(no subject)

[pecunium]

I've been keeping myself alert during class by editing some photos. I can spend time working on them, while still paying attention to the lectures (the classes are things I done/taught), and chiming in when I feel the need. If I were to try typing, I'd lose myself. That takes more concentration that moving a slider, the stream of thought isn't interupted when I do something else. It's been good for me. There aren't as many sidetracking distractions. So I've figured out a lot more tricks, for getting the effects I want. There are several pictures in this post which are different treatments of the same image. My philosophy for darkroom manipulation, is to show what I saw when I took the picture. The other thing I try and do is evoke the time/place at which the picture was taken.

Hay Mower	Diving Bee This is a conversion to B&W, using LightZone
Diving Bee This is a different treatment, of the same exposure, aiming for a Tech-Pan look	Diving Bee When I tweak a picture I do it to try and recreate the way I saw it in when I took it.
Hawk, regardent Shot at CalPoly SLO. I was driving down from the swine unit on a cloudy day. I stopped, opened the sun-roof and stood in it to get the shot.	Grass Springtime in Calif.
Mantis She was on a wisteria I'm training for bonsai.	Mantis Same shot, adjusted; with Exposure, to emulate Fuji Provia.
Hovering Bee I love the way the camera both freezes motion, and (in cases like this) shows it. It doesn't look possible that something can just float in place, but we know they do. Photos somehow manage to show that moment of suspension.	Hovering Bee

Comments

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I LOVE GRASS SO MUCH! They're all great and so crisp and good DOF but BOY DO I LOVE GRASS. What gorgeous curves!

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Lovely photos! They're all great, but I especially liked the bee ones because I enjoy photographing bees too.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I like the work on the diving bee and the mantis. The hawk image is nifty; wish I had one that sharp. I like the use of negative space in the grass image.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The hawk has a small bit of cheating (and for prints I'll need to step it up some more, the paper removes some of the saturation).

I picked up the legs and nasal band, just a bit.

I've been struggling to get contrast for B&W conversions (it's the bane of digital photographers, B&W film is a digital medium, and B&W digital is an analog medium).

What I've found is that using LightZone, and stacking the channel mixing tool I can manage to get the response curves I want.

What I've not figured out is how to template that, so I can just make a single correction, and get the effect I want.

Waving grass is so much fun when it works. What I like isn't the negative space, per se but the reflective space of the bent grasses, and the slope of the hill. Maia was very patient (no, more than patient, she has more than once, insisted on stopping the car when I've made a comment about something in the distance) with me while I spent twenty or thirty minutes trying to find good pictures along that stretch of highway.

TK

[mesoterica.livejournal.com]

These are all great, but I'm particularly smitten with the hay mower - can't help thinking what a pretty icon that would make, too :)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

That's one I like, mostly.

I've been mixed about it. Some days I look at it and say, "enh!" with the feeling it's trite.

It's a study. Shape, form, pattern. A classic subject.

And it has themes; the primary red, yellow green; of additive color (what most people, who aren't photographers/graphic artists think of as "primary colors", there are stright line (re-enforced by the wire of the fence) as well as the counter-directional curves of the arms and the sweep-guides.

This image (at 72 dpi, and web-colors) is flat, the light is shallow and the contrasts vague. And that's why I have "enh" moments.

But when I see it larger, and in real colors, it's nice. I have to decide what paper to print it on. I think I want a matte, but I don't have a matte finish paper at larger than letter size.

Gotta spend money to make money.

TK