Smile for the Birdie

Street...where would you be without the candidness of people. Like animals in their own habitat they do the silliest of things. This shot isn't silly...just think of the concept of a photographer taking a photograph of a person taking a photograph...sounds like some sort of perversion.

Anyway - the processing. I dropped this shot by 1 full exposure in Lightroom and then applied a preset called WOW-d_BnW_02...it's the most contrasty of the 10 WOW B&W presets. Then export to CS3. I applied a macro I developed to give the image some contreast. It involves creating a mask from a 50% gray layer and the background copy of the layer, then applying this as a mask to a curves adjustment (S-curve). I removed a couple of bits of white and then ran the white dropper from a curves layer onto the ladies scarf...this brought it up nicely.

I got the lasso tool and loosely marked around the edge of the image (press Alt when you're doing this and you can go off the side of the image too). I applied a 250px feather (that's why you go outside the edge of the image). Ctrl-J and you have a new layer made from the selection. Change the layer property to multiply and you have a selective vignette. Duplicate it if you like to increase the strength and play with the opacity (I used 2 layers with the second on 70% opacity).

But I had too much noise...the ladies face was splotchy. As always when I'm converting images to B&W I tend to get noise...not to worry. I ran the Octave sharpening routine (as previous blog entry) and removed the 500%/1 radius/50% layer and flattened the image. I then ran a noiseware removal piece of software to clear the image on a duplicated layer. They say you should do this before sharpening...it depends on the image. I would normally check for areas where definition was lost after noiseware removal but this was fine.

You can see the before/after on my site.

Yeee Haaaw!

I don't normally do colour street stuff but this was just perfect for the job. St Patricks day, 2009 on the streets of Wexford, Ireland. The reason I'm processing this one is because of a new sharpening technique that I picked up from Ciaran Whyte. It's called Octave sharpening where you copy the image 4 times as layers and change them to luminosity. You sharpen the first image to 500%, 0.5 radius and leave opacity of the layer at 100%, The second is 500%, 1 radius and 50% opacity of the layer. The third is 500%, 2 radius and 25% radius and the last being 500%, 4 radius and 12% opacity of the layer. The threshold in all of these layers sharpening is zero. You will have to play with the opacity and strength of these so I would suggest creating smart objects of each layer first. Then ultimately make an action from it as it does take a little time.

The size of the image here doesn't give the full extent of the technique but if you go to my site you'll see a bigger version and of course the original version. If you want any other information contact me.

You're screwed

I find competition brings out the best in your imagination and exercises the brain as well as the ability with the camera. A club competition coming up (May 25th) has the title "What the hell is that?" so I had to ge tthe thinking hat on. Did I get anywhere? No! The oul imagination had to rely on Flickr to boost it. I had seen an image like this on Flickr but I thought I'd bring it a bit further with a mirror and a couple of torches. Obviously these are screws...now that you've twigged the title. At first glance were you sure?

The 4 larger screws weren't wanting to play ball on this occasion. As they are so tall and I discovered that they were magnetised they would wobble and stick to each other before knocking down other screws. That's why there's only 4 of them.

A tight beam LED torch above the "silver" screws to the fromt as well as waving a wide angle beam torch side to side during the 4 second exposure helped to illuminate and add contrast. Will it do well? Only time will tell...

The original shot before some saturation boost and a few other tricks were applied can be seen on my site.

Hook Storm

Hook Head. Probably the most photographed landmark in the South East of Ireland. I've a pain in my face trying to get a different angle on it that hasn't been seen before but I suppose many people have. You look for a sunrise, a sunset, a funny looking sky, a night shot. Then a storm comes along. It's particularly nice when you leave home with a bit of a wind blowing only to get to a destination like Hook Head and the Wrath of God has been unleashed.

The image above - I was wondering how close I could get to see the wave breaker rise alongside the tower. There were several that came the same height as the lighthouse itself but I was cleaning spray from lenses at the time. Just after this shot was taken there was another wave coming in. I could see it'd be a biggie...I focused on the tower...then it hit. All I saw was a wall of white water bouncing back in my direction wetting and my A700 in the process. I didn't take any more shots.

The process for the image above was to create 3 images in Lightroom and transfer to CS3 to get a balanced image. Then convert the image to B&W, some burning/dodging of the waves, a little distortion straightning and a slight vignette in Lightroom at the end...then some last minute dust sopt and seaweed removal for good measure. You can see the original image on my site.

Ansels Ivy

Ansel Adams had a way with imagery. He had an eye for an image which is always a good start. He had a passion for his art. But what I rremember his images for best was his ability to draw out the tones in an image. He was a master in the darkroom. I managed to get a hold of one of his books, "Ansel Adams, 400 Photographs" a couple of years ago in Waterford City for the knockdown price of €40. At first I thought what a waste of money that was. Then I had second look, and a third. Nothing exceptional in the book but how he took the normal, everyday stuff and presented it soon became addictive. It was images like Dogwood that set me on the trail of the simple shots.

Ansel could pull out the best of a Black and White image. It's easy to say it can be done nowadays in Photoshop or other processing software...not so.

This image was of a green ivy (Duh!) and I used the B&W layer in CS3 to give it a start. The ivy was never going to bounce from the image due to the fact that the trunk had a hint of green too...let's face it, it's a tree. So what I did then was to create a mask from the image itself and create a black layer, then used the mask to boost the blacks (after inverting the mask).

This was fine but didn't bounce the ivy so I had to take the normal route of hitting the highlights with the dodge tool and hitting the midtones with the burn tool. A little vignette when brought back into Lightroom helped to emphasise the isolation of Ansels Ivy. The original of the species can be seen on my website. If you want clarification on any points just place a comment below and I'll gladly oblige.

My favourite colour is not blue

Culletons Gap...near Curracloe where Saving Private Ryan was filmed...well, the opening sequence anyways. I'm not too fond of colour images. Lately I've been pushing them just to get familiar with methods on post processing for colour. Particularly seascapes. This one was going to be an entrant into a competition on Photography Ireland but I decided to go on another tangent alltogether. I liked this one but there's definately something amis. Maybe that's why I like it. It's a funny game, this photography lark.

By the way - all posts in this blog have been predminently blue...it's not intentional...my favourite colour is not blue.

The Gannet Island

Saltee Islands off the coast of Wexford, Ireland. We took a trip to the island early July 2008. It's a spectacle at the best of times and many of the group were quite happy to try to capture the beauty of the island and try also to capture an image of a puffin. There were many.

But the island has something special. I said to Hauke Steinberg that the gannet colony was like Jurassic Park. First you get the smell...but you don't see any gannets. Then you come over the crest of a hill and you see a few strays flying by. Cresting the hill you are faced with the sight of an inlet in the cliffs that is decorated with thousands of nesting gannets. When he saw it he agreed - Jurassic Park.

These creatures are easily approachable and timid at the same time. On this day (when the image above was taken) the storms were passing which made for an incredible contrast to the colour of the gannets and the rocks.

Here's to 2009.

The Storm Cometh

Ever since I was young I've been interested in weather...especially storms. Nothing like a good thunder storm to liven the place up. My idea of a good holiday would be to  chase tornados in the US. Probably because I've already seen three of them. OK, not the US ones, just small Irish ones. I think they're called straw whirlwinds where frequently in calm summer months you'll see a whisp of straw shooting up from a field...harmless things. 

The best one was froma true storm one afternoon while at work. Looking out through a window where it was snowing, hailing, thundering...typical Ireland weather, I saw clouds rotating in the sky...then I saw a shot of water come up from a field. A JCB at the back of the factory moved in the wind, a 6' x 8' shed turned 90degrees, 2 rolling doors blew out and a car was damaged. Still tame though.

The image above was from an odd evening lately where thunder was forecast but not in the sunny South-East. This was a cloud formation coming in against the direction of the wind which normally indicates thunder. On this occasion it didn't so I have yet to capture a photograph of lightning. Some day...

popular demand

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The top two images I had taken on a lovely early morning in Rosslare Strand, Co. Wexford last March. Quite pleased with myself I was! The second image above was the first time that I used the polariser to lose the reflection on the water to see the home-made slipway in all its glory. I posted both of these on our Camera Club forum and the feedback was positive...but the calls were "I'd like to see the old rustbucket in next to the slipway".

So an hour of my life later and PS combined with a Trust graphics tablet I played God and moved the boat from one area 250 yards from whence it came to where you see it in the last image. Nothing special about the move other than a lot of fine detailed masking to remove the old background from the boat and place it in over the original green boat.

Sadly the response by one was "I'd like to see a green boat next to the slip". There ain't no pleasing some...

Whassa Blog

I've seen blogs, I've read you need one...but I thought...why? It only provides for the ramblings of the few to be queried by the many. But when it's free...then why not.

I'm hoping to get this updated frequently and with sensical comments and additions...couldn't guarantee it but we'll give it a go.