Weekly Photo Challenge: Change

Fall is officially here in this part of the world.  The leaves are starting to change here and the day is noticeably shorter. To me, the light during this time of year seems more intense, and I have been thinking about ways to grab that photographically.  This week, I found myself thinking about creating backlit images, here is a link to some photos I was looking at this morning.  Earlier this week, I was taking some photos at a local park, and the sun was causing some harsh shadows, so I decided to change up the way I was shooting and shoot into the sun instead of with my back to it.  Here is the result:

ISO 125 70mm 0ev f/8 1/1250

This photo has been edited.  It is actually an HDR image that I created using Photomatix.  Changing a photo using editing can be fun, but there is another way to change and image and that is just to move.  Here is what that scene looks like standing at street level:

ISO 125 70mm 0ev f/8 1/160

But this particular morning, I wasn’t looking to just take a picture in the park, I was daydreaming about light and wide open spaces, so the top photo was my result.  All it took was a few steps down the hill and a little editing and I was where I wanted to be.

How do you feel about changing an image to suit an idea rather than being an exact descriptor?  Personally, I like trying to combine both things, so this image is a bit of stretch for me.  Feel free to comment below about the changes I made in this case or to comment on how you feel about this type of change in your own work.

Cheers!

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: A Unusual POV

This weekend I had an idea of what I wanted to try for this week’s photo challenge, a unusual point of view.  It took some time to create this image, but here it is:

ISO 640 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/200

This is actually one dragonfly that kept landing on this plant.  The image that you see is three photos that have been blended into one. This is a technique that we covered in my Photoshop class last week.  The homework had been to create an image like this using images that were provided.  I did the assignment without any problem, but felt like I was just getting the end result because I was following the instructions, not because I really understood what I was doing.

With that in mind and seeing what the theme of the photo challenge was this week, I set out to create an image, using the technique and my own images.  I was hoping to create an awesome image and learn a lot.  So, how did it turn out?  well, I did learn a lot.  The image is not awesome, it’s OK, not bad for a first try.  I am going to keep writing this post and talk about how I made the image and what I learned, so if you’re curious keep reading.  If the details don’t particularly interest you, feel free to stop reading now.  I’d love to know what you think of the image though, so if you have a moment to let me know before you go, that would be great.

On with the details!  I’ll start with the photo shoot and move on to the editing.

What I did for the photo shoot:

The photos were taken using a tripod because I knew that other than the dragonfly, I was going to want everything to be the same.  I used a high shutter speed because I wanted to catch the action of the dragonfly with as much detail as possible.

What I learned:

Even though my settings were the same in the photos, the light changed in the time that it took me to get the images that I wanted.  I did not think about that at the time, so that was something that I had to change in Photoshop, so that the dragonfly would look the same in the composite.  Also, the dragonfly is a pretty small subject for this project.  For this effect working on a larger subject matter might have worked better.

What I did for the editing:

1. I started with my images in Bridge:
2. Bridge-Tools-Photoshop-Load Files into Photoshop Layers

The next steps are in Photoshop CS6:

1. Select all the Layers
2. Edit-Auto-Align Layers.  This will line up the non-moving objects in the photo.  In this case, it is pretty important that the plant stay still.
3. Then I turned off the eyeball on all but the base layer.
4. Turn on the eyeball on the next layer up that you will be working on.
5. Make a mask.
6. Paint the dragonfly on that layer in black.
7. Command-i to invert the layer and that made the dragonfly appear visible on the base layer.

That’s pretty much it.  Have you ever tried something like this? Did it work for you? Feel free to leave a comment below, and if you have written a post on the topic, feel free to leave a link.

Cheers!

Framing a Photo

Something that I was thinking about when I created this image was framing:

ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/2 1/250

I wanted the car to be the focus of the picture, but I wanted to present it in a different way because you have seen a lot of car pictures  I am sure.  Capturing the car in the mirror, was also a way to get a shot of the car and its surroundings.  The surroundings are industrial but beautiful in their own stark way.

What do you think, do you find this composition interesting?  What are some ways that you have photographed ordinary subjects in unique ways?  Leave a comment.  If you have a blog post with an example, feel free to leave a link to that as well.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Unique

Well, sometimes things just work out.  It happens that one of my assignments last week was to take a photo from a unique angle.  This weekend unique is the theme for the WordPress photo challenge.  So here is my unique photo:

ISO 2500 50mm 0ev f/2.8 1/500

The view of a hockey player getting ready to put on their mask in the locker room.  It took some fiddling with the camera settings to get what I was after here.  I had to handhold the image, so it did have to be a fast shutter speed.  I wanted to blur everything except the cage, so low f-stop. High ISO because the locker room has pretty horrible lighting.

I have a lot of different versions of this on different settings, but this one was the best.

Cheers!

For the Birds: Part 2

Like yesterday, here I am taking pictures of birds in the middle of the day:

ISO 640 f/7.1 1/200 50mm

I used a higher ISO, so I was able to avoid having to lighten the bird in Aperture.  The only editing I have done here is to crop the photo.  I’ll be honest, I’m not crazy about the angle here.  I am going to have to try putting the tripod somewhere else, see if I like the outcome better.

Cheers!