New Grounds for Divorce

New Grounds for Divorce

In 2013 I photographed a very special photo series with Carla Monaco in Leeds. It was with a racing version of a Porsche 964 and while the car crashed and got completely destroyed a couple of years ago in Australia, my images still live on. On a week-end full of rain, I decided to re-color and re-retouch the series, just because I felt like doing so.

 

My retouch from 2013 looked good on my computer back then, but as the web changed to display a more desaturated sRGB profile, the colors really looked off. Usually, I would just take the series off my website. It was originally photographed for my coffee table book Frisky and then also featured in the magazine Playboy Cars. But somehow, it's one of my personal favorite car series of mine.

So, I decided to go through the whole process of selecting, color grading and retouching the photos from scratch. It was interesting to see, how my own perception and skills have changed over the past seven years. I would say, you see quite a difference in the images.

2014 Version
2020 Version
2014 Version
2020 Version

I have to admit that in 2013 I didn't know anything about frequency separation as a skin retouching technique. Meanwhile, I also have a stronger vision of how I want things to look.

And even though the photos were taken on a very dark and cloudy day (English summer), I decided not to show this in the skin colors any longer. My photos are about dreams and are to please the audience, not to document a certain moment.

2014 Version
2020 Version
2014 Version
2020 Version

You can enjoy the full series in my portfolio here.

Funny side story: A German car magazine didn't want to print the series, because the steering wheel was on the right side (as it was a Porsche for English traffic). And they told me the title Grounds for Divorce is wrong English. Typical German behavior. Funny isn't it?

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