Moments after learning about this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge, I was in my car heading to a meeting in downtown Salt Lake City. As usual, I had my camera bag in the back seat, so once my meeting concluded, I took a short walk around Temple Square, shooting things that were green.
My initial idea was to get a great shot of a traffic light sporting some green, but I saw so many other cool shots of green, that I ended up with more than just traffic lights.
During my quick excursion, I had my 55-200mm lens hooked up so I could get close enough to objects without standing in the middle of the road. I put my camera on AV (aperture priority) so I could have better say in the depth of field.
For a couple of the shots, I tried bracketing a series of three photos so I could merge them together using Photomatix and capture a better dynamic range. Of the four photos above, can you guess which two are HDR? The traffic light, along with the white snow melting in patches to reveal the green grass below.
For the traffic light photo, I converted the three bracketed photos to a single HDR photo, converted it to Black and White using photo shop, then imported the photo in color and used that to make the green light green. I felt that offered more contrast to help the green light pop out a little better.
Green lent itself to so many options, and I still have another idea up my sleeve, which I will probably photograph later today and share tomorrow. Stay tuned for that one.
~signed, Carltonaut
