Red Canoes

Earlier this year I took a number of photographs of canoes moored at Chateau Lake Louise. The interest in these pictures lies in the patterns they assume as they move around with the wind on the lake’s surface. Despite this inherent interest, I thought they needed a little help so I undertook the following process with one of my images.

I began by converting all but the outer hulls of the canoes to black and white. This de-emphasizes all but the canoes themselves and makes them stand out from the background . This technique is often used in magazine ads. It’s accomplished by doing a “colour selection” in Photoshop and masking everything but the selected areas, in this case the red canoe hulls.

To add yet further “pop” to the hulls, I applied the Orton Effect to the entire photograph.  This effect is achieved by overlaying and blending two similar images, one sharp and over-exposed, the other out-of-focus and under-exposed. By tinkering with the amount of blur,  the degrees of exposure and the amount of blending, it is possible to get an image that is highly saturated, still sharp yet soft in appearance. The canoes are further emphasized, while the background, notably the ripples on the water are softened and become less of an attractant to the eye.

Here’s the outcome.