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(A poignant novel from Haruki Murakami about love, death, sex and everything...)
A few years ago, a good friend lent me Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", a wonderfully surreal novel which had me completely transfixed. Since then, Murakami has become one of my favourtist modern novelists - his simple and clean prose is at the same time both riveting and relaxing to read, his plot-lines sometimes bizarre and twisting but hugely satisfying
I had no chance to shoot anything new yesterday, but this photo from last week amply illustrates the book title! I took this a few minutes after Thursday's pic last week - the mist was still flowing up the escarpment edge and over into the bushes as I walked past this little copse of young trees, but what really caught my eye here was the exquisitely subdued lighting from the low winter's sun as it shone through the trees and illuminated some of the hoar frost which clung to the branches and to the grass on the ground. Invitingly perhaps, although they were quite thin and lacked thick branches or leaves, there was a quite obvious path of light meandering through the trees towards the pale sun
I did very little to this - the RAW file was opened into Camera RAW, the Clarity was reduced to approx -50%, and I played around with Exposure, Brightness and Recovery until I got the effect I wanted. The adjustments here weren't large, just tweaks really to emphasise the tonal range. I opened the pic into CS3 and duplicated the layer, converting it to B&W via the 'Default' preset. I added a Curve Adjustment layer, and altered the 'Lighter' preset slightly to bring out some of the shadows. Then a bit of Dodge and Burn to highlight the umm...highlights and darken some of the more delicate shadow areas, then Smart Sharpen before finally flattening the image, and resizing for your viewing pleasure! This didn't take long at all - as much time as it takes a few spuds and a salmon fillet to cook :o)...and I think it's come out quite well!
Tuesday 12th's can't-see-the-Norwegian-wood-for-the-Norwegian-trees entry to the Challenge; click here for other monochromed Pbasers in January
Full EXIF Info | |
Date/Time | 04-Jan-2010 11:58:09 |
Make | Nikon |
Model | NIKON D300 |
Flash Used | No |
Focal Length | 60 mm |
Exposure Time | 1/640 sec |
Aperture | f/11 |
ISO Equivalent | 400 |
Exposure Bias | |
White Balance | |
Metering Mode | matrix (5) |
JPEG Quality | |
Exposure Program | aperture priority (3) |
Focus Distance |
All images are Copyright © Doug Cruden
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