Weekly Photo Challenge: Eye Spy

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Sometimes a visit to the zoo is like a game of  I Spy, as in good luck finding anyone out and about.  Not so a few days ago on a cool autumn morning, a lot of animals were out enjoying a bit of the morning sunshine, including this cheetah:

ISO 800 f/5.6 1/250 0ev 200mm

ISO 800 f/5.6 1/250 0ev 200mm

Usually when I am taking animal photos I try to get a shot with their eyes in focus.  In this case, there was something I liked about the photos with its eyes closed.  A bit relaxed and aloof at the same time.  While I was shooting that morning I had set my ISO to 800 because I felt like with the sun going in and out, 800 would cover the changing conditions.  I had my shutter speed at 250 because a lot of the animals were moving around, and that speed was enough to capture that motion.  In this particular photo, that wasn’t really necessary.  I have not done much post processing with this photo, the original is below, and you can see the biggest change is the cropping:

ISO 800 f/5.6 1/250 0ev 200mm

ISO 800 f/5.6 1/250 0ev 200mm

In this case I was mindful of the rule of thirds, and placed the cheetah’s closed eyes along one of those rule of thirds grid lines.  I think keeping it simple in this case made for a good photo, but what do you think?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Ornate

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Some of the most interesting and ornate patterns can be found in nature.  Every year, we have an interesting combination of man made structure and natural elements that comes together in our driveway.  As the leaves pile up on damp days, they leave an impression on the driveway.  It only lasts a few days, but I love the patterns the leaves impress upon the asphalt:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

This was the image that I created from this year’s offering.  I started here:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

This is one of the original photos.  I shot a bracketed exposure and this was the darkest version.  I used Photomatix to create my HDR version.  The original HDR version looked like this:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

The final version, which is the first photo in this post has been cropped in Photoshop and then had a warming photo filter applied to it. I also sharpened the photo to bring out the texture of the driveway. In a few days it will rain and these impressions will be gone.

What do you think of these fleeting natural impressions? Do you have a version that you prefer over the others?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Careful

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When it comes to photo editing, sometimes you have to be careful. While I do mean that you have to take care with your work, I also am talking about your time. Once you have started working on an image, when is it finished?  That is something that I find myself thinking about a lot.  I spent sometime outside this week taking advantage of the beautiful weather, and looking for nice outdoor images.  When I came across this scene I thought it would look nice with some editing:

ISO 800 70mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1000

ISO 800 70mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1000

When I got to the editing process even though the first thing that struck me was that the image would need straightened, that was actually close to my last step.

I had bracketed this image because of the shadows, with the thought that I would make an HDR version in Photomatix.  In this case I made a color and black and white image.  Then in Photoshop I combined the two images using the the color version as the base layer and masking in the black and white where I wanted it. Then I cropped the image and sharpened it:

ISO 800 70mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1000

ISO 800 70mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1000

Combining color and black and white is not something I do a whole lot of but I have fun with occasionally.  A few days later, I was doing some research on a graphic design project and I came across this article on using the apply image function in Photoshop.  While it didn’t help what I was working on at that moment, it did make me think again about trying that as a basis for editing the scene I had been working on earlier in the week.  So I gave it a try:

ISO 800 70mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1000

ISO 800 70mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1000

As the tutorial I linked to suggests, the apply image feature actually has a lot to offer once you start exploring the dialogue box that opens up.  This version above ended up being the my favorite of the edited versions, so far that is…

What do you think, is there a version that you prefer? Do you find yourself getting lost in the process of photo editing? It can be both fabulous and maddening, don’t you think?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy Place

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There is no doubt about it, I love to be outside. I don’t always take my camera with me because I find that having my camera changes everything. I tend to be more analytical with my camera in hand. Sometimes, I find myself looking for photos instead of just enjoying the moment. Then there are the days when I plan to take my camera. A few weeks ago it was sunny and warm after a few days of cooler weather.  I went looking for bees, they didn’t disappoint:

ISO 125 200mm 0ev f/8 1/400

ISO 125 200mm 0ev f/8 1/400

Now there are some who would point out that the light is too harsh in this photo, that I went at the wrong time of day and the light is all wrong. Technically, they are right. My argument against that line of thinking goes something like this, to me this harsh light creates huge contrast between the light and dark parts of the image and that says Fall to me. Fall is what I was trying to capture here.  Also, being outside just makes me happy, the time of day doesn’t matter so much to me.

When I got this photo home, I was pleased with its clarity.  So, in Photoshop I cropped it, messed with the levels a bit to bring down the harshest of the highlights, and then sharpened it a bit.  Here is the original:

ISO 125 200mm 0ev f/8 1/400

ISO 125 200mm 0ev f/8 1/400

I think the crop helps this photo a lot.  I’ll also say that I used my 200mm lens to be able to get in close to the bee, but not be so close that I would bother it.

How about you, do you have a favorite place to shoot? would you consider yourself more of an indoor or outdoor person? Anything you’d like to say about the edits I have done?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Change

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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

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

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: Monochromatic

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I’ve been doing some work in the yard, weeding and the like.  The butterfly bush is beginning to lose it’s blooms, but they aren’t completely gone yet, so one morning I put aside my gardening tools and took out my camera instead.  When I got the photos on my computer I decided to give HDR processing a try with them, to bring out the detail in the flowers.  I was pleasantly surprised to end up liking this monochromatic version best:

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

For this particular photo I was using my 50mm lens with a magnifying lens attached.  I used a high ISO in part to deal with the low light and in part to be able to use a high shutter speed.

Here is the original middle exposure of the bracketed photos:

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

In the monochromatic version, I liked the way the purple blooms were transformed to very white.  Most times, I use HDR for what it brings out in the detail, this time, what I liked most was it did for the tone of the image. For me, this was and interesting case of using a technique for one result and ending up with something unexpected. How about you, when was the last time your photo editing turned out an unexpected result?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Every Angle

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This past weekend was the Festival of Nations in St. Louis, a yearly weekend festival that is full of vendors, food, music, and arts.  Certainly a great place to get photos from all sorts of angles, but I was happiest with the photos I got from the henna art station. To tell this mini-story I wanted the finished design to be in all the shots, so I kept that in mind as I was shooting.  I also wanted a progression, so here is the first stroke:

ISO 1600 50mm f/5.6 1/1250

ISO 1600 50mm f/5.6 1/1250

Then I walked around and was shooting from a spot behind:

ISO 1600 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/640

ISO 1600 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/640

Then I went with the finished product:

ISO 1600 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/500

ISO 1600 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/500

Which now that you have seen the finished art, you can go back and see it on the paper as well.  As I was shooting at the festival, I kept my ISO relatively high.  This was because despite the bright sunlight, most of my shots were taken in the shade.  I knew I wasn’t going to be too concerned with noise in the final versions of the photos so an ISO of 1600 pretty much guaranteed I could take shots everywhere.  You will notice that even though these three shots that were taken in a similar area, I was changing my shutter speed a lot.  After having set my ISO and also keeping my f-stop at a fixed 5.6, the shutter speed was how I was controlling the exposure on this particular outing.

When I got the photos home, I decided that I did not want to crop or sharpen them.  I decided to apply a photo filter that replicates Polaroid 690 film.  I felt that the slight color change and slightly grainy look was a good match with photos from a festival like this one.  So that you can see the difference, here is the middle photo before editing:

ISO 1600 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/640

ISO 1600 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/640

It’s a subtle difference, do you think it adds to the story here? Feel free to comment below.

Cheers!