There’s no denying it, de-saturated photos are certainly trendy in travel magazines at the moment.
Think subdued, bleached colours with plenty of space for headlines and copy, some clever cropping and you’re pretty-well looking into the pages of any number of up-market travel magazines or in-flight publications. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good look sometimes but it’s a look that lies in the treatment of a photograph in post production – not the way it was captured. And I think it has limited application for promotional photography in the tourism sector. A quick drag of the saturation adjustment in Lightroom, some adjustment to the highlights and, Viola, you’ve got what you were chasing (even easier if you’ve purchased some of the pre-sets available through Abobe).
For your interest, all of these photographs (below) which I’ve adjusted were captured on an assignment for the South Africa Tourism Commission. I’ve added a link at the bottom of this post to show you what the photos looked like before they were given “the treatment.”
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