Tag Archives: experimenting

Giving Things a Go

08 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Photography

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Today’s post is going to be quick.  I am late with it and I need to do some other stuff. I decided today to give something a go.  It hasn’t really worked well, I rush too much, but it is a beginning and something that could be a lot of fun in the future.

The Coffee CupsI saw an image in the reader the other day of two hands with a map of the world on them.  It got me thinking and I wondered if I would be able to do something similar.  so I gave it a go with two white coffee mugs and put an image of wrapping paper over the top.  It hasn’t turned out too bad, but I need to experiment a lot more.  I must write down some notes on what I have done and what to do differently.

Tea SetThis one I did with all white crockery again.  I probably should have lightened it again. I am pretty sure I know what I would do differently next time.  It is another interesting process to explore and one that could open up new possibilities   I look forward to experimenting more with it.

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes, there are so many comments.  I am having a really hard time keeping on top of them and I am not sure what to do.  At the moment I have 597 comments to respond to.  I am thinking of making the decision to not respond to everyone anymore, and only do those that ask me questions or want more information.  The ones that just make a short statement should always assume that I really do thank them for their comments.   I am hoping no one will mind if I do that from now on.

Waterproof Cameras

A woman asked me recently for some advice on a waterproof camera, one her husband couldn’t destroy while fishing or when put through the washing machine.  I wrote an email to Michael’s Camera and Video and asked them what they would recommend.  They recommended two cameras, the Olympus TG-1, and the Panasonic FT20 which can go to a depth of 5 metres.  The first one retails here for around $400 and the second around $230.  I hope this helps.

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Evolving

20 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by in Melbourne, Photography

≈ 48 Comments

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You can start with an image, and you can start doing things to it, and will never stop.  Well, you have to stop some where.  (I feel like I am channelling Dr Who) Something similar to that happened to me today.  I picked the image I was going to work on for you today, which ended up not being the image I thought I would use.  Here, just let me show you, oh by the way this is the original.

This was taken on Sunday morning.  The sun was starting to come up, but not behind this.  When I first looked at this image, I was a little disappointed because you couldn’t see any car light trails, but then I realised that the image is almost devoid of life, and well, it seemed very fitting then.  There are people on the steps under the clocks, but not many.  I realised that this is a real strange image, do you know how hard it would be to get a HDR without one car in any of the frames?  This is a 3 image HDR.

So I started playing.

This is the image as it was going to stay.  I really didn’t do a lot to it, I think you can tell that.  I did some vignetting and, well, nothing else really.  I think, if you can believe it, I quite liked it the way it was.  I like the vignetting, and I think it has given it a little more depth.  I don’t really notice it too much.  I do love the colour of the sky.

Like I said, I was going to leave it at that, but it was early in the day, there was no hurry, so I thought, mmm, I wonder what would happen if I put a texture over the top and did some blending.  Well, I couldn’t stop, here is what I ended up with.

There are about 4 different texture levels here. I kept laying them over the top, blending them, then adding another one, fading another one slowly.  The image ended up quite dark, so then I had to use some curves.  I don’t mind the final look, something different, let me know what you think.

It fun to just say, whatever, I’m just going to have a go.  I always had the original, so it didn’t matter what happened to subsequent images.  It is also a great to learn.  Hope I see some experiments from all of you soon.

Trees in Bridges

10 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by in Landscapes, Photography, Victoria

≈ 16 Comments

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Trying different things, or having the time to try some new stuff is always great.  After posting that image of the tree on Friday, Bonnie suggested doing a negative effect.  I will admit I didn’t really know what she was talking about, but it did get me thinking.  So I started playing with inverting layers, and merging them together.  I put layers on layers and kept mucking around until I got something that I liked.

This one has been done in B&W, well first as a HDR and then I did lots of other things. I think one of the biggest mistakes I made was not writing down and recording everything I did.  I should start doing that a lot more. I will have to keep trying things.

This is the bridge I found a couple of weeks ago.  We went straight to it on Friday during our road trip.  I had hoped to get the sun rising behind it, but we woke up too late and missed it by half an hour.  I don’t know about getting up so early, I might have to start practising.  I might see if I can wake up early tomorrow morning to go to the beach for photos.

This was the top of the bridge.  I did walk on the bridge this time.  With my daughter there I figured if I fell through, then I would have my daughter there who could call for help.  Though she wouldn’t come on it, and she was very nervous about me walking on it.  She probably had cause, the bridge wasn’t really safe and you could see parts where the wood had worn right through.

One of the things I like about this sort of thing is the textures in it.  The colours have become very desaturated, I wanted it to look barren and isolated.  I think many images of the bridge are going to be like that, but I have pushed these a little more.

My new gumboots have been living in the boot of my car, and they were very handy here.  I wore them so I could get down close to the edge of the water and under the bridge.  The barb wire fence was a little disappointing, but not much I can do about it.

I think I would like to keep experimenting with these, or images like these.  The scraggy tree from Friday has really inspired me.  I find myself needing to start experimenting more, and I hope you are looking forward to seeing what else I can come up.  Please remind to write down my experiments.

 

Doing a Bit of This and a Bit of That

13 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Art, Landscapes, Photography

≈ 4 Comments

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Today, I thought, I would have some fun in Photoshop.  Using one image and seeing what I could do to it.  The image I choose to use is an iconic Australian Image.

I think nearly everyone in the Western World recognises this building, the Sydney Opera House.  I took this photo with my little Canon Ixus in 2008 when I was in Sydney for an exhibition I had some work in.  I was there with two friends, and we had taken a ride on the ferry to Manly.  Something you have to do when in Sydney.  It was late afternoon and the sun was going down.  The sun was very low in the sky, I think you can tell when you look at the sails on the House.

It isn’t an especially good photo, but I thought it was nice enough that I could see what I could do to it.

One of the first things I did was to crop it.  Get rid of all the water in the foreground.  I liked the detail in the sky, so I wanted to keep that.  I highlighted the background and darkened it a little.  I highlighted the foreground and lightened it a little.  It looks very dark on my computer, I did the editing on my laptop, so I don’t know if this computer just makes it too dark or what.  Let me know what you think.

Now that I had the image I wanted to work with, I decided to play with a few layers and some of the filters.

For this one, I only changed the sky, I put a sepia photo filter onto the background/sky and then added a red one as well.

I added a diffuse glow filter to this.  Interesting, though not really sure it works for this image.  I have used it before for people and it can be really nice.

This is using one of the artistic filters, probably the most used filters.  It is the pastel drawing one.  It is a bit weird.  I think the image was far too grainy to do anything useful with really.  I probably should take an image to do all this with.

Of course you can’t do any manipulations without making a black and white copy.  It probably is one of the best images like this.

I had to try a HDR with it.  I think the image was not good enough for it to work.  I really don’t like the pink in the sails and I couldn’t seem to get rid of it.  It really shows how grainy it was as well.  Not really the best.

I think a couple of them worked, but the rest not.  It is a good thing to do, to just experiment and try lots of different things, you start to realise what will work and what won’t.  When it is best to use an option and when not.  Start experimenting today.

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