Joe’s command over a lasso
Joe Bews is a cowboy I was fortunate to photograph last weekend at one of his family’s stations near Longview. When I asked Joe if he would mind doing a bit of rope work, he kindly obliged and I had the opportunity to try a few different approaches while he roped some imaginary targets lurking in the tall grass. His skills certainly didn’t need the practice so it was really great of Joe to throw for me and a couple other photographers on a pretty warm afternoon.
.
.
.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
A Kananaskis Cowboy
(As always, please click on any image to view a higher resolution version)
I was at a ranch for a photography workshop put on by The Camera Store on the weekend. The workshop was with William Albert Allard and it proved to be n educational and very enjoyable weekend. On Saturday the group went to Kananaskis where access had been granted to shoot on a long-standing ranch back in the High Country. The venue was full of character and the cowboys, lady and cowgirls that came up to model for us had the same in ample supply. I will post some more images from the day soon but wanted to start with a concept image that I worked on in post a bit. During the Sunday critiques, one of the participants had shown a few sepia toned images and that got some ideas rolling around in my head. I had completed my work keeping most of the portraits in straight colour. With this photograph of Tom, one of two lifelong ranching brothers that own the ranch and rode up for the day, I wanted to make a desaturated and almost metallic look to this tight portrait. I used Lightroom’s Develop suite for the post-processing and leaned heavily on dropping saturation and increasing the clarity to realize the look. For reference, here is one of Tom as he really looked in the warm light bouncing off of the exposed wood beams inside the barn.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Commuting on a rainy day
The rain came in last night and, with dark clouds apparently anchoring directly above Calgary, fell all day.
The trains were a somber affair both in the morning and in the afternoon. I thought this gentleman’s body language and the resigned look on his face accurately portrayed the mood of the city on this rainy day in May.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Mike – a portrait
A portrait I made of a good friend when a group of us were out golfing.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Split Toning Images in Adobe Lightroom
With this photograph, I used the split toning controls within Adobe Lightroom’s Develop Panel to make a different looking image. I converted the image to black and white then used the split toning section to set the colours that I wanted to use to tone the image (a grey-blue for the shadows and a grey-gold for the highlights). Using the sliders to tweak the hue and saturation of these tones, I was able to bring a subtle, metallic sheen to this monk’s skin. I had this look in mind recently which has a very different feel from the original, colour image which has warm earthy tones.
Here is a more typical look that I like in my black and white work
In the original, the dust in air has warmed the light and given a glow to everything.
I like how you can use great light to create different versions of the same image. I’m still not sure which one I prefer. Colour is pretty consistently a main theme in my images but I like the glow and the slightly metallic look in the split toned edition.
Christopher Martin Photography 