[Leica] IMG: What is reality, man?

[george.imagist at icloud.com (George Lottermoser)]

On Feb 21, 2014, at 12:53 AM, Peter Klein wrote:

> One shot posed a particular challenge.  In the piece "Up Close" by Michael 
> van der Aa, a cello soloist doesn't just play with a string chamber 
> orchestra and electronic sound.  She also interacts with a projected video 
> that runs during the piece.  This created a perfect storm of mixed color 
> temperatures.  Here's the first white balance, done for the tungsten stage 
> lights. The live woman is fine, the video is blue, blue blue.
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091+_2_.jpg.html>
> 
> Balance it for the video, and the live performer becomes the Lady in 
> Excess Red.
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091+_1_+.jpg.html>
> 
> So what to  do?  I tried black and white. Which was OK, but not quite what 
> I wanted. Not enough difference between live and Memorex.
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091bw+.jpg.html>
> 
> I spent a couple of hours making masks (not my best skill, and I use 
> Picture Window Pro, not Photoshop, so I don't have a magic lasso). 
> Eventually I did a combination of a polygon for the screen, merged with a 
> mask keyed to most shades of blue, plus another to reddish hues, cloned 
> one into the other, blended the two white balances through this mask, then 
> and manually adjusted the final result with the clone tool.  It ended up 
> mostly, reasonably technically correct, but the blue spill in the 
> foreground is impossible, and it's not what I perceived when I saw it.  
> During the performance, I didn't see the drastic color difference that the 
> camera "saw." But there was a difference, and this rendering almost 
> eliminates it.
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091-composite2ClonShpFinalCrop.jpg.html>
> 
> At which point I decided that realism was futile.  OK, let's get 
> interpretive.  I tried a partially desaturated version of the original 
> tungsten balance.
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091Desat.jpg.html>
> 
> But the picture I eventually chose to post was the one below. I used the 
> tungsten white balance, so the live performer appeared normal, and a bit 
> of selective color correction towards grey to reduce but not eliminate the 
> blueness in the video performer only. This added some mixed-toned B&W 
> surrealness to the video image.  It was not exactly what I saw, but it 
> evoked the same sensation as what I saw. Besides, my wife preferred this 
> one.  :-)
> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563 at N04/12664153803/>
> 
> Again, see the following four pics for the conclusion of the series. 
> Thanks for bearing with me.

Interesting and educational.

Beautiful photograph (in all of its possibilities)

It occurred to me that you could probably "stack" several of these
and arrive at a "perfectly balanced" rendition;
which may end up being the least visually interesting.

don't know 'til you try 

Regards,
George Lottermoser 
george at imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com
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