As storytellers, we have a lot of options for telling the story. When telling a story the color of the image can really change the mood and experience of the photo. When you look at these three image, they are all the same settings except for the white balance has been changed. As you can see, the mood of an image can be impacted dramatically by the color and the light. When we come across a story we want to tell that story might be impacted by all sorts of decisions that we make as photographers. Understanding what is important in telling the story can really make a difference in how you edit the work. In the case of this foggy morning at Penn Cove, the cool blue pre-dawn light helped me get an establishing shot for how the rest of the morning’s story would be told. 

For the shoot I thought about the sun inching its way up to the horizon, and the pre-dawn light revealed sometimes mysterious objects that floated in and out of view through the fog. There was a light wind blowing.  It was one of the first heavy fogs of the new season–heavy and wet. It was cool but not cold and the smell of the Fall chill was in the air. I knew at the moment of capture that the image need to feel cool and sort of other worldly yet familiar.

For me the top image is what I imagined as my story. The other images move us closer to a properly white balanced image, but when looking at those my story is gone and lost is the inspiration of the moment. It is important to remember as we edit our work, we need to remember the story we are telling and respect the needs of the story and not the neutrality of the image.