I’m a new member of the NCPS. I came to several evenings last year as a guest, and one of those was to see Brian Beany’s presentation on his work. As creative photography is of interest to me, I decided that I’d have a go at a Beany-type exercise in recession in Photoshop. I was walking in Sedbergh last Spring and saw a young beech tree, with new fresh green leaves just coming through it’s buds. I took the photo, and then when reviewing it was disappointed that the tree didn’t stand out as much as I remembered. An opportunity to try a Brian Beany approach! The first picture is the original, no messing in Lightroom or Photoshop. The second is the same picture after added recession. I don’t dare to say that either photo is a good picture, but it was a fun exercise and I learnt a lot! I would appreciate comments – do you love it, hate it, want to know more? Does the recessions work for you? Any suggestions on how it could be improved?
original photograph
with Beany style recession
HI Annette, a great first post. The sort of pic that I am drawn to take – the colours and the light coming through the leaves are attractive but our eyes pick it out of the busy background, which is rather inconveniently well picked up by the camera and results in a confusing pic. Personally I think that the out-of-focus bokeh area could do with a little more colour as it seems to go grey which looks slightly unnatural. If you were to put a gradient on the blur that you have applied it would look a bit more realistic as it would replicate the gradual fall off of focus that happens with shallow depth of field. I’m not known as a top quality photographer but these are a couple of things that would make it look a bit more natural to me.
Hi Danny, Great comments and very helpful. I did the blurring in two layers, but using a gradient on the blurring could be better – I’ll give it a go! I also desaturated the background and may have gone to far – I’ll add some colour back in.