3.25. Tranquil landscapes

In the 1990s, there was a period of renewed interest in the minimalist style of Japanese design. Many fine art photographers were inspired by this spare Japanese approach, and began to create black-andwhite images of exceptional simplicity. The pictures often depict islands or fishing poles and tranquil water, the result of shooting very long exposures at twilight or at night, lending images a meditative quality. Take a look at the work of Michael Kenna and Rolfe Hornenot surprisingly, Japan is a favorite location for these photographers.

While the final result may be subdued, high-key images are especially suitable as a starting point. Pick an image with an expanse of gently moving water and distinct, static details. Flowing rivers and still lake scenes can work fine; estuaries and peaceful shorelines, too; but it will be tough to smooth out rolling waves. Think of the Japanese aesthetic when looking for detailsjetties, poles driven into the riverbed, isolated fishing boats. Twilight suits this style, but midday can work just as well when the weather is overcast.

This is a photograph of a floating gate, or Torri, on Miyajima Island in Japan. It was shot at midday in the middle of a humid summeras you can see by the heat haze in the distance.

Start by using Ctrl/Cmd + J to duplicate the image layer. Apply a little blur. Photoshop CS2 introduced a new filter called Surface Blur that blurs smoothly toned areas, but respects edges. It's ideal for removing the details of flowing water while leaving still objects untouched. Choose Filter > Blur > Surface Blur. Making this filter work is a matter of balancing the Radius and the Threshold of the blur. The lower the Threshold, the more the edges will be preserved. The settings here are much higher than you would use for smoothing skin details, but in this case the filter erases most of the water detail around the floating gate. While a long exposure blurs the water, it doesn't necessarily blur static objects in the background. To exclude such areas from blurring, add a layer mask to the blurred layer and use the Gradient tool to create a blacktowhite blend. Click and drag from the gate's base up, so that some blur still affects the backgroundafter all, it is misty. USING MOTION BLUR During a long, twilight exposure, any clouds present in your composition would have moved. Select the sky area and use the Motion Blur filter to replicate this effect. Once you've completed the time-exposure effects, convert the picture to black and white by adding a Channel Mixer adjustment layer. Check Monochrome and adjust the sliders. In this case, emphasizing the Blue channel produced a monochromatic image with less detail in the blue haze, and a higher contrast that emphasized the gate. Adjust the contrast with a Curves adjustment layer. Use a gentle, contrast increasing S curve, dragging a shadow tone down near the bottom left and pulling a highlight upward. In this image, the curve's top right end, the White Point, is slightly pulled down. You want the highlights to be almost, but not quite, white. You may not need to do this if your image is darker than the one in this example. Add a simple split tone by adding a Color Balance adjustment layer. If you want the off-white highlights to pick up a faint sepia tone, select Highlights and drag the Red slider to the right and the Yellow slider to the left. Photoshop CS2's Surface Blur filter is probably most useful for smoothing skin, but you can use it on some landscapes to emulate a long-exposure stillness.