This one took a lot of setup and I'm gonna be disappointed if it's too out of the box for the challenge. I made 15 of these Japanese Lanters and hiked them a mile into a hiking preserve near home. Getting there at about 3:15 PM (sun goes down at 4:30), I proceeded to scout out a location that looked particularly mossy and otherworldly. Then I picked spots for the lanters and lit them. I was a bit worried because technically you aren't supposed to have fire in the park (although I'm assuming that's meant to be campfire) and you are supposed to be out at dusk. I was in a really isolated meadow, but I still had 3 people come by. Nobody seemed to mind. After the lanters were lit, I just took pictures as the sun set. I was done after dark and cleaned up everything and hiked out by the light of a gas lantern. Fun times! I had originally wanted a shot which had all 15 lanterns, but there was too much detail and the picture wound up looking unpleasant with lichen covered branches competing with the branches of the background.
Post processing: I shot in RAW for the first time in a while. I took an image and exposed it in the RAW converter twice (once for the lanters, once for the surroundings). I then blended the two in PS. I did some levels and saturation (yellow for the moss and ferns) then some burning and dodging to minimize the detrius at the bottom and give the lanters a glow around them. Some really minor cloning and a duplicate layer with gaussian blur (which I then erased everywhere except the lanterns). Finally a resize and Neat Image with the border.
We'll see. I won't be surprised with a 6.3 or a 4.9. As an aside, I was going to title the piece "Kami", but I was afraid too many wouldn't be familiar with the Japanese word for spirit.
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Place: 25 out of 160 Avg (all users): 5.9231 Avg (commenters): 7.7500 Avg (participants): 5.7045 Avg (non-participants): 6.0833 Views since voting: 1862 Views during voting: 330 Votes: 208 Comments: 17 Favorites: 0
Gave this a 5. Liked the potential with the textures especially, but as you have said "I had originally wanted a shot which had all 15 lanterns, but there was too much detail and the picture wound up looking unpleasant with lichen covered branches competing with the branches of the background. " - that may have made this better in my opinion, but obviously is not what you were attempting, so it is a matter of 'preference'. The colors and overall feel was nice but again, had more potential, in my opinion.
Honestly, I didn't rate it super high, but I do like the overall feel of it. Soft and interesting. The luminaries are always quite appealing to me. I love your adventure story as much if not more than the photo itself!! What we do to get a shot!! LOL
I like it, I dunno if more candles would have helped or not, maybe more would have given it more depth. Maybe had it be a tad darker so you could see more reflections of light from the candles. This is a great shot technically, and maybe it kinda got looked over. But it is the top 25:)
Didn't vote in this challenge but I think this shot was creative, well executed, and without your explanation of 2xRAW conversion would leave me wondering how you held the detail in the hilight areas and the shadows. The green foliage is a perfect complement to the warm tones in the bagged candles. If there is one suggestion I would make it would be to have placed another semi-obscured bag deeper into the BG to enhance the feeling of wanting to follow the lights to their begining.
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