Michael Laezza  

Away from the Snow by Michael Laezza

March 2025 - Away from the Snow

March 2025 - Michael Laezza

Original

About the Image(s)

I was lucky to be near Naples Florida while a major snow storm hit the Toronto area a couple of weeks ago. The Gulf side has beautiful beaches with white soft sand. I like the original color image ( some edits already applied to it ) but I find the B&W conversion makes the sand appear white like snow. The conversion to B&W was very straightforward : in PS applied a B&W layer and played with the blues and the yellows but then applied a Gradient Map layer to increase the contrast. I recently came across this technique and it's amazing how easily it adds contrast.

In terms of composition - I thought the branch provides a leading line to the two people on the right. Not sure if I should erase the person on the left.

Title: Away from the snow
Technical details: Original Fuji X100, 1/1400, f8

6 comments posted

Emil Davidzuk   Emil Davidzuk
Michael,

Well seen. I like the beach goers flanking your subject - which is positioning favorably in your image.

Well done

Emil   Posted: 03/01/2025 12:32:46
Chris Reinhold   Chris Reinhold
Michael,

I like the simplicity of your image. Not a lot of distractions. The viewer is focused on the dead tree. Just out of curiosity, I updated the image by changing the crop on the image and removed the people. I wanted to see if the tree became the central focus of the image without the distraction of the people. Here is my version.   Posted: 03/19/2025 12:01:08
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Michael Laezza
Chris - thank you for your input. Interestingly the leading line is basically a branch ( probably no longer than six feet ) that someone had stuck in the sand. I will probably end up with a slight crop to the left as you suggested and eliminate all but the one person on the right.   Posted: 03/21/2025 01:30:37
Oliver Morton   Oliver Morton
Mike, like Chris, I played with your image in Camera Raw. I wanted to see if I could make the fascinating tree serve as both a focal point and a frame for the ocean scene. My first attempt was a total failure. All I did was mess up your excellent photograph. So, I tried again, this time modifying the lighting. Your thoughts?

  Posted: 03/19/2025 13:34:58
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Michael Laezza
Pete - thank you for your edit. Both you and Chris suggested a very viable and creative alternate representation showing a lone tree and no human presence. I will also modify my original with a tighter crop on the left and the elimination of all people except one on the right at the end of the leading line caused by the branch.   Posted: 03/21/2025 01:49:31
Adrian Schaub   Adrian Schaub
Hi Michael, At work I occasionally use the proverbe "if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" to encourage opening thinking out of the box.

Unfortunately the proverbe applies to me pretty well, when it comes to photography. After 25 years doing square photos I changed this year to the XPAN format (24x65), which I find very inspring not only for new photos but also for reworking old ones.

Hence I felt tempted to crop your picture - which I liked a lot otherwise - to the panorama format. Not sure what you think of it?
  Posted: 03/26/2025 09:24:03
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