The Making of a Fine-Art Print 'Man, Lantern and Orange Wall'

I am once again in San Miguel de Allende and for the last 2 weeks I've been like a young boy running around in a large candy shop. It feels great to be back and there have been so many favourite places to visit and most importantly eat some great food.  I have managed to photograph some new scenes and these will be the subject of future articles.

Last year I photographed the image below from the section of the Casa Mission on Cerrada de Pila Seca which is only a walking street that runs behind Cafe Monet. I was initially struck by the strong primary colors, the lantern and its shadow and the texture on the wall, but when I printed it, it seemed to lack something to give it extra punch. Some extra texture.

Man, Lantern and Orange wall   12” x 16.5”

Final image with texture added

I tried several generic textures that I had on file, mostly splatter type patterns but none provided the effect that I wanted. Not that I knew what I wanted but I felt that when I saw it, it would feel right.

From the article title you may wonder about the man. If you look closely at the image you should be able to see a man walking in amongst tall bare trees and their branches. It is subtle and that's what I wanted but it's there in the image. Only by accident, I decided to try other B&W images that were actual images. I came across one image with a man walking amongst tall trees and when I overlaid on colorful wall image it worked for me.

In the detailed close-up below the man becomes clearly visible.

The print I made is 12” by 16.5” and to all I showed the print, no one could see the man. In fact, several people showed other areas that they thought was man, which became an added twist to the print.

The overlay photograph is shown below.

A fine-art photograph is about what inspires you. It not about what others are doing with their art or what people think is right or wrong.

Don't be intimated with experimenting or concerned that others don't get it. If you like the results and it provides meaning for you then it's a perfect piece of art work.  With so many people on the planet you can be sure that there will be some that find your work inspirational.

When I printed my final proof photograph which I keep around to ensure that my impressions don't change, one was immediately spoken for.

This photograph is printed on 300 gram, 13” x 19:, Ilford pearl paper. Usually, I tend to print on textured fine-art matte/watercolor paper but this image called for more vibrancy in the colours.

My prints are limited within a series and these are normally sets to 5. If I do another series they will be different in some form, either paper selection and other tonal attributes or printed larger. But any future series will  be sold  at a price that is higher by a reasonable margin than the highest price for the previous series.

2 prints, unframed,  are currently available at the

Orange Gallery   near the Parkdale market in Ottawa

It's just a coincident that the major color of this print and the art gallery are the same.

Niels Henriksen

Playful Indulgences with Adobe Pixel Blender for Photoshop

Sometimes I just find I have a need to play. Not the sand lot type, even though that might be fun, but more along the lines of creativity with my artworks. With painting I can just slop the wonderful colors around and see what happens but clean-up is more effort. But with photography it's not always as easy.

I could throw my camera up in the air with a timed shutter and see what happens, but I am afraid of dropping it and then seeing a lot on money becoming dust on the ground with a broken camera.

Digital editing allows me that freedom and the only cost is my time. Definitely less risky.

I came across a video that shows the use of an Adobe Labs plug-in for Photoshop CS 4&5 called Pixel Bender. Being also a painter I was more interested in the oil painting effects as demonstrated with the image I 'bent' below. I may take this further as I will need to get rid of those bright white objects at the top of frame to make this image useful.

The above image was run once in pixel bender to give texture in the parrot, but I found that the remaining detail was all too much the same and still too fine in detail for the background. I masked out the parrot, used the blending too to see if this would help. Not much, so I ran pixel bender again on several iterations on just the background to get the final image above. I didn’t realize until later that the smudging of texture actually added to the larger texture in pixel bender.

One again for above image I ran pixel bender to get the effect for the chairs and table and then playing around with iterations on just the background and with the smudging tool to get a less contrasty detail here.

In trying to use other images to see how they worked it became apparent that for it to work well there should be sufficient detail and contrast in image for it to produce better results. I also noticed that image size from 800 to 4,000 pixels each had different effects. The largest brush size was 15 pixels and with the large images the effects became smaller. 

The 2 photos of the fall scene are identical except for image resolution. The above was 1,000 pixels wide and below was 4,000+ wide

It's easy to see the difference in effects. For the smaller image I even had tor reduce the brush size so as not to over-dominate the bending effect.

From the experiments, or is it playing around, I noticed that when areas were smudged in linear or curved arches it increased the detail effects to make them larger as in the parrot's background and with the same fall scene but with smudging on the trees in image below.

These may not be exactly to your taste but if you are digitally creating painting-type images then by combining different effects for areas within the photograph, a more pleasing painting effect can be created. It is important for any effect type that there be variation in texture detail, size and contrast, like a real painting to create harmony and vision flow within the image.

The most important aspect is to create images that you like and not for others and that you have fun doing this. While I was playing around I completely lost track of time which for me is a sign that my creative juices are really flowing and I'm exploring new avenues.

Please send me some links if you have any digital creations that were just fun and you enjoyed the outcome.

Niels Henriksen

Are You Being Creative outside of Photography

In most arts lots of practice and if varied does improve your skills and as in photography you need to take many and I do mean many photographs. I do believe you need to be able to see differently.

Being creative, seeing new possibilities in your mind, imagining, also requires lots of practice. There is no formula, like camera settings, that allows you to press and get the perfect picture. This is something that you need to visualize. By not only being creative with your camera, but in post-processing, painting or drawing, gardens or even creating paths in the woods, you will be able to see more with your camera. This playing around gives more space for your imagination to grow.

My stay in San Miguel de Allende did influence my painting style as I decided to try a series of 6 painting about cacti. I wanted each to be slightly different but about the same subject. 

This was more about playing with colors

This is really a succulent but close enough for me.

Each painting  is a 16” x 20” oil on canvas.

Cacti have a lot of greens and this series was about using different greens with complimentary colors.

Photographs were all used as reference material as there are no cacti here in Ottawa. At least non outdoors that I can paint from.

 This image above still needs some minor changes.

Each are different as I hoped and some seem to work better than others. That's the joy of experimenting. You're not quite sure how it will turn out.

The one thing that became very apparent is that oil colours, at least the saturated mixed, could not be captured with a 12 bit sensor. Non of these photos show the true vibrancy of the real paintings.

This is now something to strive for when printing photos. To somehow still have a bright luminance reflect off the photo. This is mostly about contrast and an easy method to create the allusion is to darken and mute color in surrounding areas. There may also need to be some softening to add a bit of glow effect.

Niels Henriksen

SOFOBOMO 2011

Once again for those who enjoy creative and fun challenges the Solo Foto Book Month (SOFOBOMO) is about to start for its 4rd year. The only downside being that you didn't have a stimulating time.

Well there may be a little stress but this is only self induced by thinking that this project just has to be perfect. After having participated in the last 2 years, the advice I give here is to relax a little, have fun and do enjoy the discovery of telling a story in book of photographs.

You can register and get lots of great information and even view previous years submissions at SOFOBOMO website.

As with most challenges there are some rules but these help to contain the effort to a manageable level.

Red and White Boats from SOFOBOMO 2010 “A Walk around the Pond'

The photos must be taken within the month of July.

Within 30 days of the first photographs taken and used in Book, the e-book (PDF etc.) must be completed.
There is always some planning and testing before your official launch date. Never constrain yourself if you don't have to.

There must be at least 35 images that you took during the 30 days.
For the most part, straight forward but there is some guidance I can give.

White Magnolia tree from SOFOBOMO 2008  'The Land and the River

My own approach is to plan as follows:

Pre-start is about planning your shoots. What  equipment you will use, locations and any weather constraints, time-of-day for sun angles to light objects.

1st week to get out and get the images. For many who work during the week you could assign both weekends to this.

2nd week for photo selection and editing. You need to tell a story in images.

3rd week to layout the book and write a few words if you want but not required.

This gives you an extra week at the end to overcome any problems, like needing more images or more time in the other parts that always seems to go astray.

The key item for me is that I am not trying to create a book that will sell millions or even 10s, but a book that I will enjoy and in the process learn more about what it takes to make a book.

Part of undertaking the SoFoBoMo project is to enjoy the process and learn to be flexible in your approach. There are always some things that will pop up that causes a change in the course. If you enjoy what you are doing and are not concerned with what others are achieving or how they will view your book, then adapting should be part of the excitement and not a frustration. 

Garlic bud in light tent form SOFOBOMO 2010 'Food at My Table'

Remember that any planning work and getting equipment and tools together is not part of the 31-day window. Take your time now to get it all right, because you can start anywhere within the month of July and this will help you out later on.

I find it’s best to have a back-up theme, while probably not as good as your first choice, it will allow you to complete the book should something unforeseen happen with the first idea. Completing the book is more important than how super your images are.

I have more detailed advice in the following link below

10 Great Photography Projects SOFOBOMO


This is a great project and challenge and I strongly encourage everyone to make a stab at it.
You just might end up with a good book that you could publish and hand out at Christmas or other celebrations.

Niels Henriksen

Experimenting with Photoshop – Hand Coloring

I had originally prepared an article on a useful iPhone app that tells you exactly where the sun is at any location on the earth, any time of day. After writing the article, I tried to find its web site to get specific details only to found out that this app is no longer available on the iTunes store.  Strange as it is, it's still loaded on my phone. There is another program (Photographer’s Ephemeris) that is very similar and maybe even a bit better but it is not free however, the PC version is free, which I have.


Therefore, I thought I would show some of the experimenting I performed with photo-editing.

The original idea was to convert an image to grey scale and then by using duo-tone features, hand color (mask in) specific objects or areas within the image.
I also wanted to change the colour warmth or coolness differently for the shadows and highlight for each objects so that the colour tone was not uniform in hue for the entire object. Naturally a 3 level duo-tone works well, but only good for one shot so to speak.  Can't add different tone sets to different sections of image.  The solution was to create copies for each tone set and combine them into one image and masks for each sections. In the grassy area I cooled the greens. For the yellows this worked great as it also changed any green hue in the top leaves to yellow. For the red sections I saturated and cooled slightly the shadow and mid-tones to better match the now brighter top section.

The original photo is below.

Each color layer was an individual tri-tone that was copied to this file.

It was a bit cumbersome using the duo-tone function so, for the next grey-tone image, which has clear defined detail, I used the color blend mode to add color. Then with the sliders on each layer I was able to adjust for the shadows, mid-tones and highlights for the same mask .

Tri-tone for wall, duo-tones for jacket, pants, door frame and sidewalk.
You may surely wonder that this is a lot of work for “how-much” benefit and I tend to agree. This was foremost an experiment and I love playing around to see the type of effects I could archive. The thing I like is that all the shadows have cooler hues than the mid-tones.

I now know that in the future some of these steps may be added to certain types of images, especially like the first image.

Leave a link if you have done anything similar or even something strange with your image editing.

Niels Henriksen

Book Review - Learning to See Creatively

I was quite fortunate that just as I was starting the 10 part series on Great Photography Projects, Amphoto Books contacted me through Random House and asked if I would be willing to review one of their books. (see disclaimer at bottom)

Since I am a big fan of books, especially picture books, this was a no brainier.  I selected the book, ‘Learning to see Creatively’ which I thought would tie nicely in after the last series of those project articles.

Book title:  Learning to See Creatively – revised edition

Design, Color &; Composition in Photography

Author: Bryan Petterson

160 pages – soft cover

ISBN 0-8174-4181-6

The first task with any Photo book, especially one that discusses design and composition, is to determine if it has a good repertoire of excellent images. That is what I thought when I made my first scan through the pages. The images made me want to stop and check out the pages. This is what a good photo book should do.

My wife had the same feelings when she leafed through and commented how great the photos were.

I will briefly describe the focus of each chapter and what I think is the level of skill needed for the reader. At the end I will give a summary and my rating.

As the book’s author states “This is not a book about metering for the right exposure or setting the right f-stop and shutter speeds…. This is a book about ideas” but he does provide the lens and camera settings for each image taken.

Expanding Your Vision

This chapter examines how various lens categories such as; normal 50mm, wide-angle, full-frame fisheye, street zooms, telephoto and macro each affect how the subject and backgrounds interact at the various focal lengths.

There is no design formulae on when to use a lens, not sure there really is one, but the author does discuss when and where to use these variety of lens and provides examples why he selected a lens for his images.

Elements of Design

As the title indicates, this chapter deals with the compositional elements such as lines, shape, form, texture, pattern and colour to assist the photographer in creating striking images. While this is basic material, the author provides good images to help convey a compositional element.  Also as a benefit in this chapter and all the others the author uses several framing versions of the same subject to demonstrate how a design element in one of the variants of the subject makes image compositionally stronger.

Composition

This chapter discusses techniques, such as ensuring the Subject Fills the Frame, Rule of Thirds, Odd Number and Preference for 3, Horizon, The Right Third, Diagonals, Frame Within a Frame, Horizontal Format vs. Vertical.

It also examines that there may a better picture within a picture, working your subject and as always breaking the rules.

The Magic of Light

In some ways it is true that light is magic and the author shows us how the same scenes can go from ordinary to stunning by just waiting for the right light, not time of day, but the way the subject, foreground and background are lit.

Digital Photography

This is the only section that I had some difficulty with. First, as with most things electronic, certain information becomes very dated very quickly. I believe keeping the technical specs and comparisons to the weekly or monthly media format because in a book, in just a few years some of the comments may almost seem ludicrous. He also focuses on 4 very rudimentary digital editing but not in the traditional darkroom styles (dodging, burning, contrast).

The author has taken many great images almost exclusively with film and I believe this chapter would be better if he focused on the differences and similarities between the mediums, ie: Positive film behaves more like a digital camera, the merits of medium and large format cameras, HDR to exceed the dynamic range of even B&W film, sticking to increase actual file size. 

Career Considerations

This section is very limited in content.  Very basic and mainly limited to ensuring you can adapt to change and having a fresh portfolio to address trends.

Introduction and Index are also included.

Summary

The Digital and Career sections fall really short even for the most basic of needs.

Otherwise the book is very well written and have a good use of images to demonstrates key points.

The author does suggest 4 specific exercises to help you see differently with your camera and lens and for novices these would be good opportunities to explore.

Taking more photos is really the only method to get better.

Overall I enjoyed the book. The fact that the author uses 2 or more compositions of the same locations really helps to demonstrate the key element being discussed.

The photos are great and I would think that readers at any level would find some images that inspire you to try new approaches or subjects. 

Best Audience – novice, maybe progressing to DSLR type camera (as better control of shutter speed and aperture is needed to achieve the author’s results, who wants to improve the success rate with WOW images or is thinking about entering photography competitions and who has not already taken any photography design courses before.

Recommended

My Rating   3.75 out of 5

While 2 chapters are weak, they are not really needed to cover the theme of book.

I enjoyed reading the book.

The list price is $25.95US and $32.0 CDN.  This book can be purchased new for under $18US on web sites and this is the price I use to factor the rating.

The rating is established for the targeted audience and is not meant for the more experienced photographers.

Learning to See Creatively at Amazon

Disclaimer:

I have not received any monies or other favours, other than receiving this book, as a result of this review for either of the 2 companies or their affiliates.

The book is being donated to the Camera Club of Ottawa, of which I am a member.

Niels Henriksen

10 Great Photography Projects - Find Yourself a Mentor or Coach

This topic may seem a little strange for a photography project, but with every project, there is an objective to be completed and it does have a fixed duration.

Note: Free offer listed at end of article.

 Would you take a course form this guy?

I am heavily focused on some burnt window frames

In this series, I have tried to provide a list of activities, projects if you will, that might help you move your photographic, interests, skills, desires in a new direction that could open new possibilities to create interesting photographs.

Difficulty: easy if you deal well with people and can take constructive criticism about your work and not personalize the meaning of the comments.

Most of the projects I have discussed deal with self-promotion, self-drive and self-learning. If that self-part is not fully on your side, then as with many projects, they sometimes fail and fizzle out. It’s not that people don’t want to learn new things but sometimes we are stuck at a place mainly because of un-surety. 

This is where a mentor or coach can help you overcome any difficulties with your progression. Part of the problem with self-learning is that we expect too much from ourselves. Somehow we feel smart and engaged and yet some progress seems slow or almost non-existent.  We also tend to doubt our abilities, especially when we are bombarded with the wealth of great photos on the web and therefore may not notice any real progression we are making.

Most feedback is either “great” from friends in their attempt to be supportive but not really helpful. On other parts of the web there are only snippets of almost the same, or comments deal with generalities but not well suited to your photos and what you are trying to achieve.

Compositional rules are great but they are only guidelines and for any subject the artistic needs to understand where and how to apply the rules.

The other part with self-learning is that we also tend to take on too much work and complexity in hurrying to the end goal when many times the goal is only an end point and the journey was the interesting part.

This is where a mentor or coach can help you unravel the learning mess and systematically help you progress one step at a time.

What makes a good Mentor or Coach?

First and foremost, technical skills is not the key ability. It does help to understand the problems you are having here and be able to make corrective suggestions, but there are so many books and web articles available, this can be easily corrected once you understand  where you are not achieving your goals.

We all have a style, genre and areas of expertise. How well does the mentor’s own photography reflect your goals. If you like landscape, then a portrait photographer may not be the best, but if they are truly open it may work because its about the ability to help someone, not to dictate your own style.

A good coach listens first. In fact, needs to listen a lot. It is only by understanding the persons ideas and vision that a coach can help you progress.

The second part to good listening is to ask a lot of questions because you can’t solve what you don’t understand.  The experienced mentor or coach knows how and what questions to ask, and in the right order. Normally, the questions he asks will help the person arrive at their best solution (a lot like a trial lawyer).

A good mentor or coach will advise on the best steps to help the individual progress and the key here is that they will recommend steps that almost always guarantees success.

My own feelings are I would rather have you take 50 small successful steps to get to your goal than you trying 50 times with one big step, because most likely, you will quit before you try 50 times.

A good coach or mentor doesn’t blame you for any slow progress as we all learn at different rates. But at the same time, a coach will also not let you give excuses for not getting there. There are only facts and these are neither right nor wrong but information to help correct the approach.

I would rather have someone tell me that either they were too tired that week, just couldn’t figure out how to get going, wasn’t motivated, than telling me they were too busy to get something done.  Remember, there should be no blame but to understand the problem someone is having. New methods can’t be tried if we don’t know what to correct.

A good mentor or coach is flexible to the changes life throws at us. I am reminded that life is what happens between the plans we make.

My Offer for a free Mentorship Program to Blog Readers

For 2 persons, I will provide a photography mentorship program for about a 6-month period.  During this time I estimate I will be spending approximately 20+ hours of per person. You will most likely be spending a lot  more but I'm I OK with that. You should at least commit to 10hrs a month.

At my standard hourly rate, these types of services would make this about a $500 value.

My experience

For the last few years I have been providing these services to IT employees to help them become more successful with their work activities and career growth (my field of expertise is large-scale IT project management with a heavy focus on finding solutions to problems that develop).

With my local camera club I have provided instructional courses, and assistance with individual members over limited periods.

What I need from you

I need you to tell me about your current aspirations and in what areas you are having difficulty. I would like to see a portfolio of your images, and for at least 5 of them, to describe what you are trying to achieve or what story you want the image to convey.

Where you live (city and country) as this helps understand photo opportunities available.

How will it work?

I will listen to your goals and after a review of photos and questions about your style we will select an approach that will work for you. At least once a month there will be a review as to how the current approach is working and fine-tune as needed. During each month, depending on you schedule and free time, I will suggest photo assignments to examine certain growth areas and you will need to submit about 5 images that you feel are working, for review and which I will critique against the current goal(s).

You are free at any point to ask any questions.

Ideally I would like the ability to be able to talk directly (skype or other free service) to you as email is great for conveying facts but many times it is only by talking and exploring in real time that answers are solved.

Contact me via email, which can be obtained on this blog site. (I try to limit my email address as much as possible in articles to reduce spam).

This offer will remain open until I find 2 suitable candidates.

Niels Henriksen

10 Great Photography Projects - Explore Your Pet Peeve

The meaning of passion is well understood and it is not like an emotion? What stronger emotions are then, than those that annoy, frustrate and generally get in our way of doing what we do. Could that emotion not drive you to create a unique view on what may seem to most people to be acceptable or at least a bearable necessity?

Difficulty: Easy. It’s the couch time that’s harder.

While reading an article on The Online Photographer blog Mike starts off with:

“Here's a modest suggestion for a self-assignment. If you have a "peeve pathology," as defined in the previous post...explore it. Embrace it. Work with it. Emphasize it and exaggerate it. See what you can do.”

 and I found this “explore your peeve” idea intriguing.

The story had mainly to do with some photographers being overly obsessed about noise, level horizon, fringing, etc, and these are all good worries in their own right, but why not embrace with a wider panorama.

Take a look at those life’s nuances and describe the feeling you have about it. See if others can understand what irritates you.

Find a theme or subject(s) that irritates, infuriates, or frustrates you. It can be interactions in everyday life, technology and tools, the weather or anything that rattles your clam.

In a storybook approach, describe in simple terms what makes up this frustration and more importantly how you feel about it. It may be complex so that it will require several interactions or analysis with events  to understand.

Unfortunately this is not a study I have done and for this article I went through my archives to see if I had any photos that work with my pet peeve.  Can you guess from the image below what it might be?

The Camera was set to timer mode and placed on monopod and raised above my head.  That line of crown seems to vanish into infinity. Absolutely no end in sight. Except for the people’s faces, I darkened all the other tones to create a heavier mood.

As you might imagine my pet peeve would be standing in large lines or crowds. In fact, it might be more of an obsession or mania because I tend to plan all such outings to happen at times when crowds thinner than the proverbial hairs on a bald head.

How to convey in a photo an object or scene as an irritant, when at the same time we are trying to make a good photograph, at least in the sense that it’s interesting. This is the harder part of the challenge.

By first describing in words this peeve we can get guidelines to help us contextualize out thoughts in photographic terms.

My own words would be; confining, encroaching, endless, impregnable, massive, no way out, dull, lifeless, edgy, fortress, distressing, murky, gloomy,

How I would approach my analysis of a pet peeve.

In my own case, large crowds are the problem; so taking a photo of a group of people in colourful outfits will not convey the correct mood and B&W will set the tone fittingly.

The feeling of confinement is felt by the narrow alley, massive crowd reinforced by all the poles and flags. The lady with her arms crossed makes this wall of people seem even more impregnable. I decided to leave the top of wires and poles in, as even here, there is no escape by flying away.

I would think photos of people parts cut-off, either at image borders or with object would make the people seem more out of place.  The place itself can be shown in a majestic and pleasing manner. It’s just the people somehow need not to fit right.

There should higher contrast and darker overall tones. Edgier.

If it’s a long line-up, then an indication of the length of line and maybe indicators of frustration in some of the people waiting in line.  A photograph of a long spiraling line-up, taken slightly above their head, showing the unending length of people in front of you, helps to reinforce this sense.

Do you get the feeling you are going the wrong way or swimming against the current?

Have any of you photos that somehow convey your feeling with a pet peeve and if so provide a link and your thoughts about this peeve.


Niels Henriksen

Update:

Brian Auer of Epic Edits Blog has just launched a new site for film photography at Feeling Negative and as with all his work it should be a great place to learn and participate.

10 Great Photography Projects - Create Photos that Nobody likes

Create these photographs on purpose, not by accident. There is a standard easy route and it is enjoyable to create good expectable photos that everyone admires. But do they really speak to what drives you as an artist? Find a subject, theme, or whatever and develop images that speak to you and that others just don’t understand. When this happens, you are creating your own art and this art is not always to be consumed by the masses.

Difficulty: harder than you think. There is this voice, or is it many, that seem to constantly guide to the safe and predictable routes.  Find the rebel voice and create your art. This means breaking the rules about composition. If you want subject small and in the center because it speaks about the isolation then this is what works for you.

The image below, while it does have shape and it may make you wonder about form, is all about the texture of the veins on the dead leaf.

Wings

Some banana leaves had dried on my indoor tree. The leaf had great texture but with the house background, didn’t work well.

This is a close up of leaf against interior wall before conversion to B&W above. The little bit of colour on wall is from a rainbow prism in window.

These new types of photos are meant for you and you alone. Freeing you from any sense of confinement or limit imposed by those wonderful masses.

At this stage you are no longer bound by standard convention of what is acceptable but by what drives your passion and creativity. You will be surprised that after a period of time, a theme or good collection of photos will emerge that you could probably hang in a gallery.

Rust on Water Wheel

I once asked a local junkyard owner (purveyor of historical charm) if I could photograph objects around the yard.   So much metal, rust, wooden objects and basically odd parts that it was like a candy store for kids.

To make this effort into a project, produce 10 final photos that you enjoy for whatever reason or desire.  The objects you are photographing could, because of the texture, patterns, lines and shapes, have hidden meanings and as a set it might unveil something. Take the image below as an example, which is some grate work in that refurbishing yard.

Grate Covers

There is a reaction I get from the pattern of lines and elongated holes. The split between the top 2 grates and the different texture of each create disharmony.

Round rings in rocks

The ring patterns formed in the Ottawa River, which were originally stone pillars, eroded down over the eons.

One of the challenge sessions at my camera club was to produce 10 photos on the word ‘Dark”.  The photo below was from one of the set and showed the handle on my old but still working barbecue. It doesn’t have to be pretty to fit a theme.

Black Barbecue

How about looking at a scenery from a different perspective.

The photo below is looking up at one beam of a steel covered train bridge.

Bridge with Many Angles

Some images, as with the blue coloured tubing and ceiling, if shown to your friends, they may politely say interesting or neat, but I am sure they just don’t comprehend why I might find this an interesting photograph.

Blue Industrial Ceiling

Even landscapes, done at what may seem resembling bad lighting, can have their own compelling moods.

Many Colours on Fall Pond

Niels Henriksen

Photographer Showcase

Darrell Larose

A Good friend and long time member (webmaster) of the Camera Club of Ottawa has now finally transitioned to the photo blogging sphere.  He does great portraiture photography and his latest articles demonstrate his talent.

The eyes have it

Human Form (note: nude content)

10 Great Photography Projects - Digital Play

Difficulty: Medium to Hard. It does require software to manipulate the digital photo files and then some skill with using these programs. Not all software can perform all the changes you want to make and it may require several programs.

Projects are normally synonymous with work but if done correctly, can and should be play.  In this article I will list creative ideas that you can use to structure a learning opportunity and at the same time make it playful.

Playing around is not normally a project so to make it one, take one or several of the suggestions and to try it on 5 to 10 images or try many images and try for 5 you like the final result.

When you play around long enough some better images will develop.  As a project try and get 5 or whatever number you want for each category or theme you want to play with.

The benefits:

The benefits for playing around with digital files will be to learn to see how colour and light re-act. Most of the adjustments being made will affect image contrast, colour hue and saturation and by observing how image focal points or interest as relationship to viewer changes as the image tones change.

This should lead to think more about compositions, light quality, its direction before a shoot and then how better to process and image to achieve the desired effect.

This is a lot easier than adjusting the real environment in front of you.

Hue & Sat Adjustments

In the above image the colours of the plant leaves (Yellow and Greens) were adjusted in ACR by using the Hue/Sat/Lum sliders before loading into Photoshop.

The below image was the final version I selected.

When doing selective color adjustments, I use this adjustment method the most as it has the expanded set of colours and by loading it as an object I can always go back and fine-tune any adjustment later on.

This range can also be created in the standard adjustment provided you could fine-tune each colour range to a tighter set.  See article

How to adjust any Colour of the Rainbow.

In this image of the house in the fields of Norway I was examining different solutions for making an 11”x14” printed image.  Again this was achieved by adjustment in ACR and then also using some versions with different blending modes.

In the above examples the changes were on a global scale without the use of masks.

Selective Color Adjustment

There are photos where there are central subjects but because of lighting or background colours the image doesn’t quite stand out. 

Changing the colour and tone of backgrounds can make for interesting combinations of effects.

The flowers are the original colour and the colour of just the background weed was changed. All the remaining greens were de-saturated as the original brighter now colour clashed with the orange leaves.

Changed the red of the hibiscus to blue, this contrast made the yellow seem brighter. All the reaming background was toned to a dark B&W.

This was a happy accident when I used a different blend mode. This looks really wonderful printed large on mat paper. The fine colours and shapes in the violet mass become more visible.

Grunge Overlay

The practice I enjoy the most is changing one of the layers blending mode and watching what happens. I tend to select the first mode and then with the down arrow just step through all the blending modes. Most results are too radical and more like pop art but there are parts that with opacity adjustments can produce interesting focal points for an image. Sometimes I use the layers property adjustments to reduce the tonal range for applied effect.

In the B&W and conversion I wanted the purple flower to be almost pure white and the tip of the spikes as dark as possible to emphasize their spikes. The thistle was placed against a grey background. I used several background layers set to darken mode to create a pattern which complimented the roundness of objects and the spike pattern with tiny whiter points.

Composite

With editing programs that allow you to add layers, overlapping 2 images or more and then combining them into a new scene can take you to a place that you have never been before.

This image was a combination of a large rock wall at the edge of a driveway and an image of a large pond on another part of the property.  The background image was chosen so that elements such as the rocks, cloud and sky shapes and tree branch clumps all re-enforce the shape of main boulder or rock face.

The sky was a perfect blue but that didn’t add to the more gothic mood of the clock tower and gargoyles. By replacing the clear sky with clouds, the mood of the whole image is tied together. I lightened a line from the top right towards the clock face to add visual movement. This was also complemented by slightly darkening the other 3 corners.

Negative images

There are certain images, mostly B&W that when the image is inverted it now forms a new unique image. 

These are only some suggestions as there are many other ideas to play with such day-to-night images etc.

The most important part is to play with the editing parts. See what develops and learn which images work best with desired effect.

I would love to hear your ideas and even see some of your images. Please post suggestions or link to any images you have made.

Niels Henriksen


Next Project: Get Your Rhythm Going