focal length: 55 mm
shutter speed: 1/200
aperture: f/6.3
ISO: 200
flash: none

I saw this sad old padlock lying against a post on the dock and admired the rust and textures. Intrigued by the effects of oxidation, I snapped my first shot at this angle below, while I was passing by:

It wasn’t really working for me, so I repositioned myself, got down lower and took the shot found at the top of this post. There’s something about the open space behind the chain that is freeing in comparison to first shot that I took, which feels closed up and tight. I only wish that when I got down lower I had straightened my angle first. I had to crop and straighten in post and lost a bit of the lock on the bottom so now the focal point isn’t as obvious. You can see the SOOC below:

I brought up the contrast and clarity to enhance the textures and increased the reds and oranges to bring out the colours in the rust. Gives the photo some edge doesn’t it?

And here’s a quick tip for applying the same processing done to one photo to another. It’s super easy in Lightroom. I simply selected the photo (in the filmstrip at the bottom) I already worked on first, pressed command (or ctrl for PC) and clicked on the other photo (that was yet to be published) so that both are selected. I click on “Sync..” then all the settings I used for the first one were applied to the second one and the processing was identical. I use the “Sync…” function for shots that are all under similar lighting conditions for batch processing. It’s very cool to process 10 shots with one click.

Laura is a Vancouver portrait photographer. Visit Dolce Life Photography.