Eventually I got an image I was happy with, but it cost me all my new magenta cartridge and a fair whack of photo paper.

Sandgate – Cliff St framed by the old Baptist church, opened in 1877, and the sculpture “Surge” by Davis-Thomas, installed in 2007

This weekend, I’ve been printing as many images as I can that I have on Redbubble, and now I sit surrounded by prints waiting their 24 hours to pass to I can see the final colour.  Already I’ve learnt that black and whites seem to have a yellow tinge when they first leave the printer but that has faded to true monochrome.  Otherwise, I’m pleased that so far, all of my prints look fine, although I haven’t yet gone over them with a fine toothcomb.  It has cost me another magenta cartridge, plus a blue and yellow this time, but it’s worth it for the peace of mind that anything anyone buys from me to print should work out just fine (and I’ve now found a cheaper shop online to buy toner!).

It’s also made me review some of my older images, and I’m finding I’m not so happy with them as I once was, but I guess that means I’m learning something.

If you’re curious about that photo competition, I didn’t win anything, but apparently I caused “a lot of discussion” with the photo above. Still wondering if that’s good or bad!

light at the end of the tunnel HDR image by arthakker

to order a canvas print of this image click here.

Last of these atmospheric boat shots – this one processed in black and white.

The first photograph was of the water in a small stream.  What attracted me was its golden color due to the rocks and the clarity of the water. This picture took hardly any processing: a quick tonal contrast in Nik software and a high overpass in PS. I find I get attracted by color and depth, and I loved the various shades of rocks, and the golden green cast the stream had. The small ripples on the water’s surface didn’t hurt, and though I thought about cropping out the overhanging leaves, I decided I liked them as they supplied a context for the water, a link to the world beyond that the water nourished.

The second image I worked on was one I took of a moth.  I probably never would have noticed it, if I had not heard it and seen something fly downward to the ground out of the corner of my eye. It was not big enough to be a bird, but seemed large enough to make me almost think it might be a hummingbird.  I looked down, and there this creature was.  I had never seen anything like it. Later, after looking at the photo I had taken before it flew off, I was able to google it and identify it as a White-Line Sphinx Moth. They undergo their transformation under the ground and then dig their way out.  You usually see them after dusk between the months of April and October, and they are pollinators of certain plants like petunias, orchids and evening primrose. Their wingspan can exceed 5 inches.

Again, this photo underwent the same processing as the prior one. I only wish I was able to get more of the markings on his wings that were quite beautiful. I was angling to do so when he took off. I liked this one the best of the few I got, because of his eyes and the leaf that might give you an idea of his size.

The final picture I took just a few days ago. I was taking my dog out for her morning potty run, and noticed this red leaf  10 yards away that really stood out.  I loved the abstract pattern it had.  These few leaves on the plant had the bright red coloring and almost etched like pattern, while the rest of the plant was green.

This photo did take more post-processing because I wanted to add a texture and emphasize the one leaf. Because the leaf reminded me of leather, I created a leather-like texture for the background. Stuff like this always takes a bit of experimentation, and adjustments on opacity and layer masks, but I was pleased with the result. I entitled it, “Be True to Your Own Colors.” This leaf reinforces my belief that differences usually make life more interesting.

Be True to Your Own Colors to me suggests a person who takes the road less traveled, who wears their heart on their sleeve, who stands out from the crowd, and is sometimes an outcast and sometimes a hero, but who experiences life authentically. It’s something I’ve aspired to; and most often failed miserably, but still I admire people and leaves like that! I don’t want to be as flamboyant as this leaf, but I don’t want just be part of the background either.

1. Spot Removal :
Adobe updated their Spot Removal Section from LR4 which was not so ease of use. In case of removing a big object from your picture you have to use Photoshop because using the Circular Spot Removal Tool in LR4 was quite a tedious task. So in LR 5 Adobe uses same kind of tool which is used in Photoshop (Spot healing Brush). Here is some snapshots of this feature-

In this picture, we need to remove that circled section.

• Open the Spot Removal Tool Section
• Enable the Heal button
• Set the Brush size
  

Now set the Opacity to 100 and just paint over the Object which you want to remove.

After that we got the result like this-

This is the result of the Spot Removal Tool. It is quite handy tool in case of small objects. But for bigger objects you have to choose the appropriate section for replacing the object which may give you some problems. So it’s quite useful tool in some cases, but not the best one.

2. Radial Filter:
This is the new addition in LightRoom 5. Mainly you are going to use this tool for Dodge & Burning. It’s works similar as the Adjustment Brush in LR. Let’s find out how this tool works-

• First open the Radial Filter(Shift+M) Section
  
• Then Create a Circle in the required section of the image and Set the different parameters as per the image point of view.
  
• If you want to apply those parameters value inside the circle not in the outside of the circle then Click on the Invert Mask option
  

Now click on Done.
This is a new addition in LR 5 and it’s looks pretty cool and easy to use also. You can also use this Tool as a Custom-made Vignette Effect which may come in handy for some images. So it’s an effective improvement for LightRoom users.

3. Upright in Lens Correction:

• Till now this option is the most effective tools among all added features in LR5. It removes the hectic scaling operation which consumes a large amount of time. Let’s see how it works-
• Go to Lens Correction Section
  
• Initially that Upright option is set to off. Click to Auto/Vertical/Level to correct the scaling of the image. I haven’t used that Full Option because it never gives me desired result.
  
• Check out the difference by pressing “Y”
  
  This is the result after Set on the Auto option. Vertical also does the same kind of change. Level is normally used to straight the horizon.So from my point of view, this is really a cool option. In LR4, I faced this scaling correction problem for many snaps. But here this Upright tool really does this job accurately.
• One more thing, when you click on Auto/Vertical/Level then please check that Constrain Crop is off or on. If it’s On then set it Off, because sometimes it crops yours image too much. But it may vary for different images.

So these are the main improvements which are introduced into LightRoom 5 Beta. Let’s wait for Full version of LightRoom 5 and hope that Adobe will add few more features in that.

West Mersea, Essex, UK.   High water and a grey, dull and cloudy shot gets some post processing treatment.  Increase in saturation and contrast followed by some curve adjustment.  The second image has been created using a drawing filter. 

Click here to download a larger version of  the top image for £0.69

The cyanotype option in Nikon’s monochrome posting menu makes this in-camera conversion from color easy. 1/80 sec., f/5.6, ISO 160, 18mm.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

COLOR IS LIKE ANY OTHER COMPONENT IN LIGHT COLLECTION AND ARRANGEMENT, which is, really, what we are doing. Seen as a tool instead of an absolute, it’s easy to see that it’s only appropriate for some photographs. Since the explosion of color imaging for the masses seen in the coming of Kodachrome and other early consumer films in the 1930′s, the average snapper has hardly looked back. Family shots, landscapes, still life arrangements….full color or go home, right?

Well….

Oddly, professional shooters of the early 20th century were reluctant to commit to the new multi-hued media, fearing that, for some novelty-oriented photographers, the message would be the color, instead of the color aiding in the conveying of the message. Even old Ansel Adams once said of magazine editors, that, when in doubt, they “just make it red”, indicating that he thought color could become a gimmick, the same way we often regard 3-d.

In the digital age, by comparison, the color/no color decision is almost always an afterthought. There are no special chemicals, films or paper to invest in before the shutter clicks, and plenty of ways to render a color shot colorless after the fact. And now, even the post-processing steps involved in creating a monochrome image need not include an investment in Photoshop or other software. For the average shooter, monochrome post-processing is in-camera, at the touch of a button. Straight B/W and sepia and even what I call the “third avenue”, the blue duotone or cyanotype, as I’ve used above.Do such quickie options worsen the risk of gimmick-for-gimmick’s sake more than ever? As Governor Palin would say, “you betcha”. Google “over-indulgence”, or just about half of every Instagram ever taken, as evidence.

Hundreds of technical breakthroughs later, it still comes down to the original image itself. If it was conceived properly, color won’t lessen it. If it was a bad idea to start with, monochrome won’t deliver the mood or the tone changes needed to redeem it. Imagine the right image, then select the best way to deliver the message. Having quick fixes in-camera aren’t, initially, a guarantee of anything but the convenient ability to view alternatives. In the photo above, my subject was just too warm, too pretty in natural color. I thought the building itself evoked a certain starkness, a cold, sterile kind of architecture, that cyanotype could deliver far better. The shadows are also a bit more mysteriously rendered.

At bottom, the shot is just a study, since I will be using it to take far more crucial pictures of far more intriguing subjects. But the in-camera fix allows you to analyze on the fly. And, since I got into this racket to shoot pictures, and not to be a chemist, I occasionally like a fast thumbs-up, thumbs-down verdict on something I’ve decided to try in the moment.

Giving yourself the blues can be a good thing.

(follow Michael Perkins on Twitter @ mpnormaleye)

Related articles

• Toning my Cyanotype with Haritaki (altlab2011.wordpress.com)
• Beyond Color (piaffephotos.wordpress.com)

I have had a few people ask me for advice about shooting weddings recently. I am not sure that I am best placed for writing an ‘advice’ post on them, since I have actually only done three weddings in my short career as a photographer…I have however learnt a great deal in a very short space of time and perhaps imparting a little bit of this knowledge will help. It will certainly be cathartic!

I was utterly terrified doing my first wedding even as a second shooter, last June. I don’t know what possessed me, but at the time I thought it would be a bit of fun and good preparation for a wedding I had agreed to do a few months later! I had made no preparations at all, in fact I just turned up at the railway station and started snapping away. I was not prepared, and that was the probably the hardest thing, didn’t really know my camera well enough, had never used an external flash, had no idea how to set the exposure to capture things like detail in a white dress, but, we live and learn and that is the beauty of photography. We never stop learning. As a second shooter I didn’t have to do much prep, but it would have helped had I known my camera a bit better. the best thing? Meeting the people I was photographing and at the end of it coming out with a few shots that I was actually really proud of. I am not sure that I felt particularly happy about ever having to do another wedding, but could hardly go back on my word, having said I would do the next one only a month later.

So what did I do? I trawled the internet for as much advice on shooting a wedding I could find. I searched and searched. I read everything I could, quite literally devouring article after article until I was satisfied that I had everything in hand. So, July came and I felt I had pretty much everything in order… shot lists, sketches, more lists and more sketches. Nothing prepares you for flu though… I can safely say that this was the hardest day ever. Flu, tonsillitis, headache – the lot – and a wedding to shoot… IN THE RAIN! But I did it! It worked and all the preparation in advance was worth it.

So what did I do for my 3rd wedding. Well, I felt so much more prepared for this one and actually the preparations started way back last year in October when I did the couple’s engagement shoot. Doing an engagement shoot is one of the best ways to get to know your clients and to make them feel comfortable in front of the lens and with how you work. Since the engagement shoot I spent the rest of the year really looking forward to this wedding, and I was not disappointed. I loved every minute of it and I simply cannot wait to do more. So, as I have now been blabbing on about nothing in particular and not a single piece of advice has been issued about shooting a wedding, perhaps I should start! Here are my 20 things that might make you think twice about doing a wedding, and if at the end of it you still think you have what it takes, I would heartily recommend going for it. It is the singularly most rewarding thing I have ever done, and such a huge privilege to be let into people’s lives in such an intimate way. It is a great honour to shoot a wedding. I hope I never lose sight of that.

One of the most important things to remember is that the bride and groom have chosen you because they know you can do a good job and that they like your style. Have self belief that you can do it and that you are the right person for the job.

1. It starts with a conversation…have many of them with the bride and groom to be. Find out what their hopes and dreams are, listen to the preparations they are making, pay attention to the dress, the bouquet, the table decorations – talk to them about bridesmaids and ushers, be a listening ear. For me this was the most important thing. I wanted to be absolutely involved in the whole experience as I knew that knowledge would be power and the more I knew about the day, the more prepared and relaxed I would feel.
   
2. Include a free engagement shoot in the price of the wedding shoot. For me, this was really important. Getting the couple together, with or without their children (in both the two weddings for me it was with children), is a sure fire way of everyone getting to know each other. Doing an engagement shoot allows the couple to get used to being photographed so that when it comes to the big day, they will already know what to expect.
3. Make sure you ask for their honest opinions on the engagement shoot. If there is something they are unhappy with, you want to make sure that you don’t repeat it on the day. Pay special attention to what the couple may be unhappy about in themselves, it could be nose, teeth, eyes, anything. Remember, we never see ourselves the way other people see us.
4. A few weeks or so before the wedding (or more if you can), sit down with the couple and prepare a list of the people who are going to be in the shots. There will be friends, family, bridesmaids, ushers and all sorts of people that will be expected to be captured on the day, for both formal and informal shots. Talk to the couple about the types of shots they would like of family and friends. If they have samples from websites even better. Some couples are happy to use Pinterest, and if they are, then following their pin boards is a good way to get a better idea of what they would like you to achieve. Make sure the list includes names and descriptions (ie Father, Mother etc), so that when it comes to the day itself, you can approach them by their first names or as Mr/Mrs… if that is more appropriate). The list also needs to include the shot lists of which people are going to be in the shot together. It might look something like this:
5. Abby and Peter (Dad) – on bench by the tree
   Abby, Peter and Molly – on bench by the tree
   Ben, sandra and bill (parents) – on bench by the tree
   Ben, Lillie and Harvey – sitting on swing
   and so forth… 
   I also ensured that I had asked the family in advance to make sure that there would be 1 person responsible for getting all the people for the formal family shoots together at the right time. An usher, a best man or a bridesmaid is usually good for this, unless of course they also need to have their photos done. A responsible teenager did a great job at the last wedding!
6. Always visit the venue and church in advance to scout out the best places and to speak to the vicar about what is allowed in the church in terms of photography. Some photographers just expect the couple to speak to the vicar on their behalf, but I prefer not to leave anything to chance. When you visit the church and the venue, take some shots to see what the light will be like. I thought I was very well prepared, but having taking practice shots of the light in the church, I was appalled to see that they had put red hot heaters on which made everyone’s faces bright pink. I was not prepared for that, so there is a certain amount of thinking on your toes that also has to be done! Luckily much of this was rescued in post processing.
7. Make lots of notes when you visit the venue, think about where you could do the creative couple shots, and if you get the chance, do their engagement shoot in the same place, so you get some practice in.
8. Before the wedding – about a week before – I sat down and made a complete shot list, from morning until night… I didn’t want to miss anything at all and I found it incredibly helpful to walk through each shot in my mind and pop it down on paper, so that I would have something as a form of reference when I needed it.
   My shot list started at 9am and included a concise schedule and looked like this:
   9am – CD arrive at venue. Bride staying in cottage (get directions in advance).
   SHOT LIST: (50mm and 90mm lenses for close ups and portrait)
   Prep shots – make up, hair
   Bride and Bridesmaids
   zipping up the dress
   The dress
   Jewellery
   Shoes
   North window bride
   Bride in Mirror
   (if time would be good to spend 20 minutes with bride and bridesmaids for some posed shots before we go)
   Bride walking down the stairs
   Bride leaving
   Bride and dad getting into the car
   CD leave before bridal party to get to the church in advance
   This list went on for 3 pages of typed A4 – possibly a bit excessive but really helpful. and later I cut each section out and put it on index cards bound together so that I had them to hand and knew exactly what was coming next and at what time. I also had a reminder as to the lenses I wanted to use. 
9.  Another list I wrote was the 30-45 minute couple only photoshoot. knowing the venue reasonably well having already photographed the engagement shoot there, I had each shot pretty meticulously planned, knowing exactly where I wanted them to stand/sit, and how I wanted them to pose. All the shots were outside. However, I messed up here as we were not able to be outside at all, not due to rain, but because it was so incredibly cold! The only shots we were able to get outside were the bridesmaids ones, and most of those featured blue-tinted skin tones – those poor girls! I was not however very well prepared for doing the shots inside, so for all my list writing, I still missed something. In the end, we had to do the shots inside, and we chose the bedroom which was magnificent, but for me, it was not enough. Had I been better prepared, I would have had a list of inside shots that I could have used and which would have been better than having to think on my toes.
10.  In between times there were lots of candid shots being taken of the bride and groom, of people  enjoying themselves at the reception, of the table decorations, the well wishes tree and the flowers. Don’t forget to also take shots of the children and grandparents. I love photographing children so I always make sure that I build in time to pay special attention to the children that are there. 
11. Make sure that 1 person is responsible for making sure that you are where you are supposed to be at the right time – I almost missed the first dance because no one told me it was happening and it started earlier than expected.
12. Memory cards… take lots. Change them regularly before they run out. There can be no worse feeling than one of the cards not working and losing all the images because the cards were not changed frequently or not until they were full. Shoot in raw even though it takes up more space – you have much more scope to play around with the image in post processing afterwards.
13. BACK UP – If you can, bring back up options. I brought my ipad, my notebook, a WD passport hardrive and my laptop… I had an hour whilst they were eating and I backed up 2 of my cards in that time. Obviously don’t delete them off the cards until you get home and you have backed up again, but it is well worth trying to back up whilst you are there. Remember to always format your cards, rather than delete the images off them once you are done. Deleting the images can apparently corrupt the cards.
14. KEEP cards safe… pockets are not safe! Label the cards with numbers and names.
15. When shooting indoors remember to keep you ISO high – if you are shooting in AV, increase the ISO to as much as your camera can or pop it on automatic. There will be lots of noise in your shots but this can also look quite effective. However, if you don’t like it you can reduce it in post processing. Keeping the ISO high (Or if in shutter priority mode or manual, keeping the shutter speed fast) will ensure that your pics don’t end up blurry or with yellow or red casts on them! If they do – convert them to black and white and pray that that works afterwards in post processing… If you are really struggling getting the quality you want, set the camera to its automatic setting and let the camera do the work for you, especially if you are moving between inside and outside. Don’t feel bad about this, know when you are beaten and act accordingly, you can always do more research afterwards and figure out where you went wrong and how to change and learn from it for next time. The end results are the most important bit and if you are not yet totally at ease with your camera settings, then just let that go and pop it on automatic so you can concentrate on the composition of your images. I wish I had done this whilst moving between indoors and outdoors at the last wedding. Sometimes things happen so fast that it is difficult to keep track and it is not until afterwards that you really your ISO was not high enough and the images did not come out as sharp as you would have liked them to. Really, the best thing is to know your camera really well. Study, practice, study and practice some more! 
16. Using a flash… personally I prefer natural light but it can be very helpful using a flash, especially when indoors. Use a diffuser for the flash and/or if possible bounce the flash so it doesn’t hit the people right in the face. If you are using the on camera flash you can also use a diffuser or a neat trick is to use a piece of card that it reflects off set just under the bulb which gives you a really soft ambient light. Using a flash outside in direct sunlight can also a  stop harsh shadows on people’s faces. I made the mistake of bouncing the flash off the walls too often when I would have been better off remembering that I had a diffuser on it, and that it would have been fine to have been facing forward or upwards most of the time. I was a bit obsessed with not having harsh light. It is unlikely that you can use a flash in the church, so use a tripod or a monopod to insure you don’t get a problem with shakey hands and I recently found out that using a monopod raised high up with a remote control is a really effective way of getting some great shots whilst standing at the back of the church – thank you to Peter Duce Photography for this little tip!
17. Know your lenses and know when to use them.  ave back-up lenses and a back-up body in case of emergency. I only carried 2 extra lenses on me, plenty of batteries, plenty of memory cards and flash batteries. I left the back-up body and back-up lenses in the car.
18. Get insurance! Have a contract! Get it signed. This is really important, and, you will feel so much safer knowing that you have personal indemnity insurance, public liability and contents cover. The last thing you want is to lose the images and get sued, or have granny trip over your equipment and hurt herself. Don’t forget to insure your car for business use.
19. Never stay and have a drink afterwards – one can lead to two..! Get your precious images home as soon as you can, and back up your raw files straight away. Back them up to 2 different places, the last thing you want to do is lose any of them. I tend to not look at the images until the next day, and then I just have a cursory look. I find that removing myself from them physically before making rash decisions about whether they are good or bad, is the best thing for me. I am super critical and sometimes that means that images that are actually not too bad, get popped in the recycle bin too!
20. Last of all – Well, I have been thinking about this for a while now… I think the only real bit of advice is to enjoy yourself and to know that very often the whole wedding party will be looking at you for answers as they expect you to be in control – so be in control. To get the shots you want you will need to be well prepared and not be worried about being a little bit bossy! You will need to stick to your timekeeping and that often means dragging the bride and groom away from their guests. If you do not take control, you will not get the shots that you or the bride and groom want, even if at the time, they forget how much they want them.Most of all though? Have fun! Weddings are great fun, and capturing them as they happen is fabulous and exciting, and oh so very joyful! 

I am sure I will have forgotten one thing or another and will no doubt come back to this list again in the future. I very much hope to be able to shoot some more weddings. Ideally I would like to be second shooter on a few more; getting some more experience and building up my portfolio. For now I am just looking forward to the next wedding I have booked. It really is a tremendous honour to be allowed to photograph someone’s wedding and such an immense pleasure too!

3 types of good photographers.

Some good photographers are strong technical camera operators, some are good at recognizing great art, and some are good at creating any look in post.

The distinction between paid or hobbyist isn’t too important here. When I say good I don’t mean successful. That requires more than I won’t discuss here; marketing, branding, pricing structure, having a strong platform, customer relationships, etc…

Camera Operator

You pick up the technical operation of your camera very quickly. You know what every button and dial does. You can see a shot in print or online and tell the camera’s settings immediately.

Think of a pianist who can pick up a sheet of music and just play technically accurate without practice.

Make up for other faults by looking at great art and mimicking it. Copy someones style. Get a formula and try it. Slowly you’ll see patterns in these styles and develop a sense of your own.

Art Director

You know what great art is when you see it. Good art is a grandkid portrait that makes the grandparent cry with recognition and joy. Great art is showing that same picture to a stranger and having them have the same tears. It’s about seeing stories in frames and knowing when they will connect with people.

Think of the scene from White Men Can’t Jump, “Look man, you can listen to Jimi but you can’t hear him. There’s a difference man.”

You can make up for technical weaknesses by just shooting a lot and taking extra time to sift through your shots to find the gem in the rough. You  have a hard time working in any time sensitive manner, like high-end wedding or maybe just any non family member.

You can use your sense of great art to teach yourself how to visualize the final outcome through the lens. See it and try to connect it slowly with camera control. Use it as a drive to learn the gear good enough to capture that beauty. It gives you focus and direction in post.

Post Processing Expert

You just have a knack for learning computer applications like Lightroom. You know how to apply recipes that yield good results. You can rescue any kind of picture just by molding the histogram.

Think of yourself as the guy in the sound booth during recording, mixing it up.

You can learn to shoot to help them get those results in post. If editing skin tones takes you too much time and lowers the end quality, then you learn tricks to capture skins in the right exposure. Look at highly acclaimed photographs and think from the perspective of a post processor how you would need to shot it.

So what now?

Step up and dream big

If I were you, especially if you are just starting out, I’d learn which of these talents is your strong point and lean on it.

You can learn art as a camera technician or a post processor. There are rules artists have used since the Renaissance. Here’s a video resource of them. They are ALWAYS followed or broken purposely for one reason, to emphasize a story. It’s a formula you can learn to apply and slowly learn when to break.

Are you the artist? Every piece of technology can be understood with the right teacher. The camera and editing software is logically built with one goal in mind, to put the buttons and dials in the easiest way for you to make great art. My pages have these basics explained. Here’s a couple of the best free tools to learn camera basics, this one iOS, and this one web-based.

For post processing you can spend hours sifting through blogs like mine or You Tube videos but it’s worth it to invest in services like Lynda.

There is though, a formula to have a chance to be a great artist.

A Great Photographer

A great photographer lives all three of these worlds in a unified way. This follows the formula from Ansel Adams back in film days to those big names doing well now in digitally. Is it possible to excel so much in one area and become a great photographer? Absolutely, but my advice would be to build all three with a final goal in mind, unification.

When great photographers is set up a shot they are thinking how to make the most final impact and already know what parts will be done with post processing. When they are applying a technique for posing a couple and getting the camera setting technically perfect they are watching for something magical to happen in a pose or breaking light that they didn’t plan on. They don’t ignore the technical side of post and just study art (i.e. making a story). They are making a story while they develop in post. It’s all unified. It’s the right and left side communicating fluidly. As a side note the female’s brain is physiologically predisposed to be better than the male’s at communicating concepts between creative and technical.

So if you want to be a great photographer don’t ignore any of these aspects, in fact find how they connect. If you find one is weak take a proactive role to develop it. Here’s one place to start.

This site is dedicated to all these talents in a balanced way. Share this article with those you think have one of these abilities. Share with email

West Mersea, Essex, UK.   High water and again a fairly dull shot gets some post processing treatment.  In this case increase in saturation and contrast followed by some curve adjustment.  The image now has a completely different look – whether it is ‘better’ is open to debate, the original image is below.  The second image above is created using a drawing filter.

Click here to download a larger version of  the top image for £0.69

See my urban exploration set on Flickr here.

abandoned officers mess, hdr image by arthakker

To order a hi-res desktop wallpaper or a canvas print of this image click here.

Living on the shore of Lake Ontario, just east of Toronto, photographer Matt Molloy has daily encounters with brilliant sunsets and cloudscapes that he’s been photographing for over three years.

One day he began experimenting with time-lapse sequences by taking hundreds of images as the sun set and the clouds moved through the sky. Molloy then digitally stacked the numerous photos to reveal shifts in color and shape reminiscent of painterly brushstrokes that smeared the sky.

You can learn more about his “timestack” technique over at Digital Photo Magazine and prints are available here.

| source |

So what do you think? Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m in awe of the sky and its ever changing parade of amazing cloudscapes, so I’m certainly keen to try the timestack technique on the basis of these images… what about you?

Infrared photography represents one of the greatest assets of photography; showing us the world in a different way (or should I say light!).  I think that’s why I love it so much.

After sorting out the flat tyres on my neglected bike, I set off.

Road signs come out brilliantly…

This shot, taken in Stowe, is two different photos stitched together. The little white blob near the top of the sky is the moon

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Mixing light: post processing experiments

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I’ve started to take normal photos alongside the infrared ones. It occurred to me that things might start to look interesting if I mix the two different versions together…

Left: normal exposure
Middle: 50/50 mix on Photoshop
Right: infrared exposure

Then I thought it might be even more interesting to change the blending mode of the two layers. My favourite combo was using ‘Hard Light’ at something like 90% (with the normal exposure as the top layer). Here it is!

The sky has taken a lot from the infrared photo, as though I’ve taken it through a polarising filter (though I’m not sure I’ve ever got a polariser to make a sky look that black!), and the grass has become paler. I really like this effect, it’s quite surreal. I imagine you could achieve a similar look without using the infrared photo, however, because the sky really was that dark in the original infrared photo – i.e. without any post-processing at all – the sky retains its full quality, without any of the banding or pixelation that you often see from heavily photoshopped images.

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Mixes of mixes

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Okay, so I got a bit carried away. I messed around with the layers and the blend modes and made another scale of infrared-ness!!!

Here goes with the key/explanation:

From left to right:

1st: visible light original
2nd: infrared original (bottom layer), visible light original (top layer), set to Hard Light, 90% [reverse of 5th photo]
3rd: photo 5 (bottom layer), photo 2 (top layer), set to Hard Light, 70%  [reverse of 4th photo]
4th: photo 2 (bottom layer), photo 5 (top layer), set to Pin Light, 70% [reverse of 3rd photo]
5th: visible light original (bottom layer), infrared original (top layer), set to ‘Hard Light, 90% [reverse of 2nd photo]
6th: infrared original

You’ll be relieved to hear that I stopped after this

I thought an example might indicate what I mean. The image below is of Bode’s Galaxy, M81, which is a large, bright galaxy close to us. I set up the Rigel 37 cm telescope in the Sierra Stars Observatory Network (http://www.sierrastars.com) to take five shots of M81, each one being a five-minute exposure. I then used software to combine the images, and to adjust the contrast and brightness of the resulting “stacked” image. These sorts of images are taken with monochrome cameras – or black and white – that are sensitive to all frequencies of visible light.

Here’s what the “tuned up” image of M81 looks like:

A processed image of Bode’s Galaxy, M81, created by stacking five 300 second exposures taken with the 37 cm Rigel Telescope in Arizona. This bright galaxy is relatively close to earth and can be located on a clear night with binoculars or a small telescope in the constellation Ursa Major.

Here’s one of the five original 300 second exposures, displayed more or less as it looked when it was delivered by the telescope and camera. The fine details of the finished image are in there, but in order to see them the brightness and contrast needs to be “stretched” a bit. This process changes the relationship between the light values recorded by the camera and the shade of gray displayed on the image, to show the fainter light of the outer edges of the galaxy.

An unproccessed frame of M81, one of five taken as a 300 second exposure without filters on the Rigel Telescope in Arizona on the evening of 15 April 2013.

I’m feeling a little more confident about monochrome images now, but I still need to update my computer for doing this sort of “Post-Processing.” My next step will be to take some images of M81 and other objects with these remote telescopes using colour filters. By shooting images with colour filters on monochrome cameras like those on this sort of telesope, you can reconstruct a colour picture in post-processing.

Copyright © 2013 David Allan Galbraith

West Mersea, Essex, UK.   High water and a rather dull shot gets some post processing treatment.  A high increase in saturation and contrast followed by some curve adjustment.  The second image has been processed using a cutout filter.  The original image is below.  Whether the saturation improves the image is open to debate!

Click here to download a larger version of  the top image for £0.69

Nick Brandt is a Los Angeles based videogapher who has followed his passion for photographing the wild animals of East Africa for the past 14 years.

With his medium-format film camera in hand, Brandt spends weeks following and becoming accepted by his subjects, before waiting for favourable combinations of lighting and behaviour.

The resulting photographs are nothing short of spectacular.

Featuring 300-line quadtone reproductions, printed under Brandt’s supervision, the tonal quality of his book On This Earth, A Shadow Falls is exceptional, the offset reproductions closely matching the rich, velvety tonality and detail of the original prints.

Brandt describes his photographs as portraits, which depict cheetahs, rhinos, giraffes and elephants, stampeding, grazing, and wading through the equally untamed grandeur of the Serengeti.

Of Brandt’s post-processing skills, Don Burmeister from The New York Photo Review says:

The controlled burning and dodging, increased contrast, blurring and vignetting of the images serves to accentuate the subjects far beyond what even the best darkroom technician could ever achieve. As a side note, the treatment of grain in these images is particularly lush, the use of sepia and black (rather than black and white) gives an almost fresco-like texture to the prints which allows the white highlights to pop.

On This Earth, A Shadow Falls includes introductions by Jane Goodall, Alice Sebold, Vicki Goldberg, Peter Singer and Nick Brandt. Each copy is signed by the artist.

Here are some more images for your viewing pleasure… these are obviously best appreciated large, so be sure to click for bigger versions!

In one of the essays accompanying this volume, novelist Alice Sebold aptly describes Brandt’s intimate portraits, like this image above featuring a lion in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, as having “the haunting resonance of the photographs of Civil War generals long dead.”

I visited Africa in 2010 and really enjoyed my first experience of getting up close and personal with the wildlife in Botswana and photographing them in their natural habitat – of course, the resulting images were nothing like these, but I had lots of fun in the process!

I’m looking forward to receiving my copy of Nick Brandt’s book which is winging its way to me as I type – do these images resonate with you too?

This is Nina.  My subject for Day 18.  She is 15, and the sweetest of sweet.  My favorite thing about her is she hugs you.  Her arms are tightly wrapped around your neck when you pick her up.  Her head tucks into your neck as if so say ‘I never want to let go.” She weighs maybe 5 lbs, and loves to lay on the kitchen table.  That is where the best morning sun is.

AV mode, f8 1/25 ISO 400 28-135mm @75mm

Post processing added haze

The features I’m seeing put Lightroom way ahead of Apple’s Aperture.  It is a great tool to not only edit your photos, but keep them organized as well.  One of the really cool things about digital photography is the level of control you get in editing your own images.  The challenge is you have to edit your own images!!  If you shoot RAW (as I so often do because of how much more forgiveness and flexibility you get over JPEG), you’re nearly filling the role of developing your own negatives, though the software all gives you a lot help.

Honestly, I find all of these tools either overly simplistic (Picasa and the on-line editing features in Flickr) or really complicated (Photoshop, Aperture and Lightroom).  The good news is there are a LOT of resources out there to teach you how to use Photoshop and especially Lightroom.  A little bit of tuning can make a huge difference, and those are fairly easy to understand and use right away on virtually any of software solutions.

The new brushes and other tools I’m seeing in Lightroom 5 look like a big jump forward in capability while making some pretty powerful functions much simpler to use.  The “upright” feature looks great, too as it automates something that can be really complicated (adjusting for lens distortion when shooting buildings, etc.).

I’m going to download and play with the beta release, and I’ll probably grab the upgrade right away.  I’ll post some thoughts once I’ve had a chance to use the Lightroom 5 beta.

I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts about photo editing software!