Follow The Yellow Brick Road

Day 291: "Select a function or mode on your camera that you've never (or rarely) used and take a picture to demonstrate its purpose and/or usefulness." That was a bit of a challenge! I use most of the functions on my camera on a regular basis, so I parked my butt on a bench alongside the Chehalis-Western Trail and reviewed the various possibilities. When I came to "Color Swap," I said, "Hmmm..." and an idea was born. However, the trail offered very little in the line of colors I could exchange without using the red or blue of the bike. I had dark green fir trees and Scotch broom, and tan dry grass. Oh, and yellow Hawkweed, the plant so many people think is a species of dandelion. Yellow...maybe I could turn the asphalt yellow.

I selected a large area of asphalt to get an average of the shades of grey, and then zoomed in on a Hawkweed blossom for the exchange. The viewfinder flashed the projected swap alternately with the true-to-life scene which didn't really give me much opportunity to review how it would affect the peripheral colors. I snapped a preliminary shot and then zoomed in on the resultant image. It looked like it might just work! In post, I eliminated a slight color cast on the top of my bike bag and on the tire tread. I left the yellow on the chrome because it would be reflected from the "Yellow Brick Road."

Now you might wonder what use this could possibly be to anyone. Well, for one thing, it was fun, but a more practical application might be if a realtor wanted to show a client a house painted in a different color, swapping a sedate blue for a dingy tan, for example. I doubt I'll ever use it for anything so purely functional, though.

So why was I out on the bike today instead of in the kayak? I figured my arms were getting stronger at the expense of my legs, and today, it cooled down just enough to make a 30-mile bike ride a pleasant prospect. Unfortunately, the mower had trimmed all the wildflowers I'd hoped to photograph, leaving me very much tempted to do a color swap to turn magenta Fireweed into a rare blue-flowered variety.