Delightfully Desaturated

In an effort to get the most out of my remaining days of my free trial with Adobe's Lightroom, I've started randomly experimenting with settings just to see what kinds of whacky things I can create.  Of course, most of what I accomplish involves making some previously fine photos really, really ugly.  Every once in awhile, though, I stumble across something that really works.  I present Exhibit A:


Original:

Experiment:

And now to share my secret: desaturation.  Ok, I may have given that one away a little with the title of this post.  There are other, much more complicated ways to accomplish this look once you've mastered the art of using selection tools, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover this handy little short cut.  So, the key is to pick a photo where the colors in the subject share no common elements with the items in the background--otherwise, you end up with a fully saturated subject, and a few random streaks of color in the background.  In the "Develop Room", scroll down the toolbar on the right until you hit the "HSL/Color/ B&W" section.  You can click on individual colors (displayed in boxes below the heading, above the sliding bars), then desaturate individual colors one-by-one by sliding the saturation bar all the way to the left.  Just don't desaturate the colors featured in your subject.  Voila!  Quick and painless, huh? 

I liked this particular technique so much that I went a little crazy with it.  As I said, it doesn't really work if the colors in your subject appear in the background, too--but it was fun playing with the saturation on a variety of photos and seeing some of the surprising successes.  I've shared two of my favorites below. 

Original:

Experiment:

Original:

Experiment:

Some Healthy Competition

I recently posted about the importance of self-promotion for getting a little recognition for your work.  I then whined a bit about the advice to sell stock photography, which I have been following (albeit somewhat grudgingly).  One form of self-promotion I think gets less attention, however, is photography contests.  Now, I suspect that there are plenty of shady contests out there that are just fishing for information or photos.  However, there are plenty of reputable photography contests as well.  Of course, there's no guarantee that you'll win, or even get any recognition.  But, so long as I steer away from those which charge an entry fee and watermark my images, what's the harm, right?  And who knows?  Maybe I'll have a bit of luck and someone will really like my photos.  Plus, finding an image which epitomizes the sentiment of the contest or category forces you to think about your photos in a different way, and to get cracking on editing.  With that in mind, I've decided to enter an online contest.  There are a few categories I'm having trouble picking an image for, though.  I've shown the photos below, and I'd be very grateful for some feedback. I've listed the category name along with the photographs I'm considering below.  I can only enter one photograph into each category with the exception of the portfolio category, for which I get to pick three photographs.  Obviously I'm planning to do some watermark work before I submit.  Also, if you see anything in my gallery that I haven't considered but you think I should, please let me know.  Likewise, some of these images might fit into more than one category, so if you think an image would be for another category, I would appreciate the insight. 


The Wild World (nature)

On Location (urban, city, using surroundings to enhance image)

Still Life

Breaking the Mould (anything weird or wacky)

Portfolio (3 images)