104 - Blue John

104 - Blue John
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

If the previous image diverged in terms of the apparent and actual, this one used a new technique to achieve this. The original was very dark and poorly focussed - nothing more than one might expect from using a camera in a dark bar with no flash. However, the guy in the image I had not seen in a couple of years as he has moved back to Britain, and from that point having this image of him in an environment he is so familiar with seemed important.

While I achieved a composition that satisfied me, there seemed little else I could salvage. Anything I tried resulted in a darker image that quickly bleached if brightened. The information I was interested in was there, but the tools I was using could not differentiate between what I wanted and what I did not.

So, I decided to use the smear tool under the control of the mouse to resolve some of the problems, but quickly realized that I could apply the technique to the whole image. No pixel remains in its original place, and yet what is left is an image that contained only the information that I was interested in - the composition, plus an adequately bright image with no bleaching.

If the previous image was the first step on my latest divergence, this one was to establish the technique I would rely on to continue that divergence.