Seduced by the color

One of the best things I have learned over the years is to learn from my past work. As I wrote about yesterday, I go through my Lightroom catalog virtually every day, sometimes multiple times during the day. I often find photographs that I processed in the past and think egads! What the hell were you thinking! That is horrible. I may then spend some time working on the original photograph again using new techniques, styles, improved processing skills, and software and many times find a diamond.

The original of the featured photograph above never really grabbed me. The light was wonderful, and the colors were fantastic but the building just never really stood out to me, it was lost.

To me, the colors of the trees distracted the viewer away from the building. I was drawn to the colors but my intended subject was really the building. The building with the stream in the foreground really fits the area in the Ozark mountains. The rustic look of the rocks and the building. I vaguely remember doing some monochrome images of this scene but apparently, I didn’t like them as they no longer exist in my catalog.

I was seduced by the colors! It becomes easy to get seduced by color, especially in the autumn! I sometimes forget that color exists as tones in a black and white photograph. I’ve talked about how black and white photography often shows us the soul of a subject and yet I still miss the chance to really show the soul of my subject. Color can be that seductress, leading us away.