As I wrote in my previous blog post, I’m in school for a Graphic Design Certificate, and this semesters midterm in Photoshop consisted of colorizing a black and white photo. Please read and check out the final image below.
“Sara Culler: The Sky Changed”
I had been pondering a new photo series when suddenly it struck me that one of the locations I had in mind for the project would be perfect for this midterm assignment. So I packed my backpack and drove to the location I had in mind.
Well there I realized how perfect my Ricoh GR was for this task. When shooting in black and white mode, it automatically produces one black and white JPG, and one color version in RAW. I used the raw file as my color palette, save some freehand adjustments, and an imported color palette for the copper roof.
When I got back home and sat down to analyze the image I instantly felt the need to flip the sky and make it the same color as the window facing west. Then I took one of the sky colors and placed it in the same window. Same with the skylights. There I chose to juxtapose the color of the skylight in the shade to a rebellious lighter shade of the original sky, and the skylight in the sunlight, a darker shade of the original sky. All to underline the dissonance felt within, and that on a very personal level. How such a seemingly perfect sky can be so unattainable, and so malplaced…
The walls had its own intricate work. Every block of wall, and every tone shift was done separately. As we all know, the light here in New Mexico, and in Santa Fe especially, reflects off every surface differently. So I chose to do them separately in order to make them more living. On the patchier work, see the example in the front bottom column, where I chose to smudge the edges of the shifts so that they blended together better. All shadows were also amplified with color.
The only thing not colored is the rough. I attempted to give it a lighter shade of the window colored sky, but it made the total image feel flatter. I added the few colored elements in there to have the gray zone pop, and draw you in further. Leaving the rough uncolored was a much better solution, and I like the additional abstract sense it takes on.
Well - I hope you enjoy my subtlety abstract work here. It was a really fun assignment, and I’ve actually enjoyed every second of it.
