As I occasionally do, I took a walk down to the nearby dam a couple weeks ago. Imagine my surprise when I beheld a large network of islands and peninsulas instead of a solid body of water. The summer was dry, indeed.
I moved down the rocks in what ought to be described as a galavanting move. The water had been low before, but never this low. I had never seen the water green, either. Rather predictably, I began walking around the new peninsulas, snapping photos of the scene: the strange algae-filled water, the limitless bird footprints in the sand, and the odd new land forms arising out of the reservoir bed.
Being Strange with Perspective
As is my habit when holding a camera, I looked for perspectives (camera angles) that no sane person would attempt. As a result, I’m rather happy with some of the more unconventional photos I took that day, including a one from a bird’s eye view. Other strangities include a group of jagged rocks that looked out of place among the abounding smooth sand of the reservoir bed. I wondered how they formed there, and I’ll probably never know.
A Happy Accident
Not long after a noticed the jagged killer-rocks, a Monarch butterfly appeared out of what seemed thin air. Think of my excitement! Never before had an opportunity to photograph a Monarch butterfly been so thrust upon me. And it was at this time when I learned how fast Monarchs can go if they feel threatened. Imagine myself, chasing the erratic flight of what was probably the fastest Monarch butterfly in the county with a camera around a network of sandy peninsulas on a warm Saturday morning. Behold my life.
Indeed, it proved difficult to capture the beast on camera, and after about 5 minutes of shooting, my battery gave up and died. Once again I had to learn the timeless battery lesson: Always always always leave with fresh batteries. However, I did manage to capture a few decent photos of the butterfly before my batteries went kaput.
Parallel Phenomena
Of course, this walk contained parallels to real life lessons. Of course, everyone will get something different out of this little story of mine, but I can see the following parallels:
- Listen to the little voice in your head that tells you to swap batteries
- Always seek out new perspectives, not just in photography but in life
- Beauty can be found in very odd places, even on a reservoir bed
- And butterflies can move damn fast
Goes to show you can’t predict what you’ll find in life, even standing in a reservoir.
Perhaps especially standing in a reservoir.
Photos from this trip are in the Byteful Gallery. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers because they are high resolution (1920×1440) just as the fullscreen & widescreen wallpapers are.
At this point, the image is too intense for use as daily wallpaper, and is just a little too wacky for my tastes. (Yes, I do have limits.) After playing around with a Curves adjustment layer (available in the Layer menu), I was able to bring down the brightness to a more balanced level. I realize this difference may look minimal in the small images shown here; but at normal size, the effect is quite pronounced.
Now, I still had a fantastic amount of magenta hue to deal with. Looks more like ice cream peak. By using a Hue adjustment layer, I brought the color balance to a more calm level. I shifted the Red hue -76 degrees and the Magenta hue -49 degrees. Getting closer.
As you can see the image is now cyan, blue, and indigo based. I very well could have stopped there, but as you know, art is subjective and subject to personal taste. In my personal taste, the image was still too “hot” with magentas. I decided to double the adjustment layer to further shift the hues to the blue end of the spectrum. Again, I realize this difference may look minimal in the small images shown here; but at normal size, the effect is quite pronounced.
After testing it for a while, I was happy with the 
Voilà! As mentioned before, the Deep version is suitable for the night and the normal version, called Aglow, is suited for the day. As you can see, playing around led to small discoveries. Each of these mini-discoveries built upon eachother, and in a short time I created a pleasing new wallpaper by effectively reinventing existing content in a fresh way. Once you expose yourself to Photoshop for a while, the above process is deceptively simple. Experiment with blending modes. They are one of the most overlooked features Photoshop has to offer. By all means, use this example to create new and crazy art.
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