Best of August: Small Bridge at the Lake

I missed to nominate my personal favorite for August! How could that happen? :-) Well, anyway - here is it. I picked this photo because a) I like it very much (duh, really?) and b) because it gave me one hell of a hard time during post processing. Yes, this is yet another version of the photo shown both here in the blog and in my web album previously.

So for the first time (I think...) I do something that I usually simply do not do: show different edits and the original file (well, as far as "original" is possible, after all its that what Lightroom originally did with the raw data from the camera).

So, here's the (for now...) final color edit first, then a black & white version (I simply can't decide which one I prefer!) and then the original file:


Small Bridge at the Lake (FinePix S5Pro, 5s @ ISO 100; f/16, 300 mm DX)


Small Bridge (BW) (FinePix S5Pro, 5s @ ISO 100; f/16, 300 mm DX)


Small Bridge (Original) (FinePix S5Pro, 5s @ ISO 100; f/16, 300 mm DX)

When I made the photo I added one stop of exposure as a compensation for the bright haze... and as it turned out this wasn't all too bright. However - that overexposure allowed me to play much more during post processing, and I decided to go for the very artificial look of the first image (final color version) because I simply love that "glow" on the grass by the lakes, the popping red of the mountain ash berries.

The important thing for me is simply that the "artificial" looking post processed version transports the original mysterious and somewhat gloomy mood of that rainy afternoon the best.