An Order and an Edit

Last week I was contacted by a lady who had seen my photos at the cafe (where I haven't been for six months) and wondered about purchasing a few prints for her husband's birthday. She was looking for photos not necessarily like the ones hanging at the cafe at that time but specifically for recognizable places in our town that were also on the brighter side.

Hmm ... bright photos could be a problem because photographers tend to take a lot of photos in lower light toward the beginning or end of daylight hours. I dragged a few possibilities into a separate Flickr folder for her to peruse and also suggested a few of my other albums that she could look at.

She made good choices with these two photos. Both the one of the railway station with the peonies in foreground and the one of town hall in golden hour qualify. They are both of recognizable places and are bright enough.

Her third choice of the whitewater by the old mill puzzled me.

While the photo of the mill is in keeping with the recognizable features theme, it didn't seem to qualify as bright. Also, the crop would not have matched the other two photos; it is closer to square while the others are closer to a 3x2 ratio, which also meant that I couldn't print it as large.

I went to work. Going back to the original photo I uncropped it. I had cropped it, particularly on the right because there were many stray and distracting branches. I then photoshopped the branches away as best I could and also tried to give the photo a bit more pop.

Although I had been somewhat surprised by her choice, I must say that the final print actually looks very good. Prints can be that way, very often looking more appealing than their digital counterparts, especially when the print is a fair bit larger than the online version.