Best of 2011: May

The month of May was (almost) all about Italy:Venice, Rome, Tuscany, Cinque Terre.

3,000+ pictures. It was tough finding a “best of”, so, again, this is more a “selection of”.

I chose this pic first because I like it, of course. But also as an homage to a great photographer and to the author who made me switch from Aperture to Lightroom: David duChemin.

I am currently reading his great book Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and his teachings resonate with me.

I am not in his class, not close even. But the colors in the pictures below, the dark blue of the sky contrasted with yellow glow of the chandelier, are reminiscent of many of his works as in here and here.

It is this color contrast that attracted my eye as my wife and I were looking for a restaurant that night in Venice. What duChemin’s book has taught me is, literally, to refine my vision, to clearly express what I wanted to depict in the frame.

And Lightroom helped achieved my vision by cropping the picture somewhat, by darkening the sky that I overexposed in order to capture the dark house and, finally, to highlight (and denoise) the chandelier in the window.

Best of 2011: Jan, Feb, March, April, May, June, July, August, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec.