There is a powerful, electric, vitality in the spring landscape. Every day that I look around me, I see exciting transformations occurring, bit by bit. If life gets too busy, and if we drive everywhere, we run the risk of not seeing this magic until the trees burst into blossom on a warm spring day, then shout out to us again in the fall in a blaze of color.
That's why I love to walk. Throughout the year, the pace of my feet allows me to notice the subtleties going on, continually, between seasonal peaks. On a walk last week near my home, I was drawn to the tiny buds forming on the branches of trees and shrubs along the road.
The bright scattering of buds looked like living fireworks to me. With the lens I had on my camera, and in the textured, lovely spring palette of colors, I found it difficult to capture the display. So, if I were to just show the original image, viewers might not see what I was noticing, without an explanation. That's where the fun and creativity in the studio comes in.
Most of what I do with Photoshop, and hand-painting, is an effort to emphasize what inspired me about the subjects of the photographs in the first place, and better convey that to others in the finished image. Here is the budding tree after playing with it in Photoshop, and the original capture below.
Here's an invitation/challenge for you! If you would like to, drag off the original image of the tree, and work with it to see how you might be able to capture the "fireworks". I'd love to see what you come up with and compare notes.
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