{"id":36901,"date":"2025-05-22T16:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T21:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=36901"},"modified":"2025-05-23T11:58:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T16:58:01","slug":"its-all-about-the-light-a-tale-of-two-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=36901","title":{"rendered":"It’s All About The Light, A Tale of Two Portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nicole in a church foyer.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Graceland University choir were performing at a church in Grove City Ohio, and I was in the foyer to take casual photos of some of the choir members. The cool colored evening light was streaming in the north facing foyer windows, turning everything blue. I clicked the shutter at 7:08:40 pm.\u00a0 The light is not good. Sometimes I love blue, but not for this image. The image also looks hazy and lacking in contrast.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As the choir moved closer to the sanctuary doors and away from the bluish outdoor light, Nicole, who is in the middle of the above photo, stepped into the sunlight that was steaming in a west facing foyer window.<\/p>\n

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Nicole, casual lobby portrait, Grove City Ohio.<\/p><\/div>\n

Wow!\u00a0 The sunlight made all the difference in the world. My next click of the shutter was at 7:09:10 pm, just 30 seconds later.\u00a0 The first photo is a throwaway. This is a keeper. All because of the light. Not only that, this is one of my favorite casual portraits.<\/p>\n

What if I didn’t have the second shot in the sunlight?\u00a0 What if I tried to fix the first photo in Photoshop?<\/p>\n

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First image after Photoshop corrections.<\/p><\/div>\n

I opened the first image in Photoshop and tried out the sliders in Adobe Camera Raw. (To see how to use the Adobe Camera Raw sliders, go to this article<\/a>.) I worked to improve the colors and I increased the contrast. This is a better version of the first image, but it doesn’t have the magic of Nicole in the sunlight.<\/p>\n

I took the sunlit image of Nicole and changed the background. You can see how in this article<\/a> (which is also the first article linked below).<\/p>\n

In photography it really is all about the light!<\/p>\n

Update:\u00a0 After Nicole read this article she sent me a note. With her permission, I am sharing it:<\/p>\n

Oh wow! I hadn\u2019t seen the blue photo before! I actually love how hazy the picture is – and the edit you did looks fantastic as well! The color of the light gives two very different feelings of emotions to the scene – and I think it\u2019s funny that once I stepped into the light I have a little smile!<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That is one of the cool things about art, the way each of us responds differently to what we see and experience. She found something she likes that I did not see.<\/p>\n

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Tree reflections at dusk, Seney National Wildlife Refuge, Michigan’s U.P.<\/p><\/div>\n

There are some images that grow on me over time.\u00a0 When I got home from a photo trip and went through all the slides on my light-box, I wasn’t so keen on this image. But a friend of mine who is an artist looked at it and said she really liked it. She saw something I didn’t.\u00a0 This is now one of my favorite images.<\/p>\n

Links<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photoshop’s Easy To Use Background Removal Tool<\/a><\/p>\n

Selective Color Removal, How to Use Layer Masks to Remove Part of a Layer<\/a><\/p>\n

How To Optimize a Photo with Adobe Camera Raw<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Graceland University choir were performing at a church in Grove City Ohio, and I was in the foyer to take casual photos of some of the choir members. The cool colored evening light was streaming in the north facing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13,26,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing-and-software","category-lighting","category-photographs","category-photoshop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36901"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36915,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36901\/revisions\/36915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}