Wings In Flight

This is a fully constructed photo. Sometimes I just play with Photoshop and Lightroom’s capabilities to see what I can make. At first this was just another sunset. I added in some birds to give it some life form and then decided to add the airplane. The road was too dark and felt unimportant so that part was lightened up. Then the birds and plane were put in a sort of stretched-out line in the compositional third, almost lining up with the road. I moved all of them around until I had a pleasing, natural, and believable look. Finally colors were adjusted to accent the sky’s majesty. All this started by just playing around.

Having the tools at hand does not make the photo. Understanding light and exactly how it works is what truly makes the difference between an Instagram filter and a photograph that never existed. Noticing the subtleties necessary to settle all the items in the photo as though they were there at the time of exposure is what “photographers” know how to do. You can’t just fix it in post if you don’t have vision.