WIRR 2018, October Week 4

This was a travel week in California. Between work during the day and the World Series at night, I didn’t have a lot of time for photography. There was some nice landscaping around the hotel though, and after walking past this plant several times during the week, I finally stopped to take a picture. This became my favorite image of the week.

Aloe Plant

iPhone X.

Digital Darkroom. This image was all about shapes and texture, so the first thing I did was remove the color with a black and white conversion. I decided early on that I wanted a dark plant against a white background so I increased the exposure by a full stop (lowering highlights to counter the glare that this caused). I lowered clarity to remove some detail from the wood chips. I then created a brush over the plant. I lowered the exposure of the plant and increased the highlights to give it the dark but sparkling quality. I finished by using additional brushes to lower and raise exposure to remove distractions in the wood chips.

WIRR stands for Weekly Image Rich Ruh. This regular feature on Das Has von Ruh will show and describe my favorite photo created during this weekly period. My weeks start on Mondays, as does the WIRR. I’m hoping to include commentary on the story, the setting, the specs, or the sentiments, depending on the circumstances.