onephotofocus for July

I came across an interesting photo challenge through blogs involved in the One Four Challenge and joined up. You can read about it here. Basically, Stacy at VisualVenturing.com sends everyone who signs up for the challenge the same photo and everyone edits it however they wish. Hence the name of the challenge: OnePhotoFocus!

The May photo that Stacy sent us was originally taken by Robin Kent:

When I started playing around with this photo I realized that it could take anything I threw at it! Strong textures…perfect! Light leaks…perfect! Minimal processing…perfect too!

For this month’s edit I opened the image in PS and did basic tone, brightness etc adjustments. Then I sent it to my iPad for some adjustments with assorted apps. The first adjustment was a bit of distortion removal with the SKRWT app(barely noticeable!) and then cropping to an even more panoramic crop. I played around with various apps with light leaks and textures(Mextures, Distressed FX or Stackables) but eventually decided on a contrasty black and white treatment in Snapseed. The last step was in Lightroom to bring back some of the detail in the shadows and trees since the Snapseed contrasty effect left the photo a bit too dark.

So this is my edited photo for July:

Not sure if the center of the photo is a tad too bright….

As usual, I am very curious as to what the other participants did..but I won’t know till this post is published and linked to Stacy’s post…so we will all be surprised at the same time! Check out the results here. Update after Stacy’s post went live: there were many super-creative edits this week so make sure you do check out the link!!!!!!