Assignment 3: How to process an image

How do I process an image? There are endless tweaks and adjustments and sliders to choose from, and that's only using Lightroom. Once an image is brought into Photoshop, then anything can be done. But that's not my point here. I am considering the treatment of one of the images in my Assignment set. It is one of my favourites, a little Viviane Sassen, with the 'model' partly hidden behind the tree. Not really (I would like to think so!!), but perhaps a little so (I will write about her work soon - I see it as very modern fashion photography, and I don't really think I'm very interested in fashion, but I think her work is wonderful!)

Here is the image in monochrome as I have presented it previously on this blog:

It's not simply a mono conversion, it's low contrast, optimized a little and had some other minor tweaks, but it's nothing fancy. I really like how the eye is drawn from the crates on the ground (put there to protect the young seedlings from being eaten by turkeys or possums) through the small tree to the man watering behind. I have chosen a central placement on purpose because he is hidden and thus not clearly otherwise the focus of the image.

When I viewed the colour version, I was reminded of how RED the crates are, and how much they dominate the image. It really changes the _feel_ and takes some of the subtle hidden nature away. It's still effective, but perhaps a bit too strong on the colour (supporting my premise for processing in black and white for this project - the colour really distracts). However, there is that Sassen feel again with the bright green hose pulling the viewers eye in from the left.

So then I began to think, should I use the red pallets more in the mono image - make them darker perhaps? This is done using the sliders in Lightroom. This is the result:

It's hard for me to judge because I have looked at the images so much I find it difficult to be objective, but now it feels a bit 'bottom-heavy' to me. I am leaning back towards the original but I'm unsure. I think the man becomes less important in this image, and really since he is the point of the photograph I think I should choose the version that highlights him the most.

References:
Sassen, V, (2012). Viviane Sassen Website [Online], Available at: http://www.vivianesassen.com/ [Accessed 20/12/12]