Weekly Photo Challenge: Symbol

A few weeks ago I was rock climbing in Utah.  Close to the area were these petroglyphs:

ISO 2000 70mm 0ev f/8 1/125

These symbols are examples of Fremont Rock Art and date from 450-1300 A.D.  Also close by were examples of Archaic Rock Art dating from 6,000-1000 B.C. and modern graffiti.  Personally, I find the modern graffiti on these rocks annoying, but looking at the Fremont period work, I was wondering if there would have been people in that time who found it annoying that their contemporaries were putting “graffiti” where the older Archaic art was.

This photo was taken outside Arches National Park on Utah Highway 27 near the climbing area called Wall Street.  I was using my 70-200mm lens, but as this example of the petroglyphs were not that far up the rock, the zoom wasn’t really necessary.  I edited this image in Photoshop using curves to make the colors in the rock pop a bit and make the art stand out.

Bonus points to you if you find the critter in the photo.  I also have posted this photo on Flickr.  What do you think of this type of art? do you also like graffiti?  Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Cheers!

Seeing Red in RAW

Just yesterday I published a post where this climbing bag was the finished result:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/3.2 1/60

While I was working yesterday, I saw in my textbook that there was a way to desaturate an image selectively using Camera Raw.  It was a technique I had never tried before, so I thought I would give it a shot.

Here is my finished result:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/3.2 1/60

I found this pretty interesting, and there would be a lot of fun ways to edit using this technique.  It was very straightforward as well.  I opened the image in Camera Raw from Bridge.  From the original dialogue box I clicked open the HSL/Grayscale tab and made my adjustments.  Here is a screenshot of the settings that I used:

Here are the settings I used

I started with desaturating all the colors but red and then decided to boost the reds just for fun.

So what do you think of my red version?  What kind of photo do you think might work with this technique?  I am thinking a landscape or floral photo.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Object

The Weekly Photo Challenge prompt, started with the idea of telling a story using an object.  Mine tells the story of a very busy weekend:

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This is a chalk bag that was a gift to my youngest rock climber who had a birthday recently.  This past weekend a party was held in her honor at the rock climbing gym where we climb.

I will show the original photo at the bottom, but I was interested in taking a pretty standard photo and editing it in Camera Raw, which is something that I am reading about in conjunction with the Photoshop class I am taking.  The textbook for my class is Adobe Photoshop CC for Photographers by Martin Evening which I am finding to be a really good resource.

So, I opened the original photo in Camera Raw and in the Basic settings made the following changes:

1. Increased the temperature
2. Increased the exposure
3. Increased the contrast
4. Decreased the highlights
5. Increased the shadows
6. Decreased the whites
7. Decreased the blacks
8. Increased the clarity
9. Increased the vibrance

I made all these changes using the various sliders and just adjusting until I created an image that I liked.

To make the border, I opened the image in Photoshop.  I cropped the image and then made a rectangular selection to the interior of the crop that would eventually make my new border. Then I made a mask on that layer.  Then I went to Select-Refine Mask- and I increased the radius slider.  That creates the ragged border.  From there I made a layer underneath and filled it with the brown color.

Here is the original, so you can see what I started with:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/3.2 1/60

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.  Do you use Camera Raw? I am finding it to be a pretty powerful editing tool, helpful before I even get started in Photoshop.

Cheers!

 

At the Rock Wall

For the past few weeks I have been working on a series of photos for my digital photography class.  The assignment was pretty wide open, but one option was a photojournalism series of nine photos.  I decided to do a series about rock wall climbing.  Basically the nine photos show the process of going on a climb.  Here are two from the series:

ISO 2000 50mm 0ev f/3.5 1/125

ISO 2000 50mm 0 ev f/3.5 1/125

Lighting was a huge challenge for this series.  I used my 50mm lens because I knew I would need a low f-stop.  I am also using a pretty high ISO.  These images are HDR images, processed using Photomatix.  After that, I put them in Photoshop and put a gradient mask on them.  I did that because I found the color in the originals was pretty distracting.  I also did noise reduction and sharpening in Photoshop.

For the assignment the prints are about 15×10.  I am turning in the assignment today, so wish me luck.

Cheers!

 

 

Made it to the top! iPhone documentation available

If you follow this blog at all, and thank you if you do, you know that I wrote this post about my biggest, scariest, New Year’s Resolution.  I have a fear of heights that I would classify as both mild and irrational.  I also go to a climbing gym.  I know that sounds nuts, but you see, everyone else in my family is really into climbing.

As I said in my New Year’s post.  This is what I am trying to climb:

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This is the point where any climber would roll their eyes a bit because it doesn’t get any easier than a V0- on the Hueco scale.

Well, I’m happy to say that yesterday, I MADE IT! and I have iPhone documentation:

ISO 100 4mm f/2.8 1/15

I also tweeted about it.  As of the New Year, I am on Twitter @marantophoto  I have to say though that I “get” climbing more than I “get” Twitter, but what are you going to do?

So, I made it to the top.  I needed some help though.  The same person that took the photo was also at the top of the boulder when I was climbing, because I need some help when the panic sort of set in at the top.  That is such a crazy feeling, the panic I mean.  One minute I’m fine, the next, not so much.

As I mentioned in my original post, here is the gym shirt that I promised I would buy myself if I made it to the top:

ISO 250 11mm 0ev f/5 1/60

So one resolution off this year’s list.  A few more mundane ones to go!

Cheers!