Category: Photography

A Tale of Change

Pano 1 One thing about taking a photo, it becomes a creative process afterwards using software. When I first began digital photography, it seemed like cheating to post-process an image. However, I soon saw – learned – discovered – whatever – that it really was a way to enhance a mood, convey a feeling, evoke a sense of place.

The picture above is a pano, pieced together using two or three images. This is pretty much how they came out of the camera. Not a lot of dynamic “pop” here – and really, not as colorful as I recall the morning I took these images. Moving on, some changes.  I wanted the clouds and sky to be more visible, and yet an overall softness of color be retained.  Already, a different mood. Pano 1_tonemapped   Below, black and white, probably derived from the picture above.  I like to look at anything I take in color in black and white.  This helps me look for gradation and contrast.  At times, I will set my camera to do all jpgs in black and white, and the raw files in color.  (Cannot do anything further than that, anyway!)  When I chimp, then I see the monochrome.  At times, it’s fun to play a game with myself to guess if the picture will be successful before I take it.  This means analyzing contrast and texture before shooting.  More failures than successes at this time, but it is good training for the eye.  The same can be done to consider what a histogram might look like, too. Pano 1_tonemapped-2 Finally, a bit of HDR and specialized filters in use.  I pushed the image a bit in Photomatix Pro and then moved it into Color Efex Pro 2, and used the detail extractor and ND filter overlays. Toward Mount BoneyThere you have it – a tale of changes.  Each has a different visual quality and emotional or intellectual quality.  Some are more a bit more dreamy, others sharper on the eye and evocative of a season or time.

The Glass Aerie – My Romps in Photoland

Through the Weeds

For the past year and a half, I have had another blog, minimalist in nature, with just a picture now and again that I post for whatever reason. I haven’t mentioned it here, but now, I have decided to do so. You can find a link to it on the above “pages” bar. Take a look, let me know what you think. Photography is now a part of my creative life, so I think it should be posted here – along with whatever else I decide to do.

No Color Here

 

Morning Flower, Color

Putzing around with a lot of my images, taken over the years, and all in color, I am looking for ones that I think might look work in black and white. I am looking, analyzing texture and lighting, and then making a conversion to black and white. Mostly I fail.

What I am trying to do is to train my eyes to be able to visualize a picture in black and white before I take it. Given our world is filled with color, I find this especially hard to do. Awhile ago someone told me that people who are color blind in one area or another make great black and white photographers because they do not have the ability to see all the normal range. While I don’t know if this is true or not, I do know that “seeing” in black and white is very difficult for me!

When I first looked at this color picture, it immediately stood out. The original exposure was very dark – underexposed to the point that only the bright white light of the flower stood out. I increased its exposure in LR and saw that it had potential because of the contrast in light and dark. Leaf textures and fine hairs on stems and buds also caught my eye.

Morning Flower

 

I popped it into Silver Efex, and scanned through it. Finally I chose the preset I liked best, and went to work a bit. I increase fine texture, used control points, and then returned to LR for final vignetting and detail enhancement. Last steps were in CS6 for some spot removal and a signature. The end result is not too bad, in my opinion.

Spring Growth

Spring Growth-Edit

I did a little post-processing of one of the few images I liked from my “checking for a light leak” roll of film. I pushed the colors, and upped the detail a little, as well as the contrast. Below is a detail of the same image.

Spring Growth Detail

I am rather intrigued by film and how it processes from analog to digital. I now have a roll of Kodak TMax 400 in the Nikon FM2N (same camera that had this image in it), and took it out for a walk under the nearby oaks. Black and white in the woods. I will have the TMax processed and scanned at a professional lab.