Gael Varoquaux
Parasols on the beach, Santa Monica
In decembre, it was still warm in Santa Monica (CA). I took this picture because I liked the geometry of these sunshades. In terms of composition, I was also interested in the large flat divisions of the image, a bit like in a Rothko painting. The sunshades serve to break the monotony, and I made sure to concentrate the objects in the dark blue band that the sea form in the center of the image.
In terms of post-processing, I wanted to give a feeling of the 60s. In Darktable, I started by using tone curves to make the sky and the sand lighter. On the sky, I made sure to increase the contrast of the cloud that was barely visible. I couldn't increase it more than what I achieved, because it was creating too much noise. I used color correction to make the sky more blue and the sand more yellow. I used a bit of low-pass filtering on the lower part of the sand and the upper part of the sky to make them smoother. I also used an equalizer filter on the lower part of the sand to reduce contrast. On the sea, I used color zones to make the blue of the sea darker. Finally, both to give that feeling of a picture with an old technology and to fight the smoothness introduced by the low-pass filter, I added grain on the top and the bottom of the image, where filtering had removed the original grain.
Parasols on the beach, Santa Monica
In decembre, it was still warm in Santa Monica (CA). I took this picture because I liked the geometry of these sunshades. In terms of composition, I was also interested in the large flat divisions of the image, a bit like in a Rothko painting. The sunshades serve to break the monotony, and I made sure to concentrate the objects in the dark blue band that the sea form in the center of the image.
In terms of post-processing, I wanted to give a feeling of the 60s. In Darktable, I started by using tone curves to make the sky and the sand lighter. On the sky, I made sure to increase the contrast of the cloud that was barely visible. I couldn't increase it more than what I achieved, because it was creating too much noise. I used color correction to make the sky more blue and the sand more yellow. I used a bit of low-pass filtering on the lower part of the sand and the upper part of the sky to make them smoother. I also used an equalizer filter on the lower part of the sand to reduce contrast. On the sea, I used color zones to make the blue of the sea darker. Finally, both to give that feeling of a picture with an old technology and to fight the smoothness introduced by the low-pass filter, I added grain on the top and the bottom of the image, where filtering had removed the original grain.