Photo: Blue Marbles 2: Darkness

[1]

The dark marbles, with traces of black and purple. This has colder lighting. The stacked marbles contribute to an interesting composition, as does the stray line in the background. I picked marbles that were cracked and weathered, to oppose the smooth perfection of the first photo [2]. This is a sub-par entry in the series because the purples are ugly and without detail, but it’s been in the series for two years so it’s worthy of staying. This new edit is an improvement over the two-year old original [3].

Fujifilm FinePix A360 [4], 1/8, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2006-03-21T06:46:32-05, 2006-03-21_06h46m32

Source image [3]. I set tungsten white balance on this, over-exposing the blues horribly. I had no concept of color back in early 2006, and because this is from a low-end JPEG only camera, the detail is unrecoverable. In the new version above, I darkened the marbles, desaturated the clipped blue hues and cloned in the color of the dark marbles, giving purple, and added contrast. It’s a big step up from the original.

More of the Blue Marbles series [5].

Free high-res stock image [6].