Off the Grid Rick

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I was sitting and talking with Rick when I saw a photo and snapped it on my phone. The lighting was terrible, and he was in a shadow, but I thought it would tell the whole story. He built the small shelter in the background five years ago. There is no electricity, and I'm unsure if he has running water. I would guess he doesn't since he bathes in the Suwannee River down the road. He is exactly where he wants to be—living in the forest.

[DanK]

There's an electrical cord running just in front of this left foot. Is he using someone's power, or does he have a generator?

The background is exceedingly busy, but I guess that's part of the environmental portrait. Perhaps dodge and burn--lighten Rick and darken the surroundings.

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There's an electrical cord running just in front of this left foot. Is he using someone's power, or does he have a generator?

The background is exceedingly busy, but I guess that's part of the environmental portrait. Perhaps dodge and burn--lighten Rick and darken the surroundings.

If he has a generator, it probably doesn't work. A neighbor down the road set him up with a small refrigerator in a shed on his property. Maybe I will write a blog story with photos of the community and its inhabitants. I can tell the story of a local I know.
I saw him walking down the dirt road carrying a rifle. He told me he was out hunting for a squirrel so he could make dinner. He talked about different ways to cook them. All I could think was that this was a conversation I would never have in NYC.

I will review your suggestions for improving the image. Unfortunately, Photoshop is becoming harder to use because of my vision, and I keep forgetting how to do things. Thank you for commenting.

[DanK]

Daniel,

If you also use Lightroom, there is an easy way to do some of this, although not the fine points, that might be easier with respect to your vision.

Open the image in Lightroom (or ACR). Select masking, and tell it to select the subject. I tried it with this image, and it worked well. Then boost exposure a bit. Second, tell it you want to add another mask, and again tell it to select the subject. Click on the three dots and tell it to invert the mask. That will give you a selection of the background. drop exposire and/or highlights. The selection is often good enough (it was with this image) that you don't have to look closely at the edges of the selection.

I hope this helps.

Dan

[Manfred M]

This is a challenging subject. The scene is very busy, with a lot of distractions.

Tough to fix in post. I generally try to frame the shot to minimize distractions.

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This is a challenging subject. The scene is very busy, with a lot of distractions.

Tough to fix in post. I generally try to frame the shot to minimize distractions.

You are right about the busy background, Manfred. Sometimes, we rationalize defects, especially in our own photos.

[DanK]

Impossible to fix totally, but possible to ameliorate.

using Adobe Camera Raw, I used the automatic select subject option to lighten the subject and darken the background. then I cropped. I think changes of this sort help, even though they are just global adjustments requiring only a few mouse clicks. I would probably experiment with blurring the background too.

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Impossible to fix totally, but possible to ameliorate.

using Adobe Camera Raw, I used the automatic select subject option to lighten the subject and darken the background. then I cropped. I think changes of this sort help, even though they are just global adjustments requiring only a few mouse clicks. I would probably experiment with blurring the background too.

[/IMG]

Wow! That's a nice improvement. Thank you for pointing out what could be done and how to do it. Right now, I'm engulfed by a website project I started, so I might not be able to return to this image for a while. But when I do, I will post the results. Thank you, Dan.