Sunday, June 5, 2011

Low Contrast

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Dog Blog Post #351: It's been a while since "the set" has come out for a shoot (last Friday's Blue Jean Baby, as a matter of fact) and so when I saw the Daily Shoot was...

Make a low contrast photograph today.

... I thought, "Perfect!"

Especially since today turned out to be a gloomy, somewhat rainy, totally unseasonable day -plus- the boys were out of pocket most the time being primped and pampered at the day spa.

I decided early on to give the High Key scene mode another go. I rather liked the effect last time (see Angelic Boys) and was hoping this mode might bring the contrast down in the pictures. (Black noses + pale dogs, without some sort of photography magic, do NOT equal low contrast pictures.)

The shoot was mostly uneventful. The picture still came out too orange (from the floor lamp) but I've found a better way of "fixing" the color using Previewer and was fairly happy with the results. For the tweeted picture up top, I also de-saturated a bit.

The picture below was taken in Portrait Scene Mode, and there I raised the brightness a bit...

Cookie Please?


... it was my favorite of the three you see here, but probably the least representative of "low contrast".

This last shot had the most potential, but as the lighting had become quite poor by then, it is grainy and almost blurry. Still, I liked the backlighting, and how the wall creates less contrast than the bright white background of the top image...

Sweet Henry


This picture was taken after I put "the set" away, and I turned around and noticed the lovely backlighting. The camera was still in "High Key" scene mode, else the image would have been rather dull and dark.

Editor's Note: No Scavenger Challenge shots today. I did take several, but wasn't quite happy with how they turned out (bad lighting) and will have to try again on a day with more cooperative weather.

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4 comments:

Sheltie Times said...

Those pictures just set me back to my teen years. Where have you been and what have you been up too. Great shots.

Sage said...

Such expressive eyes! Henry IS sweet.

Beyond the Dog Dish said...

Seriously these are especially lovely!! I love the soft lighting - so heavenly looking!

I cheated on this one; got to love my new iphone. But I feel like a cheater lol

houndstooth said...

I think you got some really lovely results! I wish I had that setting on our camera, but alas, no luck. I love that soulful look on Zachary's face. He was probably thinking wistfully about that lacrosse ball at the bottom of the pond!

I really wanted to get my landscape and wide angle shots for the challenge this weekend, but the weather was so hazy, I was completely disappointed with them! You watch, tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of the month, when I'm stuck teaching dog class! Gnargh!