52 Week Smartphone Challenge: Week 6

For this week’s challenge, which is #nofilter, I went with an image that I thought was more about the storytelling possibility than the technical perfection of the image. This is my choice:

ISO 25 f/2.2 4.15mm 1/100sec

I think there is a lot of tension between the living and the dead in this image. The photo challenge for this week stated that there were to be no added filters but allowed for basic edits. I opted out of editing at all, so this is an “as-shot” image. Your thoughts on the image are welcome below.

Added to Week 6 of the 52 Week Smartphone Challenge.

Cheers!

What I Am Working On: Old Files

From time to time I go through photographs that I shot several years ago to see if I would like to try a new interpretation of them. That’s how I came to be working on this file:

ISO 250 f/2.7 1/60sec 4.3mm

This photo was taken at St. Michael’s Church in Betws-y-Coed, Wales, in 2016. So, some things haven’t changed since then, like the fact that I enjoy visiting churches and graveyards. This photo was taken with my point and shoot that only has jpeg file capability.  That means there is a limit to how much detail I am going to get out of the sky. To work around that one of the filters that I used was “dark fog”. I paired it with a filter called “Old Timer” that I have in a collection of Halloween “looks”. I felt that a Halloween filter was appropriate with it being October and the photo being an old graveyard. My final edit was something much darker than the original:

ISO 250 f/2.7 1/60sec 4.3mm

Do you like the edit? That tree was really something else! and I feel like it adds a lot of character to the photo. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Added to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Circles, Curves, and Arches.

Wordless Wednesday: Cemetery of the Four Nations, Caen, France

ISO 2000 21mm f/16 1/20sec

Picfair version here.

Cheers!

Graveyard

ISO 400 18mm f/8 1/100

When I’m traipsing though the graveyard~

Just for fun.

Sometimes I find a sublime tombstone~

Like this one.

A beautiful marker, dominates its row~

Please comment below.

Cheers!

Added to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Black & White.

Added to Six Word Saturday.

Picfair version here.

Well that was Fun

There were a few things I had in mind when I sat down yesterday to work on an editing project in Luminar.  The first was that it was Halloween, so I had to pick an appropriate file to work on:

ISO 800 50mm f/16 1/100sec

The second was that it was Halloween (sounds a bit like the first thing) but that meant picking an appropriate filter:

ISO 800 50mm f/16 1/100sec

Luminar had released some free Halloween presets, so I used “Darklord” for this photo. But what I really wanted to work on was creating a watermark that I could use in Luminar. Up until now I have been exporting my files to this blog from Lightroom and applying the watermark at that point. Luminar is promising to release a library feature soon and I am hoping that will mean I can ditch Lightroom, but I do like to have a watermark. I e-mailed Luminar and they sent me a link to a page that contains directions for making a watermark; scroll down on that page, the directions are there I promise. The results are on the second photo, the first photo has my Lightroom watermark on it.

It was a fun little project that didn’t take too long to complete. I’m thinking it’s fine as a starting point, but I may go back and tweak it a bit. What do you think of it? I’m open to suggestions in the comments below. How do you like the Halloween look to the edit of the photo? How was your Halloween? Feel free to comment below.

Cheers!

Added to Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge, Just for Fun.

Fenced In

I enjoy walking through cemeteries, and this one had several graves with metal fences:

ISO 2000 13mm f/16 1/160sec

The biggest challenge of shooting on this particular day was the light. It was what sometimes is referred to as “harsh”. Where the sun was making it through the trees, it was strong and bright. But even on a day like this, there were areas that were dark. For this particular shot, I waited for a sunbeam and shot into the sun. Against the photography “rules”? sure, but it lit up the spiderweb and I thought that was an important element in this photo.  I created two versions from the original file, the color above and the black and white below.

ISO 2000 13mm f/16 1/160sec

When it came to editing, I made the color image smoother, highlighting the warm tones of the sunny image. The black and white I created a more stark version, contrasting the light in the image with its darker subject matter.

This is the original file, taken at Cimetière des Quatre-Nations in Caen, France:

ISO 2000 13mm f/16 1/160sec

You can see that the other choice I made here was to crop the image. Another version of this image went in my Instagram feed so it has a square crop.

 

View this post on Instagram

#graveyard shot Four Nations Cemetery #caen #travel

A post shared by Amy Maranto (@marantophotography) on Jul 26, 2018 at 10:14am PDT

I chose to put the black and white version in my Picfair portfolio. These various versions are different from one another, but do you have a favorite? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Added to Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Fences and Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge, Open.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Place in the World

I move a lot. On the order of every three to five years for my entire adult life. Something I’m frequently asked when moving comes up in conversation is, where is/was your favorite place to live? I’ll get this vague look on my face as I give a vague answer:

ISO 1250 13mm f/13 1/60sec

My favorite? the truth is, there isn’t one. I’ve liked something about them all and disliked something about them all.

My favorite is expressed in that photo above. It’s being in a place and coming across the unexpected, like this grave marker. In a graveyard of standard stones, it was both elaborate and unkempt. Here is the original file:

ISO 1250 13mm f/13 1/60sec

Even when I shot it, I suspected that it might have real potential as a black and white image.  I have cropped it using the straighten feature in Photoshop.  Then in Lightroom, I converted it to black and white with a green filter. I also sharpened it a bit.

What do you think of the black and white version? I like it, but honestly may go back and try a color version as well. In particular I’m intrigued by the various tones of green in the photo. I love visiting graveyards, do you as well or do you stay away? Your comments are welcome below.

Cheers!

When It All Adds Up

A while back I blogged about this photo:

ISO 800 50mm f/13 1/160

Based on what I could find online, a few things like his name and date of birth didn’t seem to add up when you looked at this grave marker.  So I went back to the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial. The staff member who helped me was a bit surprised that I wasn’t researching a relative,but was more than happy to give me a hand in my research.  It ended up being pretty simple.  The Carlisle H. Reville whose grave I photographed, was Carlisle H. Reville Jr.  My search had been further complicated by the fact that the 1930 Census record was handwritten, and the later data entry spelled his first name wrong.

It’s easy to see why a mistake was made.

So, on the data entry portion of this page, he is listed as “Caulislo”, easy to see why.

In the course of my research I found out that Reville Sr. had served in WWI.  I also found out that Reville Jr. had first been buried at another cemetery but was moved here when this cemetery was established.  What I can’t find is a decent lead on the family, other than they were living in Pennsylvania in the 1930’s and 1940’s.  If you happen to know this family, I am more than happy to have them contact me if they would like a digital copy of the photo I have taken of their relative’s grave.

Since I was back at the cemetery, you know that I took some more pictures.  Here is one from that day:

The edited black and white version

I’ve edited this in Lightroom and using a black and white plug-in.  I’ll post the original below, but one of the first things I did while it was still a color version was to bring out detail in the shadows and increase the saturation in the blues and the greens.  It looks horrible in that state, but once it is converted to black and white it looks good again. Here is the original file:

The original

The subject is well suited to black and white I think.  I’ve included it in my portfolio at Picfair. Somehow the color version just seems to vivid for the subject matter.  What do you think?  Feel free to comment on my new photo or on the follow up from my older post.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Time

I enjoy walking through graveyards, but that was not what I was doing this past week when I saw this grave marker:

ISO 800 120mm 0ev f/11 1/125

I was walking through a garden at the time, and this grave marker just happened to be in it.  I was happy to have my longer lens with me so as not to be tempted to trample in the garden even in its off season.  I bracketed this photo and later created the HDR version that you see above.  I also used several filters in Photoshop that, while I think still look realistic, dramatically changed the photo.  Here is the original:

ISO 800 120mm 0ev f/11 1/125

You will see that I cropped the photo as well, mostly to remove the plant label, but also to get rid of some of the sky which I felt wasn’t particularly helping this photo.  I had never been to this garden, but as I was walking though I thought that it was a place I would like to come back another time. I love visiting gardens as they go through their yearly cycle of blooming and dying.  I feel the same way about graveyards, which tend to be gardens in their own right.  It might seem dark and creepy to some but to me it is the opposite.

How about you, do you have a favorite place to visit in all the seasons?  What do you think of my edits?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Saturation

This week I am  working on creating a panorama for my Photoshop class.  It is a series of gravestones that includes this image:

ISO 250 50mm 0ev f/1.8 1/400

In the panorama there will be a panning to the left to reveal other gravestones.  But as I was looking at the image and thinking about this week’s photo challenge theme saturated, I was thinking about not only the amount of color but the actual color and the texture.

I also, just a few days ago, downloaded some free software from DXO and Sony.  It is DXO FilmPack 3 which is free to download until October 31, 2013.  I had installed it and have it  running as a plug-in in both Aperture and Photoshop. The software allows you to give your digital image the feel of film.  So, here is that same photo with a Kodak Elite Chrome 400 filter:

ISO 250 50mm 0ev f/1.8 1/400

Completely different isn’t it?  What do you think?  I like it, but I think for my panorama project I will stick with the green version.  I’m also thinking that I am going to be able to find a lot of uses for this software.  I will also say, that I think it is fairly easy to use.  I didn’t really dig into it, but I got it up and running really quickly which is something that I always appreciate.

I’ll also tell you that I found this software thanks to another blogger, Lignum Draco.  I have included a link to a recent post of his that I enjoyed.  He does mostly street photography, which is something I almost never do.  I enjoy looking at the work of photographers whose images are a lot different than mine.  You never know where you will find inspiration or free software, so I’d like to thank him for blogging and sharing his work.

Thoughts about my images? Do you also look to the work of others for inspiration? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!