"Looking In" - Seedlings

This winter I went out to the tobacco fields in my area to take some photos. Among my favorites was this one, which showed the fields covered in snow and ice.

I went back to the farm last week.

They are in the process of planting the tiny seedlings right now, and I thought it would be interesting to see how different things look when they are awake and alive.

This is the photo I took, straight out of the camera. I miss the trees in the distance, but because I wanted to see what was actually under the tent, I couldn't get too high.

Obviously, the light coming from my right makes the barn too dark, but I boosted the contrast to make up for it as best I could.

I also cropped out most of the dirt road in the foreground and ended up with this:

It's okay, but only just okay, in my opinion. I didn't anticipate that the difference in light outside the shade would make it so difficult to get nice shots of the green tobacco within. Obviously, since I work in the tobacco business myself, I wanted to make the tobacco look as nice as possible.

I took some closer shots of the tobacco itself, but that's not for this assignment. Today I am "looking in."

Again, in order to "look in" I needed to stand in the bright sunlight and take pictures into the shade. I am not sure if a better camera (DSLR) would be able to help with this problem, but since I don't have one of those, I tried to do the best with what I have.

I adjusted and cropped again, hoping to make the soil look rich and the plants look vibrant.

Better, but somehow the focus got too tight on the nets and the plants look somewhat mushy.

Trying again...

Straight out of the camera, above, and edited for color below.

Still disappointing, so I drove around until I found another field that I liked.

I took this from my car, using the open window as a tripod. The foreground is the other side of the road, so I cropped it out to make the story about the tobacco.

This is the final image, and I'm happiest with this shot. I like the lines and the colors are closer to what I actually saw in the field.

I plan to go back to this farm over the next several months to see the progression of the crop. Hopefully by the end I will have found a solution for my lighting issues. Stay tuned.