A Winter Walk

Original Image

This photo was taken at the River Walk in Westbrook along the Presumpscot River on December 12^th, 2021 at 5:00 pm. After a week of stressful finals, my siblings and my cousins decided to go on a walk to unwind and get into the upcoming holiday season with my family, despite the cold temperatures.            

I edited this image by first using the Photos application on my iPhone 11. I decreased the brilliance to -25, the shadows to -17, and the brightness to -41. I also increased the vibrance to 24 and the warmth to 30. Increasing the exposure to 24, helped to enhance the contrast between the lights on the trees and the natural lighting. Lastly, I added the filter “Vivid”, which created a subtle difference between the adjusted image by making the lights look brighter. Together, these edits helped to increase the brightness of the lights on the tree and made it look darker than it actually was.

Image with Adjustments

I also used Instagram to help add Gifs and stickers onto the edited image. I added the date and a location tag from the Instagram application. Additionally, I added “Merry Christmas” and “Present” Gifs, which were provided through GIPHY.

Reflection

I chose to edit the initial image using the photos application to help darken the background because the lights from the trees were making the surrounding areas brighter. Doing this helped make the shapes of the lights more visible and darkened the tree branches that the lights were hanging on. I chose to add Gifs and stickers to the image from the Instagram application to help make the image look more visually appealing. Overall, increasing the contrast between the lights and the darkness by editing the initial images and adding the Gifs and stickers helped to add additional colors back to the image.

Filter Added

The location tag also helped make the image interactive on Instagram by allowing those who clicked on it to see images from other accounts that have also been to the River Walk. This could also help influence my followers, which are mainly other family members and UNE students, into visiting the River Walk and the surrounding local restaurants. The intended audience of this image would be my Instagram followers who could view my Instagram story once it is uploaded.

One of the key issues I had while editing the image was trying to maintain the sharpness of the image. When I took the image on my phone, I tried to get it in focus the best I could, but due to the lights, it was difficult. This caused the image to become blurry with the additional edits, such as the addition of the Gifs, however it did not seem to hinder the overall message of the post.

Final still image Link to final moving image

If I were to do another project involving images, this approach would probably be the easiest. Using the photos application after taking the image was simple and allowed me to easily compare the original image to the edited image. Once this step was complete, the image was already saved to my phone, which made it easy to transfer into other applications, such as Instagram to make further edits.