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Writer's pictureEmily Flodstrom

May: Highlight Reel, Color Theory


One of my favorite things about the spring is all of the color that you can find everywhere! From beaches, flowers, and just places around town or at home, this past month I was blown away by all of the creative use of color that I found in the weekly photo dumps. I have to say, it was really difficult to only choose a handful of images for this month's Highlight Reel.


It looks like it's time to dust off your sunglasses and jump into "Full Sun" for the month of June!



Gear: Canon 6dmii Canon 24-70mm

Settings: ISO100 f4 1/1600

The Shot: I loved these bright yellow benches on the sea front against the glorious spring skies. I waited until my partner and daughter were in the frame and shot so the bench hut was central.

Post Processing: In Lr I saturated the sky a little more to complement the yellow. I lifted shadows on the benches and added sharpness. I changed my daughter's pink hoodie to a less saturated more blue/grey tone so as not to distract from the image. I messed about with the grid lines to try and get the image straight for ages, and am still not entirely satisfied. In PS I removed a bin.



Gear: Nikon d750 and sigma 105mm macro

Settings: f5.6, 1/200, iso 3200

The Shot: while taking some macro shots I liked the comparison between the new rose and the old rose. I love taking pictures of drying flowers and seeing how the colors and textures change. I liked the monochromatic color scheme too.

Post Processing: edited in LR. I brought down the blacks to keep the background solid and dark. I brought up vibrancy so the colors popped.




Gear: Iphone 13 pro max

Settings: I shot in raw mode

The Shot: I saw those blue chairs and the blue sky so I tried to get low and line them up.

Post Processing: Lightroom mobile - tone curve, warmed it up slightly, increased contrast, straightened it a bit and then did split toning - orange in the highlights and blues in the shadows




Name

Gear: Sony a7iii with Sony 24mm.

Settings: ISO 160, f4, 1/200.

The Shot: My daughter wanted to wear her 'fancy dress' for Mothers Day dinner. Dinner was kind of a disaster but as we were walking to the car, I saw the yellow wall at Anthropologie and begged her to stand in front of it.

Post Processing: Edited in PS by adding canvas to the left so she was walking into scene (in reality, there was more wall behind her back). I debated flipping but my daughter likes to beat to the tune of her own drum so figured her going left fit her personality.



Gear: Canon R6, 50mm 1.8 lens

Settings: 1/100, @f2.5, ISO 500 in camera adjustments to white balance Kelvin 5400

The Shot: My toddler wanted to water our freshly planted seeds for our garden. I stood over him in all sorts of weird and crooked angles focusing on his hand past the shelf above him while he watered the seeds.

Post Processing: Lightroom Classic, nothing. Originally this image was supposed to be for documentary, but it came out so crooked I passed on it for then. However, I loved it so much I wanted to salvage it. In comes Photoshop. I cropped and rotated it using Content Aware to keep as much background as I could. However, this replaced some pixels in some strange ways, like gave him extra fingers. I corrected this by using the clone healing tool and put grass where the extra fingers popped in. The crop rotate also added in some blank space some of the top shelf that I had focused through. I corrected this with the clone tool again to replace what had been removed, filling in the gap. Next on to edits for color. I wanted to bring in an analogous feel to the image. I created a hue/saturation layer, selected adjust blues, used the eye dropper and sampled a few places on the watering pale, which was gray, then moved the hue slider until I found a shade of green that I was happy with. Made an levels adjustment layer with some minor tweaks, exported and done!



Gear: Canon 6D Mark ii, Sigma 35mm 1.4

Settings: ISO 800, f/2.5, 1/800

The Shot: I sat my daughter on the side of the sink to play in the water while the sunset was casting a very orange light into the kitchen. I just let her play for a while in the pocket of light, then took my portrait of her and layered it with a double exposure out the window. I really liked the colour contrast between the orange light and the deepening blue sky.

Post Processing: I edited this in Lightroom using a Tribe Archipelago preset and adjustments with the brush tool.




Gear: Canon t6i, 24mm

Settings: 1/4000, f 2.8, ISO 100

The Shot: I know with his shirt, I could get some good color repeats. But it really worked out when the sun got really bright and golden, and the yellow cast complemented the scene

Post Processing: Increased saturation, mostly!




Gear: iPhone 13

Settings: ISO 50, f/1.5, 1/5000

The Shot: I was waiting for my kids down by the parking lot and saw their bright colors pop over the dune and grabbed my phone. I asked them to go back behind the dune and run over it again while I took a series of pictures.

Post Processing: Lightroom. I darkened the sky a little because the May gray sky didn't come through in the original in the way it looks or at least feels in reality to me.





Gear: Sony A7Riii

Settings: F4 iso 100 ss1/250

The Shot: Used off camera softbox lighting and on camera flash for this as the room is quite dark. Had the precarious task of getting him to sleep and laying him on the prepared floor for this. It’s a scary task but I recommend everyone risk it! The collection was worth it

Post Processing: Edited in LightRoom (brightness and contrast)




Gear: Nikon Z6 50 mm

Settings: 1/500, 1.8, ISO 100

The Shot: Standing over the senior. Told her to lay next to the flowers.

Post Processing: LR SMAL 01 with some changes to the sliders. There wasn't enough flowers, so I cloned some.




Gear: Nikon D750 plus lens baby sol45

Settings: iso250 1/400

The Shot: I was on Holly Nicole lens baby course last month and spent a while finding out what sort of thing I liked. I don't think i'll ever be a nature photographer but I DO like doing details an contextual shots to add to our album collages and making diptychs.

Post Processing: I edited this with my usual preset and then I took it over into photoshop to overlay with some beautiful light by Annick Paradis (thank you). Finally i checked that my colour scheme of complementary was on point in adobe colour

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