Shooting to Illustrate

50mm (APS-C)  f/5.6 1/60sec iso1000
Initially when shooting this, I started with two ideas in mind, Depression and Kill them with kindness. Looking at the photo after the fact, what I see is, someone who is contemplating the idea of suicide but viewing it as a positive thing. Hence the flower coming out of the barrel.

If I were to shoot this same photo again or re-edit it, I would leave the photo as a black and white but make the flower red. Visually it would be far more striking using red selectively.

Natural Light (Revisited)

 So here are the side by side comparisons

For the photo on the right, first I made the color a bit more punchy, (just to play around.) Having the red and the greens in the image really work well together. I don't care much for the green behind her as much as the green in her eyes. Then I took the photo into photoshop, where after laboriously researching how to turn a single photo into an HDR (aka the first tutorial I found), I turned it into an HDR image. 

For this photo all I did was crop in where requested and I think it adds tremendously to what the photo is saying. Being a tighter shot and also the content of the shot, it adds a sort of power and confidence, that you don't get with the original photo.

I'd like to go back and revisit the Coke-Cola Girl and tweak it just a bit more to my liking but I am lazy so I will save that project for another day...

p.s. I am working on my, Shoot to illustrate, not to worry!!!