Sunset Chiaroscuro

[Patti Edens]

This theme is a tough one for me. I'm not sure I get the concept, but I have tried a few photos and tossed them. I tried Denise's method and didn't have much luck, probably because I picked the wrong photos to start. On this dinner cruise, the waves appeared to be glowing to me, so I intentionally shot this image underexposed to drop out the midtones and accent the wave tops. I had to boost the ISO a tad (200) because the boat was rocking so much and there wasn't much light to start with.

What I did in post was to further accentuate the wave tops by boosting contrast and I also adjusted the levels to play down any additional midtones.

I'll keep trying and just see if I can create the effect from a photo that was not shot with chiaroscuro in mind.

Patti

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Patti I think you have succeeded in achieving the effect. I think it evokes a beautiful mood.

[denise ippolito]

Patti, I think that you created a moody effect w/ the lighting. I like the wavelets at the bottom corner. I might open up the left side just a fraction. The combo of the tree silhouette and the darker water makes it feel slightly unbalanced to me. Let's hear what others say. Nice work and I think your interpretation and execution are great!:)

[Cheryl Slechta]

Patti, I love the image but I think I'd like to see less of the purple in the left side (or it looks purple on my monitor) and have that part a little darker (still purple but darker) and maybe a tad off the bottom.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Patti, nice effect with the highlights on the waves. I agree with others regarding the left side of the image - would either open up the exposure there or crop it away. Just for fun I did a "scroll crop" in my browser and was pretty interested in what I got by cropping the image from the top all the way to the water line. Not suggesting you do that, but you might take a look!