So, this is my attempt at making lemonade from lemons. I had two shoots this weekend - a very successful one yesterday (might make the FS), and a second shoot planned for today. The model called and confirmed yesterday, so I struck yesterday's set and set up across the room for today's shoot. This morning, the model sends me an email that she has food poisoning and can't make it...
I had a very specific image I wanted to try with her, and was very disappointed that I wouldn't get to do it. So I decided, what the heck, I was here, and I might as well try a self-portrait. As this was a semi-nude, I was a bit apprehensive. But after some test shots, I determined I'd survive the experience.
This isn't exactly the image I aimed for either, and is, in fact, one of the test shots. I'm not wearing the black opera gloves I eventually put on. Those images I'll use elsewhere because they also turned out great. But in this image, the pearls and lighting and pose all just worked great and yet it was slightly skewed so it gave me the idea of entering it for this challenge.
A further challenge was the challenge itself, since I didn't quite get what "out of balance" meant - and quite honestly, I still don't. But I cropped the image in a way that felt "out of balance" to me, and processed it with both Silver Efex (push process 1) AND Topaz (color blast) at 83% opacity, and it produced this really cool, "unbalanced" combination. So, I still don't know if this is out of balance but I'm really pleased with the result.
convert from RAW
denoise
crop
Silver Efex
Topaz
some dodging
some cloning out wrinkles in the skirt
curves
levels
contrast
save for web
I have no idea what the title means.
[Jan. 10th, 2011 11:15:54 AM]
Holy crap, I just looked at this image on a different monitor and the left side is HIDEOUS!!!! Horrid streaks of YUCK! Dang - gotta calibrate my editing monitor...
[post challenge]
My usual drop right before turnover. Almost made the front page with this :-)
Thanks everyone for such fabulous comments, and of course, the votes.
Statistics
Place: 13 out of 133 Avg (all users): 6.1870 Avg (commenters): 8.0769 Avg (participants): 6.1389 Avg (non-participants): 6.2549 Views since voting: 1677 Views during voting: 281 Votes: 123 Comments: 27 Favorites: 1 (view)
your lemons are as sweet as ... never mind the lemonade .. !!
this is excellent johanna .. its a stunning sp and a wonderful image .. I LIKE IT .. !! ..:)
I thought you nailed the out of balance aspect, and did it so elegantly. I love the drape of the skirt. I even like the color, but my experience with slight green/blue tints has been negative with the voters (I've quit using them on DPC). I had no idea this was you. It makes it all the more special, knowing it is a self portrait. I gave this a 10 and still think it deserves a ribbon.
gorgeous..... and you look so I don't know.... unbalanced!! he he he that was a jk but seriously, the picture totally rocks AND fits the challenge. Congrats!
Howdy neighbor! I thought this was gorgeous but I was not a big fan of the color. Was that part of the OOB plan? Good lord, you have nothing to fear with doing an SP. You look great!
I'm not voting in this challenge. Very elegant photo of a very elegant lady, i like the shadows of the pearls on her back, i'm sensing movement at the bottom of the images or maybe its slightly out of focus although it doesn't do it any harm. I think this fits this very ambiguous challenge very well.
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