Travel Theme: Tilted

Sometimes I think it is nice to have a photo challenge to push you to take a photo that you have been thinking about but haven’t taken yet.  When I saw tilted was the theme this week at Where’s My backpack? I thought of this sunflower that I pass almost everyday but had yet to take a photograph of.  So, I grabbed my camera, walked out the door, and went and got this photo:

ISO 100 14mm 0ev f/5 1/50

The camera I chose to take this photo was my Canon Powershot ELPH.  I chose that over my Canon 50D because I think that my point and shoot gets really nice closeup shots.  Plus, it was hot, really hot, and my point and shoot weighs less.

As I was taking this photo I noticed that I hadn’t really paid attention to the background the other times I had walked past without my camera.  I was so busy looking at the beautiful flower I had just ignored all that was around it.  When I got to taking the picture though, I could see how distracting the background was potentially going to be.  Other than the distracting background, I felt that the other challenge in this photo was going to be light.  Too much light in this case.  I had set the ISO to 100, but still the original was a bit washed out looking in my opinion.

So, after taking this photo, I edited it in Photoshop.  I used the “levels” setting to make the color pop a bit.  I also sharpened and cropped the photo.

Here is the original from the camera version:

ISO 100 14mm 0ev f/5 1/50

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!

 

 

Black and white this week

It is interesting that both my digital photography and design class are dealing with black and white this week.  While I don’t do a whole lot with black and white photography, I do enjoy it.  Here is one of my images from this week:

ISO 1000 50mm 0ev f/3.2 1/160

Some of you that read the exif data I include might wonder why I used an ISO of 1000 and the answer is simple.  I forgot to change it when I was setting up for these photos.  I did use a bracketed exposure for this image and then used Photomatix to edit.

What was most interesting to me in making this image is that the color version showed the frost on the leaves, while in black and white you pretty much can’t tell it’s there.

Cheers!

Single Fall Leaf

This past week I was working on a color assignment for my digital photography class as well as a natural symmetry themed contest.  This photo fits in both of those categories:

ISO 100 50mm f/2.2 1/160

I tried a bracketed exposure for this shot of -1,0,1 for editing in Photomatix.  Once I had put the photos in Photomatix, I picked a version which I felt was pretty natural looking because part of what I was wanting viewers to see was the way the red was basically imitating the overall shape of the whole leaf.  When I was composing and editing the shot I was trying to blur the background as much as possible.  I liked the green color, but didn’t want any competing detail.

Any thoughts?  feel free to leave them in the comment section.

Cheers!

 

 

Photojournalism Looks Away

Yet again today I am going to be posting a picture and asking you your opinion.  I did a photojournalism series for my photography class and this is a photo that did not make the cut:

ISO 1250 f/5 1/25 50mm

For this assignment I was to follow an event from beginning to end.  I chose hockey evaluations for my youngest child.  I had 600 original images. Then 400. I saved 80, from those I chose 30.  This photo is one of the 30, but I needed to have less than 20 for this assignment.  The final project has 17 images.  I wanted to include an image that gave the viewer the experience of waiting for ice time to start.  This was one that I took in that series.  Do you think it conveys what I intended? how do you feel in general about photos where you cannot see the subject’s face?

Cheers!

Another Walk in the Garden

It is a busy time for bees that live near a pond that I walk by fairly frequently.  Last week I took photos with my iPhone, this time I had my point and shoot camera with me.  It was so bright out that I have done some post-editing with this photo:

ISO 100 f/8 1/320 4.3mm

I will tell you at this point that I had set the ISO to 100 and I underexposed the original image by a whole stop.  It is still a really bright picture.  So, I have applied a Sepia filter, but then toned that down to bring back just a hint of the original color.  Different than what I normally do.  What do you think of the outcome?

Cheers!

Just the Basics: With editing this time

I am talking about photo editing in this post, something that I know very little about.  I tried photoshop a few years back, and they ended up having to give me my money back (I insisted) when they were unable to get it to import my RAW files. So, now I am using GIMP which is free, click on the link to check it out if you like.  This fall I will be going back to school (a habit of mine) this time for photography.  Since photoshop is the industry standard, I know I will be having to use it eventually.

That, I guess was a paragraph of background that is somewhat relevant to what I am writing here today.  From my post yesterday I took the two photos and edited them in GIMP.  Here is the result:

This is the image using my 28-135 lens

This one is the 50mm lens image

Both images have had various color changes made to them.  I also did quite a bit of cropping.  I then picked a different “artistic” filter to put them through.  I am just sort of going through the various settings to see what is there.

Thoughts?

Cheers!

 

 

Landscape Photography with a point and shoot camera, a revision of sorts

Wow, that is a clunky post title!  I wrote this post that had a landscape picture taken in black and white with my new point and shoot camera.  I got some feedback on that post that got me to thinking and led to this post. I had taken the original shot in part because I had just read that one of the competitions in my photo club this year was going to be landscapes in black and white.  That’s cool, because I shoot almost everything in color, and it will give me something different to think about.

So, I took the landscape in B&W, and thought maybe I would edit it later.  I use GIMP to do my photo editing. I included the link because it is open source software that means you can use it at no cost.  I also use YouTube to find tutorials to help me use it more effectively.

So, I received some specific feedback in the first post about how to change the image. So, I thought, why wait till “later” to edit, when I had been given an interesting suggestion now. If you are interested, here is a link, to the blog of the person who suggested the edit.  The link is to a recent posting of his that I enjoyed.

Here is my edited landscape:

Here is the original:

I think I do like the edited version better.  Thoughts?

Cheers!

Levitation Photo comes crashing down

I saw this really cool blog post about a month ago. If you take a look at the post, you will see someone floating in mid-air.  The author of the post was nice enough to post directions on how he took and edited the photo, so I could give it a shot.

It didn’t go so well.  I’ll insert the photo below anyway, but there are a huge list of problems.  I’ll start with the fact that since I am not complely in the photo, I am not really “levitating” so much as I am “leaning”.  Also, the dishwasher door moved slightly between the two frames, so they didn’t line up in the composite photo.  I am having trouble with the editing as well.  So, here is the disaster:

Back to square one for me.  If you would like to see a levitation photo done correctly, click the link above.

Cheers!

I love/hate my photography club

I belong to a large camera club that is awesome, except for when it isn’t 🙂  Like when my photo gets a good review from the judge but then passed in the first round.  This was the fate of my entry last night:

A bit frustrating.  I like to go though, because there is always something new to be learned and I find that exciting.

Next week’s theme is architecture.  I am entering the photo below, but I know the competition will be tough.  I have seen some of the past winning images, and they are really something else.

ISO 200 f/7.1 1/450

This image was taken with my point and shoot in jpeg.  So, I didn’t have a heck of a lot to work with in post editing.  It is the Steam Clock in Vancouver.  Can you believe that my Canon 50D broke on a train ride across the Rockies to Vancouver?  I was too stunned to be heartbroken.

Anyway, about the post editing.  I use GIMP.  I really don’t have the whole dodge/burn thing down.  I have been trolling youtube for GIMP tutorials, but haven’t come across one yet on this particular topic that speaks to me.  If anyone else has a GIMP tutorial that they love, I would love the link.

Cheers!