When I created this 52-week challenge, I deliberately included the Hearts theme: Feelings and Emotions to encourage (force) myself to look for scenes and create images that illicit an emotional response. When this week's challenge came up as Loss, I immediately thought about an old, abandoned house that I drive past regularly and started to consider how to shoot it to embody the thoughts and emotions of loss. From a purely aesthetic point of view, I expected it to be best shot at sunrise as, at this time of the year, the sun rises almost directly behind the best location from which I could shoot the house (without trespassing) and I was hoping for colour in the sky and first rays of direct sunlight hitting the house and the gum tree in front of it. While I never got direct sunlight as clouds blocked out the sun just after sunrise, I did manage to capture some beautiful pink light just before sunrise.
Pentax K1 with Pentax 24-70mm f/2.8 lens: 63mm, ISO 100, 3 seconds @ f/16
Only minor highlights and shadows adjustments
I tried processing this in colour but the more I worked on it, the more I realised that the colour was a distraction. It added a joyful feeling to the image, the exact opposite of what I was trying to convey. So, I converted the image to black and white then spilt toned it with a subtle blue tone in the shadows and a creamy-yellow tone in the highlights, which gave me the feeling I was after.
Pentax K1 with Pentax 24-70mm f/2.8 lens: 63mm, ISO 100, 3 seconds @ f/16
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Here's the YouTube video of the shoot.
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