Contest: Why?

[Ed Vatza]

Why am I doing this at all? If I had a clue what I was doing, I would be dangerous!

Why do I always seem to go off the deep end in these contests?

Why, oh why?

OK, I followed Jules' tutorial as best I could. I figured what the heck, why not opt out of duotone and go straight to tritone. If I don't know what I'm doing with a duotone, I could really get into trouble with a tritone. Then I looked at what I had and said to myself "Self this needs something more." So I took the image into Topaz Adjust and did some "enhancements" there. And voila - this is what I came up with.

[denise ippolito]

Ed, Very different monochromatic look-I like it! Well done w/ the details and comp.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ed,
I know the feeling!!!.....I like the depth and angle to the flower. I also like the tone.....almost a reddish sepia tone. This was a tough one for me too and I think you did well!

[Anita Bower]

I very much like the tone you came up with! Taking the image into Topaz was brilliant--I never thought of doing that. I like that brightest pink and wish it were on the petals, not the stem. Lovely image, by the way. And, the best part is the title.

[Christopher Miller]

Ed, I think you did a good job. Love the red color tone you used. Agree with Anita on the brightest pink though. I also wish that the petals were sharper. Very nice image, though regardless :)

[Ed Vatza]

Denise, Roman, Anita, Chris,

Thanks for the comments/feedback. Much appreciated. The way things have been going here (I hate to dwell on those), I didn't even know about the contest until this morning. I was heading out for about two hours of shooting early in the am and decided I would play around with one of the images made this morning after I had gone through and did my normal PP. This is the image I started with.

And as Jules can tell you, I have a propensity for going off the deep end in these contests and testing the limits of something or 'other. This time it is the tone selected.

[Julie Kenward]

Why? BECAUSE IT HELPS YOU GROW, THAT'S WHY! :D

I bet you money there will be an image in the near future that you will be working on and you'll think "this isn't quite what I wanted" and the next thing you know you'll be pulling out the duotone and tritones and even the quadtones (oh my!) and you'll love the result!

I like this one very much. One thing I learned while playing around with these this time was that if one color feels to predominant, adding the opposite color on the color wheel can sometimes bring the balance you were hoping for. If you love the deep pink that you achieved then, for heaven's sake, let that be it. If you wonder what it would look like in a more subtle version, swing across the color wheel and make it a quadtone just for kicks.

Nice work on adding the topaz effect and never apologize for going "off the deep end" in one of these contests. That's what they are for...to challenge us all to look outside the box and see where the line of beauty really lies.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Ed, even though you don't know what you're doing, you stumble into a nice and interesting look with this one. I like the abstract look of the color.

[Anita Bower]

Ed: I love the color image! I found this contest an opportunity to try something new with no risks involved. Seems you did the same. Why? Why not?