Sometimes you find photos at the strangest times and places. At one point during my cousin’s wedding reception, I looked up at a pine tree overhead. The branches and needles formed a dense barrier against sun and weather, a fractal interconnected mesh. This became my favorite image of the week.
Pine Branch Mesh
iPhone X🅂
Digital Darkroom. My goal with this image was to emphasize the texture, and nothing else, so black and white was the obvious starting point. I also knew I wanted to experiment with making this a high-key image. I started with a black and white profile that pointed in this direction (Adobe’s “B&W 02”). I then started playing around with different slides to get the effect and impact I was looking for. I increased contrast to +20. It was looking a little too washed out and contrasty so I lowered highlights by -73. I boosted up shadows by +15 to keep it bright. The biggest changes came from clarity (+60), and dehaze (+38). The combination yielded the high-key mesh effect I was looking for.
Careful readers will note that I skipped a few weeks. I have a large number of photos from the last two weeks of July, and am still editing them. Rather than fall farther behind, I’m moving ahead. I’ll fill in the gaps soon.
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.
Das Haus von Ruh 