Oregon has a beautiful Japanese Garden and during the cherry blossom bloom I went down to take a look. These are the result!

       In the last post I talked a bit about style and trying to find a happy medium between over editing and a basic photo correction. These shots feel like they are getting closer to a distinct, but subtle flavor. They come from two different locations: the Portland Japanese Garden and the park at our community center. These flowers offered a unique opportunity to engage in some macro photography. The challenge for the wider shots was to compose a photo that exemplified the beauty of the tree while not taking away from its detail. My approach to this task was to get close enough to the tree to give a fair amount of detail while not cropping out the context of the shot as a whole.

       When editing these shots, I found that there was not a whole lot of oranges and yellows to blow out (unlike the Fields Bridge Park photos), so what I was left with was the ballance between pink and green. Emphasizing pink was the natural progression here, while adding a fair amount of warmth and dropping down the saturation on all of the other colors. From there, I grayed up the whites and reduced saturation in the darker color segments to give a washed out feel.

       Ultimately I had a blast taking these photos, but honestly I had more fun at the community center than I did at the garden, just because of the crowds. I am excited to see where this style takes me, and what it means for the kinds of shoots I do in the future. Thanks for following along! Best, -Ben