I walk my dog almost every morning in the park in Northport, NY, next to the docks. A few days ago, on an overcast day, I saw colors I like together. Surprisingly, one was the bottom of an aluminum boat, the other was the interior of a fiberglass sailing/rowing dinghy. I tried some post-processing to recapture the feelings I had when I saw the colors juxtaposed.
With the colors being primary, I tried to cut extraneous elements, resorting to a white vignette and a bleaching of surrounding areas. I applied several filters with NIK Software’s Photoshop plugin, Color Efex Pro 2. This is what I got:
Further experimentation netted me a more diffuse, pastel version—somewhat dreamy:
So far, these photos did not fully evoke a feeling parallel to what I felt when shooting them. The next day it snowed, so I went back and got essentially a “straight” shot.
Still not evocative.
On the third day, after the snow stopped falling, I returned and got these:
Although the colors, coral and green, were not prevalent, they show boats in a winter setting and are reasonably composed. But they lacked an indefinable “magic.”
Sunday morning (March 10), after the skies cleared, the snow melted, the tide rose, and the water flattened like a mirror, I captured some magic, at least in terms of my own sensibilities.
—After shooting this session, I identified the dinghy as a “Fatty Knees,”
designed by Lyle Hess about 70 year ago. Until a few years ago, it was
built by Edey & Duff of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. After they went out
of business, David Foynes of Sagamore Beach, MA, started building them.
