Working at Esri, I stepped away for my desk for a few minutes to stretch my legs and clear my head. I wandered downstairs to the fish ponds, small Japanese gardens in the middle of our campus. I’ve found good subjects there in the past, and today didn’t disappoint. Southern California doesn’t have seasons like we do in Colorado, but on this particular day the ground and pond were covered with brown fallen leaves. I loved the pattern of these leaves floating in the water, and this became my favorite image of the week.
Floating Leaves
iPhone 11 Pro
Digital Darkroom. What I liked about this image was the pattern of the leaves, so I wanted to put the emphasis there. The hazy colors didn’t add anything, so I started with a black and white conversion, using the B&W 12 preset in Lightroom. Next was the split tone treatment, shading the shadows with blue and the highlights with yellow. I finished by increasing contrast (+15), clarity (+27), and cleaning up specks of dirt in the water with the spot removal tool.
For the curious, here is the original image:
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 