http://norman.walsh.name/2005/02/11/photofailures 8 19 2005-02-11T13:18:42-05:00 $Date: 2005-09-11 10:27:02 -0400 (Sun, 11 Sep 2005) $ Norman Walsh 2005 Norman Walsh Snow and bark and blue sky. Robert Louis Stevenson Whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed: failure is the fate allotted. Every time the snow falls, and especially when it falls on a windless night like last night, I'm impressed by the stark beauty of the white snow on the dark, near black bark of the leafless trees in the morning and, on this occasion at least, the subtle hues of the pale blue sky behind. Capturing that beauty proves, for me at least, to be remarkably difficult. I'm tempted to cast aspersions on the limited tonal range of my digital camera and certainly that is a factor, but it is a poor artist who blames his brush. This morning, I tried again, in both the back yard and the front. Even with white balance adjustments, exposing for the snow leaves the whole scene too dark. Exposing for the sky blows out the snow. With a little stitching and some fiddling in gimp, using a gradient filter to adjust the foreground and background more independently, I got the results you see below. I humbly suggest that they don't totally suck, but neither are they very successful. The back yard image has a pleasant ethereal quality in the sky, but overall it's a pretty drab gray. The front yard image isn't grey but somewhere along the lines, it's become a little unreal. I think my best results may have come from taking the color out all together. It's interesting, but lacking in detail, I think. Try, try again.