Oregon Trees, Tonal Conversions

Nacho

Hi Folks:

Yesterday at the Japanese Garden, and in Washington Park, in Portland, OR. It was a beautiful morning, with a substantial fog cover. Here are some shots of trees, processed in various BW styles. I was trying to capture the mood yesterday morning, so the processing reflects that:



















Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Just a few days ago I received a mini-grant from a Sustainable Communities Center to do a documentary photography project of a local forest. The documentary project will not carry the heavy post-processing you see here, but it will seek to capture the memory of the land, the mood of presence and witnessing that is exemplified by the title of image #2 above.

Thanks,

Nacho

jamesl

These are outstanding! Love the fog and the heavy mood of the pictures. What kind of post processing did you use for these? They almost look IR like.

Great job!

James

CWSkopec

#'s 2, 3, 5 & 6 are spectacular!!!

Great treatments in post!!

Nacho

Thanks James
James, thanks for the kind words. I normally tend to do BW conversions manually --meaning, I select what I think is the best channel and then work with the channel mixer in CS3, and with High Pass filter, shadows/highlights, burning and dodging, etc. I like the feeling of control that such a workflow process provides. But, in these I decided I was going to try my hand with Nik Color Efex Pro and with Nik's Silver Efex Pro. I did a basic conversion with Silver Efex, changing filter, contrast, brightness, structure, etc. to my wishes, then applied a bit of tonal contrast (if needed) and the Midnight or Glamour Glow filters with Nik Color Efex Pro. I played with the intensity of sepia filter and that was pretty much it. It did take a while because I tend to generate various versions, one usually without the use of filters or plug-ins just to check that I am not just being seduced by the cool plug in! I am not a fan of much glamour glow or some of those other filters, but I found that especially with the foggy images, it complemented the already misty and moody feel by softening it and allowing me to capture better my experience of the moment.

Thanks again James, and great images on your site (especially lightning!).

Best,

N

Nacho

Thanks Chris! That post-processing sure took me a while! : )

Thanks,

N

schmoo

Yeow!!! These are fantastic and very, very moody. You caught the trees at the perfect moment and I can certainly see how your forest documentary opportunity came about. Best of luck to you in that and I hope it leads to many other good things (for you and for the trees )

Nacho

Thanks Schmoo
Schmoo, thanks much for the kind words. Some of these I like better than others, so am still considering processing. Glad you like them, this was an exercise in mindfulness. Thanks for the vote of confidence on the documentary project!

Best,

N

David_S85

Outstanding series, N. Congrats on the assignment.

Darren Troy C

Stunning!

bryanj87

Very well done! I especially like the images with the sun rays coming through the trees.