At the Water’s Edge

The images for this post were taken while I was out on my morning run. Run is a term I use loosely as I am not very fast and am known to stop if I see something that catches my eye. The image I stopped for at this point was one of the swans. I did take several photos of the swans, but standing there I felt the more interesting story was this man who had stopped to spend some time with them:

ISO 25 f/2.2 1/392sec 4.2mm

I took the photo and then moved on. Obviously, social distancing meant I wasn’t going to get too close to him but the real reason is that he seemed deep in his own moment and I didn’t want to disturb that.

This second image is a heron who was so still that I almost ran right up to him:

ISO 25 f/2.2 1/100sec 4.2mm

I couldn’t believe how close I got. I took several photos, slunk past him, then took several more including this one above.

Because I took these photos on the same morning run, just a few minutes apart, I decided to edit them in a similar way. Both have been cropped, and then had minor adjustments for clarity and exposure. The first image I also straightened a bit. I’ve then applied a custom Luminar Look that I had made as a preset. It fit as is perfectly on the first image, but required a bit of tweaking on the second one.

A version of the second photo I also posted to Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

The real reason I go on an early morning #run #heron #cambridge

A post shared by Amy Maranto (@marantophotography) on Jun 12, 2020 at 1:10am PDT

It’s fair to say that my run stats for this morning weren’t stellar. That happens sometimes. Your thoughts and comments on the images are welcome below. This post has been added to A Photo A Week Challenge, Water.

Cheers!

What I Am Working On: The Road Ahead

So, technically it’s not a road, it’s a path. Also, I’m not exactly on it:

ISO 25 f/2.2 1/50sec 4.2mm

But I do love this spot. A green space in the middle of the city with such gorgeous trees, what’s not to love? I’ve been walking through this park a lot in the last week, it helps me clear my head a bit. There’s a lot going on in the world and in my life. Being near this path reminds me that it is actually about the journey, it’s not important that I don’t have all the details worked out yet. The photo though, I like it, so I edited it a bit:

ISO 25 f/2.2 1/50sec 4.2mm

First was the crop, it helps to bring the path and the trees a bit more into focus. I’ve added a custom vintage film look that I created within Luminar. To me, that settles the image a bit more into the way this setting lives in my mind. It’s a bit more rich and deep in my mind than in real life. That’s me bringing my journey on the path along and placing it in the photo.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome below. This post was written in response to the Len-Artists Photo Challenge, Long and Winding Road.

Cheers!

 

Made with Luminar: Starting Point

I think it is very helpful to think of photo editing presets as a starting point. This image is a case in point:

ISO 25 f/2.2 1/962sec 4.2mm

After a few basic edits for the original file, I applied the Luminar Look, Intersection. I liked it but it wasn’t interpreting the scene the way I had intended. I thought it was a good starting point though. By changing some of the settings within the preset I arrived here, a photo that is fairly dark with streaks of light. That was my vision for this image. I’m using the little bit of light to represent hope in what is a pretty dark time. This photo was shot on a Saturday night at a time where it is usually loud and bustling. The virus has changed the vibe a lot.

Your thoughts are welcome below and this post has been added to A Photo a Week Challenge, Light and Dark.

The Made with Luminar Series

This image is part of a project I am calling Made with Luminar. What the images in this series have in common is the software used to edit them, Luminar 3. As with my usual blog posts particulars of the camera settings can be found in the caption below the image. I’ll then explain what other filters and edits have been applied, often mentioning what layer and therefore order that they were applied. The text of these posts includes any Luminar “Looks” that have been applied to the photo. Each look is a series of presets that are applied to the photo. Where applicable I will mention what changes I have made to any of the looks. A full explanation of looks is available here on their website, https://skylum.com/luminar/user-guides/chapter-14-working-with-luminar-looks

You can assume basic edits have been applied. My most common edits are cropping, detail enhancement, and vignette. Specific questions or thoughts on the image are welcome in the comment section below.

Cheers!

52 Week Smartphone Challenge: Week 10

Technically, I’m a few days late with this week’s challenge, which has the theme of Hometown. It is a funny kind of theme for me because my entire adult life has been spent in a borrowed, ever-rotating, hometown. Right now it’s Cambridge, UK but that will be changing soon. It was my hometown for this past week though, so I shot this photo:

ISO 25 f/2.2 1/183 sec 4.2mm

Shot while out on a walk along the River Cam, on a windy but not rainy day. This photo was edited with Luminar 3. I’ve added my own custom vintage look to it and from there tweaked the shadows a bit more.

Your comments are welcome below.

Cheers!

Cambridge Morning

While autumn can often be rainy and overcast here in England, it can also be brilliant like it was recently on a morning while I was walking in Cambridge:

ISO 200 4.3mm f/2.7 1/320sec

That original file was taken with my point and shoot. My first edit is below:

ISO 200 4.3mm f/2.7 1/320sec

The image has been cropped a bit and I’ve used a foliage enhancer slider to give the colors a bit of a boost.  I liked but didn’t love the result. One of the problems is that part of the sky has been blown out completely. There is no information there, so “fixing” it becomes a bit tricky. The two options that came to mind were sky replacement or a more radical crop.  I went with the latter:

ISO 200 4.3mm f/2.7 1/320sec

I went that direction for compositional reasons. The photo is now much more about the boats, which looked beautiful in the morning light. I also really liked the various reflections in the water and this crop accentuates them. From there I boosted the various golden tones in the image, giving it a bit of a jeweled looked.

While it took a few edits and some time and thought to get to the final edit, I was happy with the edit. What do you think of the final version? Do you like the final composition or do you prefer the original? The crop really does change the image quite a bit. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Picfair version here.

Added to Tuesday Photo Challenge, Reflection, Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Places People Visit and Lens Artists Photo Challenge, Changeable.

 

Wordless Wednesday: St Mary the Virgin, Fen Ditton

ISO 160 4.3mm f/8.0 1/200sec

St. Mary the Virgin in Fen Ditton.

A part of Wordless Wednesday and One Word Sunday, Blue.

Look it Up

Photos like this one can be fun:

ISO 200 4.3mm f/2.7 1/1000

This photo was shot here on what is sometimes referred to as the Backs of Cambridge. It’s called that because the river flows behind several of the colleges that make up the University. If I was to cross the road here and look off the other side, I would have a view of the Mathematical Bridge.

At this particular moment though I was on a walk that went through Cambridge. With me was a history enthusiast, he had done research on the area we would walk through and then looked up these photos online. I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the older photos with the modern scene as a backdrop.  I had done something similar for Instagram when we were at Omaha Beach:

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#omahabeach yesterday and today #dday #wwii #lestweforget

A post shared by Amy Maranto (@marantophotography) on Jun 5, 2018 at 10:22pm PDT

 

What these two photos have in common is that they were taken with smaller cameras. The one in Cambridge was taken with my point and shoot. In my opinion, my smaller camera is fine as it has sufficient technology on board to take the photo I want. In this case, I set the focus on the older photos and let the background fall slightly out of focus. I thought this would make for a more interesting storytelling image.  The only edit I did post-process was a slight crop.

Do you ever take images like this one? Do they appeal to you at all as a way of telling a history?  Do you like my take on the history of the Backs? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Added to Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Look Up and A Photo A Week, From the Back.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Glow

In photography, there is often a lot said about the golden hour, including the fact that there are two of them. Like a lot of the rules of photography, you get some great results by paying attention, it is a fabulous time for natural light to infuse your photography.

Very nice, but my life often doesn’t work that way.  I have to make do with the light I have at the time. As a result, I’m almost always thinking about lighting and working with what I have to make a nice photograph.  Here is a nice bit of light I found and exploited:

ISO 1600 19mm f/22 1/250

To me, this photo is all about the soft glow of red and orange tones.  Here is the scene as I originally saw and shot it:

ISO 1600 19mm f/22 1/250

When I was taking this photo, I wanted to get as much of the scene as possible, so that included sky and surrounding trees, even though I thought I might be cropping later. When I went to edit the photo, I added an orange tinted filter and also boosted the orange and red tones in the photo, their saturation and luminance.

As far as cropping went, I used another rule of photography, and that is the rule of thirds.  Here is a screen shot with the rule of thirds grid applied to the photo as I was cropping:

Screen shot of the cropping process.

What I was thinking was that the docked boats were the point of interest and most prominent part of the orange tones. It was the way the light was illuminating the interior of the boats that made me take a photo in the first place. I have placed them at one of the grid intersections. This size crop also allows for the curve of the bridge and the people on it to be standing in a spot where your eye is likely to rest.  These are things that strengthen the composition of this image.

What do you think, do you like my interpretation of the light and the crop of this image? Your comments are welcome below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Atop

If I’m headed into Cambridge from the park and ride, I always head to the front seat at the top of the bus.  This week, I was joined by a fellow passenger who stood for the whole ride in making “vroom-vroom” noises.  I just settled for making a photo:

ISO 64 4.15mm f/2.2 1/1000 sec

I shot this panorama on my iPhone and from Lightroom edited it using the Google Efex Pro plug in. Once I created a version that I liked I brought it back into Lightroom.  I then made some further edits. In this case, I warmed it up a bit, brought a bit of clarity to it and added a vignette.  I like the plug in as a starting point for editing.  One thing that I do when I am adding filters is to wait, even if it is just for a moment, before deciding I am done.  In my opinion, it is rare that a preset filter has exactly what you had in mind.  I give it a bit of time, look at the photo again and then usually edit again.  Filters can be a good place to start, but rarely are they your final vision.

I was in a bit of an experimental mood when I was writing this post, so I am adding in what should be a link to a slightly larger version of the photo in Flickr.

Directions on how to do that are here.

I’ve also added it to my Instagram feed, using the work around I came up with last week.  In this particular case, I am also experimenting with adding the panorama format and not the traditional Instagram square format.

View this post on Instagram

A #panorama from the top of the bus #bestseat #cambridge

A post shared by Amy Maranto (@marantophotography) on Mar 20, 2017 at 12:01am PDT

 

If you are on either of those platforms, you can stop by and let me know what you think.  Do you use the panorama function on your cell phone? When you are editing do you wait and come back later to your edits? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!