Ben Ely Photography: Project 365 - Week 24 "Coldwater Springs Park"

Hello again. I'm super excited about this weeks post for several reasons. First off, I'm happy that I'm caught up and posting as I should be. Its tough juggling so many things at once, but I think I'm getting there. The second reason is that I had a lot of fun this week. I was kind of inspired by Gavin Hoey's 15 minute photo challenges. He's a photographer in the UK who is amazing and really has a great handle on Photoshop as well. In a nutshell, he picks locations and gives himself one lens and 15 minutes to see what he can come up with. I liked the thought process on this as it challenges you to 1: work outside, both literally and in reference to your comfort zone and 2: its a great way to push yourself to see a little more artistically. To get an idea of what he does, check out his most recent 15 minute challenge at an aviation museum (http://gavtrain.com/).

So from his idea, I decided to use this as a way to try my hand at a few new things. I've been wanting to photograph at a neighborhood park down the street from us and took this opportunity to do so. I had a blast crawling all over the playground equipment looking for things to photograph, I felt a bit like a kid again. It wasn't just the work with the camera that was fun either. I wanted to experiment with Photoshop to see what I could do to my photos to maybe add a little extra punch to them. I did a lot of touching up such as B&W conversions, split toning, desaturation and hue adjustments, color specific curves adjustments, multiple exposures, and more. It was a lot of time, but the pay off was that I learned a lot as well. Well, I hope that you enjoy this weeks selections. Until next time.