Investigate and Testing Software

Now that I the final selection of pictures for my project, "Underground Immersive", I can start looking at the software that will help to achieve the final look that I think is appropriate to my project in accordance what I had in mind from the beginning.

When I first thought about this project, my first fear was the light that I knew was limited on the underground, and doing Street Photography could be quite difficult in this circumstances. However, with the right approach to the software this can give a good final look to my photographs.

Travel in the underground could be a "grey" journey. Sometimes we are not looking look into everyone spaces as we all are in rush to get somewhere. Looking at Nicholas Goodden, which is a Street Photographer and a Cinematographer that brings colour and sharpness to his pictures. I wanted to my work to look cinematographic and share with the audience that if we stop and look around we can find many colours and textures. This is what this project is about, the bright side of people and the underground itself. 

Please see below my Software Testing with Lightroom Classic.

Original picture

After editing 

Honestly, I did not like the original picture colours. However, after some experiment I could understand that give to the image a cinematographic look would be great and it makes sense for me. A picture that enhance some colours such as yellow and red. The floor is not so bright in the original which allow me to focus on the subjects at the end of the platform. I wanted to focus on the different subjects, however, the only subjects focused are the ones at the back. By enhance the yellow,  the man, even if not in focus still part of the story. 

Original Picture

First attempt to editing

Second attempt to editing 

Another good example of colour management. In this picture the subject is centred and surrounded by different elements and colours. However, the focus needed to be  the lady and for that I have changed some things such as the white balance to be able to create this light around the subject where I can see her expression better. However, was not enough to enhance my character and I had to select the subject  individually and change it some other settings such as saturation, clarity and the haze.  

Original picture

After Editing 

Another example how the cinematic style looks. Now, in the carriage where the light is definitely stronger than in the other pictures. However, to give a cinematic style some of this brightness needs to change to a darker look or vignette, that allows to focus on the subject. The girl on the right-hand side is after the editing clearly focused as she is the primary reason for the picture. 

This last experiment with the light made me understand that the cinematographic style can be added to my pictures and enhance the colour, the blue its the most predominant colour, but also enhance my character. I have used the same settings from the first picture and the result is really good. A cinematic style as I have imagined. I could not have predict this outcome better. Very happy with the final result. This pictures are ready to upload into my Website, however I still have so more to editing. Hope to get this same cinematic style, however, I will do another post about the process if something change.