safety is more important than photography. Today’s image is reminiscent of summertime, in that it’s the time for traveling carnivals in the northeast. On any given weekend you can find a town with a 4H or Firemen’s carnival. Some are pretty cheesy, but just about all of them have a ferris wheel. It’s a ride that takes you high in the air, where you can over look the excitement of the goings on. Today’s image tries to bring back some of the nostalgia of the time when the carnival being in town was “thee” source of entertainment on any given weekend. Rather than the saturated, bright colors normally associated with my “style” of imagery I was going for the more subdued colors of a faded photograph. The only color of any significance that remains is the red. In an old, faded photograph from the shoe box in the attic that’s exactly the color that would be most prominent in such shots. The blues would be pretty much gone, as would the green/yellow components. To find out how the color was removed, hit the “read more”.
Today’s image was treated like most images here at the gallery, in that the tonal range was expanded to the full 255 tones and the individual colors (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, and Magenta) saturated to their maximums. An additional overall warm tone was added using a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer. After that the image was sharpened, the sky was unsharpened using a Layer Mask. A heavier than typical vignette was applied as would have been done fifty or sixty years ago. Once the image was “finished”, the color was sucked out using one more Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. Rather than cranking the individual colors, the Master option was left on and the overall saturation reduced. The last to go were the reds, just as would have happened in the natural fading process.

Every once in a while, try to flip your “normal” work flow and head in another direction. Not necessarily planning on a permanent change, but something so those looking at your images can’t instantly recognize the technique as yours. Just like any endeavor, if you done the same thing the same way every time you limit your growth.