The Road to Freedom

A photograph that I took yesterday (Feb 25th, 2010) in the cemetery closest to my house. The conditions were tough because it was smack in the middle of the biggest blizzard we've had in a while (it's actually STILL snowing outside right now, more than 24 hours later... lol) and so I was constantly wiping my lens (snowflakes kept falling and melting on it) and I had to constantly readjust the shutter speed and aperture to compensate for the huge amount of light let in be even just a little bit more snow added to the composition... lol

Anyway... haha As I was walking up the main path I realized that the flag had been centered on the road so that as you walked uphill you would look right at it. I'd been there so many times before and had never noticed that. (It's amazing the things you realize when conditions around you are different.)

So I set up in the snow and started snapping pictures. I was going to use my tripod but it was harder to deal with it in the blinding snow (Yes, blinding. See some of the other recent pics so you know just how crazy it was) than to just set a faster shutter speed and shoot it hand-held.

After I while I got the shot I wanted and I had been shooting in RAW so that I would have a bit more leeway with the final shots because of the conditions.

I threw the shots in Lightroom and adjusted the levels to get the look I wanted (hint, play with the individual camera adjustment settings all the way down... and added a little sharpening and clarity. I also added contrast and saturation to the flag, which was almost lost in the white misting snow. (Thank you, Wacom for making my amazing little Bamboo drawing tablet... SO nice to use that instead of a mouse for painting things in. haha)

Then it was on to Photoshop where I toned down the dark blue shadows I was getting in the snow on the pathway (took five layers, including desats, luminosity, and overlays to get it right...) and then created more layers, pulling some of the blue out of the branches in the sky and lightening the blue that was on the snow in the nearby trees.

Finally I got it the way I wanted it, the sky, trees, and snow reflecting the proud colors of the flag. America has made some mistakes, some of them pretty huge, but I am still grateful for the opportunities and freedom she offers us. This is maybe a little tribute back.

Hope you like it. As always, critiques are appreciated and invited. Thank you for watching/reading!