[slideshow] I am finding that playing with color in a photo is the beginning of making art, and that scares me a bit. I never thought of myself as an artist. Photography was one part science of capture (aka geekness) and one part composition (art). Now as I learn a bit more about image processing, I find that it really is the artist who has to arrive to make a photo come alive.

The great photographers all do extensive work in the darkroom (or on a computer now in digital photography). I'm told this is where they often create the image their mind saw when they pressed the shutter. Ansel Adams dodged and burned his compositions into legends. Artists with brushes did the same for generations before that.

For these photos I played a bit with color on purpose. In the leaf I provide the photo in color, and the photo I imagined in B&W. In the Rose I added just a touch of contrast to make the leaves pop out against a complimentary green background. In the fire bush I removed the yellowish green background of grass to have the red pop from the dark grey background.

For stepping out in to artist realms I hope this is just a beginning for me, and I can continue to make my images art both in camera and in post.

Besides the geek was already having fun since these captures came from my three year old backup camera with my classic 77mm prime mounted! I had not shot with it for two months and it was feeling lonely, so this was its morning walkabout!

ehw