Chan Garrett
January 2025 - Untitled
Original
About the Image(s)
In December of last year I decided to upgrade my cell phone. With the new phone in hand, I made the commitment to finally learn how to use the camera feature.
This month's image is one of the first that I recorded. I was attracted to this simple scene of the fence, the doors and the play of shadows cast by the evening sun.
The scene was recorded on an iPhone 16 Pro Max, loaded into Lightroom Classic for basic processing and then edited in Photoshop where the image was converted to B&W with additional dodge and burn added.
11 comments posted
A Message to All in This Group.
I need your help! I have spent all of last year studying the amazing tools available in Photoshop. Now I need to learn when and how to use them. My goal is to make this new year, 2025, the year when I learn how to present images that both express my vision and create an experience for the viewer.
Some of you gave me much appreciated help with my December image. Thank you!
I am asking each of you to do more than simply look at my image each month and respond with a short, "I like this." Please tell me what you like and suggest what needs to be improved.
I will attempt to do the same for you.
Posted: 01/01/2025 13:35:54
I need your help! I have spent all of last year studying the amazing tools available in Photoshop. Now I need to learn when and how to use them. My goal is to make this new year, 2025, the year when I learn how to present images that both express my vision and create an experience for the viewer.
Some of you gave me much appreciated help with my December image. Thank you!
I am asking each of you to do more than simply look at my image each month and respond with a short, "I like this." Please tell me what you like and suggest what needs to be improved.
I will attempt to do the same for you.
Posted: 01/01/2025 13:35:54
Happy New Year, Chan! I absolutely love this composition!
This composition very much reminds of subjects Paul Strand enjoyed .. some abstract like "The White Fence" 1916. Here, too, your work creates a wonderful abstract quality while obviously each item is clearly identifiable. Technically, the B&W conversion could not be any better ... the tonal gamut serves the subject appropriately, in my opinion. Your visualization (via subject and cropping) plus the final rendering is one of your best, if you do not mind me saying so.
I often speak about "why" B&W photography is so compelling and this example is a perfect example how we initially take in the whole ... then back off and begin to enjoy the details: where a good Gestalt leads to photographic work that has "staying power" and lends itself to viewers' coming back to study it more. Posted: 01/01/2025 14:06:01
This composition very much reminds of subjects Paul Strand enjoyed .. some abstract like "The White Fence" 1916. Here, too, your work creates a wonderful abstract quality while obviously each item is clearly identifiable. Technically, the B&W conversion could not be any better ... the tonal gamut serves the subject appropriately, in my opinion. Your visualization (via subject and cropping) plus the final rendering is one of your best, if you do not mind me saying so.
I often speak about "why" B&W photography is so compelling and this example is a perfect example how we initially take in the whole ... then back off and begin to enjoy the details: where a good Gestalt leads to photographic work that has "staying power" and lends itself to viewers' coming back to study it more. Posted: 01/01/2025 14:06:01
Thank you, Lance. Your comments are very valuable to me. I worked on this image on a number of session before I finally felt happy with it. Some changes helped, but others did not work and had to be deleted. You encourage me to keep working and learning. Posted: 01/01/2025 23:07:40
I like the textures and the shadows. You did a good job seeing this rather than stopping at the nice color of the wall in the original, which would have overwhelmed those elements. The black and white conversion has a good range of tonal values. You have taken a suburban scene and turned it into art, hard to do. Posted: 01/01/2025 14:53:54
Thank you, Will. I greatly appreciate the help this group gave me with my December image. That help also pushed me to keep working on this image in an attempt to fix everything I could find that was not right. Posted: 01/02/2025 19:02:53
Very interesting image! I really like the play with the light/shadows in this photo. Also the conversion to B&W greatly enhances the image compared to the color version. I also note that you cropped this image very well, eliminating the roof and the area at the left side of the house. My only thought is to perhaps include the fence corner at the right to see what this does to the overall composition. Very nice, thanks for sharing! Posted: 01/01/2025 15:42:50
Dale, your helpful remarks are always appreciated. Sadley, the corner of the fence was not in the original image. As I noted, this one of my first images recorded by my cell phone. I am most comfortable with the viewfinder on my Canon cameras and find it hard with my degree of unsteadiness to properly frame with my cell phone. I hope to get better. Posted: 01/02/2025 19:09:37
So striking! I love that you can see the texture in the wall. I think the BW conversion allows you to really SEE the patterns of the shadows of the sun through the fence. Your crop is really good, taking out the distractions. Is this #1 of other buildings like it?
Looking closely, I can see the reflection of the fence in the glass. Great job! Posted: 01/01/2025 21:47:32
Looking closely, I can see the reflection of the fence in the glass. Great job! Posted: 01/01/2025 21:47:32
Thank you, Cindy. This group of photography friends pushes me to improve my work. I now find that what I use to think was good enough is not good enough. I hope you will continue to demand better work. Posted: 01/02/2025 19:14:57
Great example of how conversion to B&W changes where my eyes go. In the original - they go straight to the red building - and the red keeps pulling my gaze. In the B&W the red wall fades into the background (boring middle gray) - and my eyes focus on the doors (including the reflection in the glass) and fence (including hinge/lock). Those become the brightest/high-contrast parts of the frame and are more interesting than the red wall. I like that the white fence boards run almost perpendicular to their shadow on the deck surface. Posted: 01/02/2025 15:58:11
Steven, thank you. You were so helpful to me in improving my December image. What you and others did for me last month has (hopefully) carried over into this image. Posted: 01/02/2025 19:18:00