Audrey Waitkus  


Banana Timeline by Audrey Waitkus

July 2025 - Banana Timeline

July 2025 - Audrey Waitkus

Original

July 2025 - Audrey Waitkus

Original 2

July 2025 - Audrey Waitkus

Original 3

About the Image(s)

Our grocer displays their bananas laid out from the freshest to the oldest, and moves the bananas from left to right to make them available in all stages: no waiting for your bananas to go over-ripe so you can make banana bread. With no way to capture the entire display in one photograph, I took a series of four so I could combine them into a panorama. (Note that our website only allows three "before" entries, but that's enough to show the idea) Here I was more interested in the story than in the technical aspects, but I still did a lot of touching up to adjust for angles and tilts of the originals. Photoshop has a wonderful built-in panorama assembly function, so the heavy work was done automatically. Then using Photoshop's assortment of warp functions, I corrected for distortions in the angles, cloned out distractions, moved a few hands of bananas to empty spots, and so on. The lighting was great in the store, so all that was left was to save for the web.


6 comments posted




Bollin Millner   Bollin Millner
Great photograph! I admire your ability to use Photoshop. I struggle with it but your edits look great. How did you learn the system...trial and error, youtube tutorials, or "Help" inside of Photoshop? At any rate, as a photographer of dying flowers, I love this banana timeline.   Posted: 07/02/2025 13:26:33
Audrey Waitkus   Audrey Waitkus
Smile!! I do see the similarity in point-of-view :)

As for Photoshop I started from ground zero back around 2006. At that time, with a new camera, I took a photography class. The instructor would deliver everyone's negatives to a developer in a nearby town and retrieve the results. Only problem was that I had one of those new-fangled cameras that only produced digital negatives. So I secured and learned to use a "new" program (Photoshop Elements). I kept returning to take additional classes and, of course, soon everyone had digital cameras and we progressed through the iterations of Photoshop and eventually Lightroom (which I rarely use). Along with the instructors' guidance through software-intensive classes and my own "try-everything" curiosity, I learned many facets of Photoshop in depth. I sort of topped out relatively recently with all the new stuff (think AI, etc) and still do most things the "old" way. I also spent endless hours with Photoshop's tutorials and video presentations over the years and still return to them when I "forget" something or want to use something that's new or updated.   Posted: 07/02/2025 17:07:19
Bollin Millner   Bollin Millner
Excellent. You have nearly twenty years of experience with it and it shows. Thanks for sharing your process.   Posted: 07/03/2025 01:03:09



Ruth Holt   Ruth Holt
Audrey, Thanks for sharing your interesting "How to". I stopped on APS-CS6, which I still use. The image of the bananas is vey well put together; great that the banana bread mix is right there.   Posted: 07/11/2025 15:24:26
Audrey Waitkus   Audrey Waitkus
Glad you noticed the banana bread mix. That's the feature that really clinches the idea that the produce manager has a sense of humor, as well as a program for moving bananas along. I didn't mention that the brown paper bags were filled with the slightly over-ripe bananas all ready to be taken right home to make up with the mix. Yum!   Posted: 07/15/2025 21:11:41



Eric Schweitzer   Eric Schweitzer
Great color, sharpness and composition. I like the use of a panorama. The idea of the bananas organized by age. Note, those of us who use Lightroom, it also has a panorama feature. I have never compared it to Photoshop to determine the differences.   Posted: 07/18/2025 18:51:52



 

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