Final product

I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to get a decent photograph of this fountain at Ascott House, Berkshire. The main problems were the weather, which was overcast and the size of the lake (actually, a pond with pretensions of grandeur)  – I really needed a longer lens. Anyway, I went with what I’ve got and am really quite pleased with the result.

This is the original, which is sort of ok – the basic composition isn’t too bad, but the overall effect is a bit on the washed out side.

Step 1 is to reduce the clarity, giving a soft, ethereal look. Step 2 is to do something about that sky. I used Photoshop to select and remove the white sky and then created a new layer behind it using a photo of the sky that I’d taken on the same day.

Step 2. Adding a cloudy sky adds a sense of drama and draws the trees into the picture, but can we do anything else? On the basis that less is more, I cropped the picture from portrait to landscape.

Step 3. Cutting out the foreground removes any sense of how large the lake is and puts the fountain firmly centre stage. Ophelia should be floating past any minute now.