Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Feathered Hat




Another portrait from the Renaissance Festival. Shirley had just taken this woman's portrait and they were looking at it on the LCD when I noticed her interesting profile and how the sun was filtering through the feathers on her hat. She makes and sells those hats, and I can't remember the price but do recall that they are not inexpensive, to say the least. I also shot her looking straight at me but prefer this perspective more although I wish it was a complete profile and that I had not caught her right eye at all. I like this portrait in both black and white and in color and wondered what others think of the two versions.
Camera info: Nikon D200, 70 -200mm 2.8 lens at f3.7 and 1/80th, ISO 100, cloudy whitebalance
Post processing: cloned out distractions, selected her lime green glove and changed the hue to dark green, merged the layers then duplicated it in softlight at 60% opacity, Colorbalance layer to reduce the orange/gold cast a little, Levels layer to reduce brightness but masked off face to retain it there, Levels to brighten her face a little more, Curves for more contrast, created a new layer and used a brush in softlight mode to darken some bright feathers, sharpened with the Edge. For the black and white version I added an adjustment layer in black and white with the green filter.


2 comments:

  1. Cindi, I see in color and almost always like color images best. Sometimes I worry whether the suggestion to show a picture in black and white is a little old fashion. I don't often ride a horse but do use cars.
    -
    My recent training usually suggested that a portrait with both eyes was good; so, seeing the 2nd eye does not bother me. I like that I can see both hands.

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  2. Her profile is indeed striking. I believe that I like the color image better. Why? Because, to me, it makes the photo look so much more three dimensional, which is what I think you want in a portrait.

    Probably my favorite part of the image is the lighting on the feathers of her hat. I think it adds a great deal of interest to the overall image.

    Nice shot.

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