GPO Triptych

I was in Melbourne city recently just killing some time in GPO, an old Post Office that has been converted into a shopping centre. The roof upstairs was quite amazing, so I stopped and took a few shots. Looking at them when I got back home, I thought they would make a fantastic Triptych.

Unfortuntalely, I hadn't planned for a series of 3, and had only taken two photos, as below.
I looked closely at the two photo's and decided the left shot could also be cropped, to give a slightly different perspective on the same shot, now giving me three seperate images.

The images were looking a bit flat however, so I applied the Orton Effect, and played with the levels of each shot to give each some more drama. Seeing as two of the shots had the same hue, and the third was different, I also adjusted the colour in the Hue/Saturation menu, to add some variety.

Finally, it came to arranging the three shots. I played around with a few different alternatives, and decided finally to flip one of the original images, to give the effect of a disjointed arc.

I quite like how it all came together, it almost feels like it wraps around, when in reality, it was the same small corner of roof, shot twice.

Crazy Clipper

I blacked out for a while last night... when I woke up, I had a lot less hair, and this was the last thing I could remember.
Not entirely true... it was a planned "hair cut", but my partner did have a slightly manic expression on her face for a large part of the trim, which inspired the idea.

Quite a bit of post processing was involved, but nothing too technical. I smoothed out the skin a little with the median filter, a process that is well outlined here.

I then brightened the eyes with some highlight dodging, and midtone burning. This helped give them extra intensity (not that Annie's crazy eyes weren't intense enough as it was). This tutorial outlines the technique quite effectively.

The original background was quite distracting, so I added a lens blur to soften it, to keep focus on the Crazy Clipper.

Finally some dodging and burning, levels adjustments, and a vignette around the outside gave it the final impact it needed to help it jump out.

Just for reference... I also took a 'before and after' for posterity's sake!
And the scene of the crime...

Tasmania HDR

As a birthday present, my partner surprised me with a trip down to Hobart, Tasmania for the weekend. A big part of my present was that I could spend as much time as I wanted taking photo's without any pressure to hurry up. What a great gift! I definitely made the most of it, and took a lot of shots. I've am planning to have them all printed in one of Apple's Photo books, so when that arrives I will let you all know how it turned out.

On the Saturday, we drove down to Port Arthur, the site of Australia's largest (and most brutal) penal colony from 1833 to the 1850's. Pretty spooky place, there was a lot of history there, and with icy conditions, and strong winds, it put an exclamation mark on the already unbelievable atmosphere.

I took a few High Dynamic Range (HDR) shots over the day. The theory behind this is that you take 3 photo's (or in some cases, create three different exposures from one RAW file), one shot correctly exposed, one overexposed and one underexposed. This way you manage to capture all the detail in the shadows, while also capturing the detail in the highlights. If you were to expose only for one or the other you would end up with either black shadows, or blown out highlights.

This is an example of three seperate images, the top overexposed by 2 stops, the middle exposed correctly, and the bottom image underexposed by two stops.

I then used a program called Photomatix, by HDRsoft, to combine the three images. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this manually, however I quite like the effect that Photomatix produces. You have quite a lot of control over a range of variables in Photomatix to produce a subtle HDR effect (which I prefer) or a more dramatic, cartoon like effect, that is quite common on sites such as Flickr. Below is the control panel, and the same image, done with the cartoon effect (which I am not so fond of).



Finally, after a little further sharpening, and level adjustments in Photoshop, the final image looks as follows:


As you can see, this retains all the detail up in the clouds, whilst also capturing the fine detail in the grass and stonework. It captures the whole dynamic range.

A few other examples from the weekend.

English Staffy

My sister and her partner brought home a 7 week old English Staffy yesterday, Lateeka. It seemed to have a lot of energy when I saw it, but it came in 20 minute bursts, then it would retire for 10 minutes. It was MUCH easier to photograph in those 10 minute down times... next time I am going to have to take a faster lens!

I've got a feeling I'm going to have my work cut out for me on this one... my sister is already trying to tee me up on regular intervals for more photos. She is like a new mother. I promise not to overload this blog with puppy photos though. Well... maybe one or two more!

Multiple Expoure

I was home alone tonight, so I did what any normal person would do... went to the park at the end of my street and took long exposures in the dark.

Although not a particularly original idea, I'd wanted to do a photo with a few versions of me in it for a while. Given the long exposures, I had a bit of fun with ghostly images at the same time.

I'm glad no one walked through the park and saw me doing weird poses in front of the camera during the 20 second exposures.

To create the effect, I had the camera set up on a tripod and set the shutter to open 10 seconds after I'd pushed the button, which gave me time to get in position. Due to the long shutter times, I could walk late into some of the shots, after it had already exposed some of the background, which made some of the me's transparent.

When I got back home, I laid all four images on top of one another, and removed the area around each character, letting the image behind it come through. As the camera was on a tripod, the background didn't change from shot to shot, so it could be deleted from each layer, until finally there was one image, with 4 different versions of me in it. Good fun.

While I was in the park, I also shot this image:

The tree was barely visible against the night sky at the time, but the 20 second exposure time caught all the light spilling from the CBD, about 25 km behind the tree. I love it when the camera sees things that can't otherwise be seen

Fake Studio Lighting

Ahhh... MagNation, how I love thee. This afternoon I picked up a handy tip from a photography magazine, as I relaxed on a comfortable couch at the aforementioned magazine mecca. The method described a technique that gave the affect of multiple light sources (similar to what can be achieved with a full studio), with only one actual light.

It is only really usable on still life, as it involves taking 4 or more of the exact same shot, with the only movement being that of the light source. Later, the shots are combined in post processing, and adjusted to reach a perfect balance of lighting on the subject.

I photographed Neville the Neurotic Giraffe, a toy I picked up from Urban Attitude for the bargain price of $4. The 4 initial shots were as follows:

I then overlayed all four, and applied a screen blending mode. With careful adjustment of the levels of each individual layer, my final result was as follows:

Yes, it's hardly studio perfection, but I thought it was not too bad. I will do a few things differently next time, I think too much light fell on the background in all four shots for example, but quite a good result, given the setup below.


EDIT
A week later, I realised I made the mistake of not dropping the camera down 2 stops for each photo, to cut out some of the extra light. I tried it again with this very cool Lucky Beer bottle, which is in the shape of a smiling buddha. The below image was done with 5 photographs, including one that only had the black card behind the bottle lit. I then used hue/saturation, to give colour to the background.

It was quite tough to light, as all the angled glass reflected a lot of light. Still, I thought the overall effect was pretty cool.

Annie and the Sailboat

I had a quiet afternoon in today, to organise some old photo's on my computer. Whilst doing so, I found this image of my partner, taken almost a year earlier.

I hadn't thought too much of it at the time, and was about to move it into the duds file, when I decided that maybe it was worth seeing what I could do with it.

I thought, given the focus issues, that it might be worth going for a vintage feel, so I began playing with the curves and levels, giving it a polaroid-esque feel. With Annie still quite dark, I then did some dodging and burning to even it out a bit. Satisfied that I had improved the image I stopped there... almost.


I don't know what it was, but I decided I wasn't quite done yet. I did a bit of research on textures that I would be able to apply to give my image a bit more punch, and found playingwithbrushes on flickr. Playingwithbrushes has a large variety of textures that he has created, that he is offering for free usage to anyone who needs them. I decided that this texture would be perfect to complete my look, and after some further dodging and burning, and a creative layer mask, I had my final result. I was satisfied that this photo looked like it was taken before my partner was even born, and stored in the back of a wardrobe until now, and very happy that I had made something of an image that was almost thrown away for good.
The bad news of all this, is that it has taught me to never to delete old photos. So much for keeping things organised!