Taken in Mumbles in Swansea last weekend. I had an ND grad filter to darken the sky, and two solid 4 ND filters to slow the shutter speed to catch some wave movement.
I wish I'd had my wide angle lens with me, but it was a spur of the moment trip since I was already in Swansea working. It's not an amazing photo but it shows some progress for me.
This photo was done with the same set up - both using a sturdy manfrotto tripod. I played about with the RAW files a little to bring out the sand a little more but I still find both pictures a little dull overall. It wasn't so obvious in photoshop last night but the second one needs brightening.
Better res photos can be seen by clicking on the photos. Any advice on how best to manipulate the RAW files to improve the colours etc would be appreciated. Ad astra per aspera
I find that when I manipulate the colours for a bit, I forget what it ought to look like and loose my judgement on whether or not the manipulation has become too obvious and unreal. Ad astra per aspera
Ad astra per aspera
the wrought iron and weathered boardwalk planks really work well together and the purple highlights in the sky are gorgeous.
stunning, i'd give you a ten if i could. it's great to see your style growing over the months, what an eye you have... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I am still umming and ahing over whether or not to go out with the camera today. We've had rain and sunny spells so I may chance it. I have just cleaned all my leneses and formatted my memory cards. I have my all weather clothing ready so I have no real excuse not to go out. Ad astra per aspera
I ran back to the car and the sun came out in the distance. I didn't get any especially good photos but I'll stick a couple in here in a bit. Ad astra per aspera
then my camera died today, talk about the sunset effect!
it was a samsung techwin digimax S1000/kenox 10.1 mb, and i really liked it, though i hadn't got that deep into what it can do yet.
i'm uncertain whether to get another like it, or go for the 12.0 mb cameras that have come out since.
since most of what i try to capture is light effects, and i'm a complete dummy with manuals, i'd pay a bit more to have quality, but don't really need bells and whistles i probably get around to using.
any suggestions in the €2-300 range, anyone?
such a wonderful last day, though...
i had just mounted paddy today to go ride and two falcons started circling above me, quite low. i turned on the camera to grab some shots and it just lights up for a second then beeps at me, and the lens stays out.
gaah ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
it's moribund, there are flickers of response, but after 2 secs it dies. and yes i tried two fresh sets of batteries.
it's odd, because the lens cap had been jamming for a couple of months, i'd have to tap it for it to fully open, then i dropped it the other day, (first time), and the lenscap worked again.
2 more days of normal life then this...
RIP ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Click for larger
I also changed the tint towards the green a bit because the pink in the clouds didn't seem natural.
The white area under the other colors is just an indication of the proportion of black in the image.
Personally I dislike this tool since one can't tell what is really being changed. I would suggest you try to get the same corrections with the curves tool in the main area of photoshop.
There are way to achieve white balance as well as fixing the overall brightness and contrast. Unlike this tool the curve shapes give you a visual indication of what is being modified.
It takes a bit of time to master, but it is worth it, for images you want to look their best. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
Clicking with the middle (50% grey) eyedropper on the blue-ish hills in the distance tells Photoshop to white-balance to the opposite of blue-ish, which is this sepia, and then clicking with the white eyedropper in the brightest area, which is the cloud centre-left top. It's not quite the same as using a sepia filter or colorize.
If you try to find a more usual mid-grey you'll get a more accurate colour balance. There are auto-mask methods for finding the 50% level in a shot, but it's usually more fun to click around with the eye droppers at random to see what happens.
This is almost a photo magazine shot. You'd need an even longer exposure on the waves to make them even wispier, an even wider lens, and ideally you'd also need to take it at sunrise or sunset to make everything look dramatically pink or orange. This should be followed by even more dramatic Photoshop colour enhancement, until you get something that looks like a rather poetic episode of Star Trek, where the sky is bright pink and misty and the clouds are made of hydrogen.
I'm not suggesting any of these are a good thing, but it's the kind of style the mags seem happy to print rather a lot of.
I'd rather:
which is a slightly less familiar crop, but I think it still captures some of the essence of the scene.
http://robertdfeinman.com/tips Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
Then I make layers that emphasize these differences - such as a layer to bring out the detail in the rocky cliffs by lifting brightness just in these areas that I have selected by the magic wand. Or distinguishing between the sea/sky and the beach/rocks and making one cooler and one warmer. I used about 6 layers here and then played with the transparency of the layers - most of them just a few percent opacity. So I make raw decisions and then fine time them interactively.
The decisions are always based on telling a story that the audience will accept. The better you know the particular audience, the better you can tell the story.
IMO there is no such thing as a 'true' photograph. You can't be me, I'm taken
IMO there is no such thing as a 'true' photograph.
Acceptance of distortion (starting from the framing) is entirely dependent on the audience - even if the audience is you ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
Art is, after all, a very precise coordination of mind + eye, plus tool and medium. Serendipity can also play a part - like Japanese calligraphy - but serendipity born of the tools, not of the mind. You can't be me, I'm taken
I managed to bring out some details not seen in the original ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
When you frame a shot you are translating your total experience of an event, or moment in time, into a narrow channel that not only excludes all the other senses, but also excludes 95% of the spherical moment that you inhabit.
The camera, lens and image capture system that you pick up, is already an intrusion into the total reality of theat moment. If you then make a slight adjustment to contrast and colour of that image, you have already further distorted sensual 'reality'. You can add a lightning strike - that is also distortion. This addition is obvious here, since the original from which it is derived is presented also. But in another situation - sitting in a photo library? Is it real or is it not?
The key is, of course, the audience. What do they accept? How do they react? What have they seen before? Have they had a similar experience to which they can compare?
Just taking a photograph is manipulation. I don't see any difference between the moment (the sketch) and any manipulation that may come later (the work) You can't be me, I'm taken
It is all art. The story depends on you if the audience is zero (just yourself), and also depends on you if the audience is one million. I don't see how the money comes into it. You can't be me, I'm taken
i put it into iphoto and it looked better to me already. i went to the pic by clicking on it and 'borrowed' it from there.
there's a lot of beautiful, interesting textures going on in this pic, but the light was too dull to bring out the richness of the colours, especially the warm brown of the sand.
the frozen splitsecond of the foam, for instance, and the glimpse-of-infinity in the dark water at the left, midway up, above it.
i did a little tweaking, with contrast and sharpness mostly, to bring out the character of the clouds.
hope it comes through ok... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I wouldn't have sharpened though - or at least not on the stones on the beach. You can't be me, I'm taken
the only thing that was stopping it come through for me was a washy diffused greyness, which had a banalising effect, imo. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I just adjusted the levels in Photoshop and hit the autocolor button. And out came this. Levels was the biggie.
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