Flickr Update for Niels Henriksen

Just a short note to let my readers know that I have reached 10,000 plus viewers on Flickr.

So a little jump for joy.

While for many this may not be momentous, for all those who have photos on Flickr, it is a step for me in trying to get more exposure for my photographs. While I joined in 2007 I did start to add image until a couple of years ago after my first trip to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.

F/24 @ 1/6 sec

I like this image because it takes a moment to figure out that this is a person on a bike jumping, flying through the air in a skateboard park.

 F/16 @ 1/250 sec

These photos are 2 examples where controlling the shutter speed is important. In the first photo a slower shutter speed is used to blur action and the other photo a faster shutter speed to freeze it. Do take the time to drop by and view some of my images and do take the time to connect on Flickr so that I can view your photos.

 You can view my photo-stream here .

Niels Henriksen

Photographing Metal Sculptures and Art Objects

I had the opportunity to photograph metal artwork for an artist friend who lives near Lynhurst Ontario. For those unfamiliar with this little village, it is about 45 km north of Kingston Ont. along Hwy 15.

Noah, the metal-sculpture artist, has a large manicured estate with a man-made pond that is just perfect to have his animal based artworks scattered all about. Almost like seeing a herd of deer in the fields. In fact I did mange to see one deer at the edge of his lawns. But having a couple of Noah’s dogs playing around me meant that I could not get close enough to the deer for a great shot.

The reflections on the screen worked to create great contrast with the darker pond water, which meant I didn’t have to do much to have the artwork stand out. Just moving about for greatest contrast. I cropped the right wind since it's a mirror of the other and including it would make it appear smaller.

Most of his sculptures are made out of scrap metal parts and therefore, for the most part, tend to have a dull rust color. Dark and mid-tone oranges do not usually stand out well against bright green fields.

Even the biker (bicycle and motorcycle) sculptures that have figures on them have muted tones in their clothing. To make them stand out better I desaturated the greens, as with the above example, to an almost grey tone to give the figures more prominence. There are 5 of these along the front near the road.

Some artworks, like the bug series below, are painted, but even here we still need to have darker background (hedge in shade) to give more punch to the colors.

Even in the above image with its strong yellow and reds, the green has been slightly muted.

Most of the bug pieces have long insect like legs but if you include the whole art piece then the main body parts become very small in the photo. Focus on the main sections but include just enough of other parts to give context to photo.

For some images I wanted the distortion created by a wide angle lens, where objects nearer are larger and distant objects becomes smaller than reality, to change the perspective in how we view the artwork.

I had to use HDR on the photos where I was looking up and a bright sky was behind the sculpture. In the above photo the rust is made more vibrant and the green and blue colors muted a bit.

I now know that I need to come back again when the sun is near the evening horizon so that for some sculptures the shadows will add to create a larger subject.

Who couldn't love this old Flintstones type car.

Some close-ups to focus on the texture of the artwork.

And finally a photo for the biker in all of us.

Many of his artworks can be seen on Noah's Metal Art and he also has a link with the Frontenac Arch Biosphere

And here's the photo of the deer in the field.

Niels Henriksen

Sections of Buildings in San Miguel de Allende

The photos displayed in the blog article focus mainly on parts or sections of buildings in San Miguel. While some photos, such as the image below, are clearly understood.  The rest have more of an abstract genre and for these the lines become the main compositional elements.

Within the city, the walls along with the sidewalks are continuous, except for the odd entrance to an inner courtyard or alley way.  In the photo above, this wall is most likely not part of a house, but used more as a high fence to an inner courtyard. Inside could be a rubble heap or a grand garden and fountain. Never knowing what you'll find behind these walls is one of the intriguing aspects of San Miguel.

On the  walls in the courtyard of Bellas Artes (the National Institute of Fine Arts)  these lanterns hang on the abutments on the adjacent walls. The darker brickwork along these abutments were darkened and made more gritter to enhance the texture of the lanterns.

This image is from the same courtyard of Bellas Artes, the photo above with the lanterns, but here I'm looking from across the street and the 3 curved protrusions are form the top of the outer wall.

Atotonilco is a UNESCO world historic site (church) about 20 mi out of San Miguel. It's only a short distance from here to the Hots Springs which is a favourite spot for many people in San Miguel. On Saturdays in the village (50 people)  there are many street vendors  selling unique religious objects.

Within the core of San Miguel is a Bull Fighting Ring. Only a few blocks from the central square (el Jardin) of the town. In the photo above you can just see the top the homes which abut to the walls all around the Bull Ring.  There were no events or spectators on this day and this allowed me to take photos of the beautiful curved lines of a circular bull ring.

While walking around I just couldn't resit this bit of abstraction with the 2 different lanterns and their corresponding shadows.

Niels Henriksen

Alien Skin Exposure 4 Photographic Software Review

There is nothing more wonderful than exploring new tools or ways for something you are passionate about.

 

A B&W Infra-Red (IR) processing of a red barn and green fields

What is the Purpose of this Software?
Exposure is an add-on photo-editing application for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Elements that provides almost a complete list of film types, both B&W and Color, for processing for the digital darkroom. I say almost as I didn't count the list of film types in this application and I don't even know all the films that have ever been made, but they sure seem to be all here.
 

'Sepia – blue Finish (modified)' setting with a layer set to 'Lighten' mode (31%) for an Expsure 4 ver. of 'Kodak HIE (Halation moderate)'

One test of software is to see how it feels right out of the box. A lot like taking a performance sports car for a test drive. You may not know everything about it but you know how to drive and turn corners.

I never read the manual first as I believe that a person with reasonable skills on the computer and with digital editing should know how to turn it on and drive around a little. 
 
Exposure 4 did not fail here. It was easy to install and when launched, the layout and buttons were intuitive. The only problem I had was that it was almost 2 hours later when I realized how much I had been playing with the different types of films.

How would I use this Photo-Editing Software?

Exposure 4 has a great repertoire of classic, vintage and just plain old films both in color and B&W. Combined with these types of film selections are the various processing adjustments you might make in a wet darkroom, such as contrast, toning, bleaching, cross-processing, calotype, platinum and much more.

Some of these are obvious as the IR and Platinum and High contrast B&W I have shown above. Even old color films with faded color can provide unique approaches to the photographic images.


Without having access to the original old photograph, an older reproduction could be re-made. This could be cast against another image to create a story of 'then and now' and subject of an interesting photographic book.

In the image above I took 2 photos and I applied old color film technique to the bordered version to create the effect of laying an old photo on a new photo to show a change over time.

How well does it Perform?
Having a 7 processors and 12TB of RAM there should be no speed issues with loading and applying application settings. It was just over a sec to load and less to applying any film setting. The window is originally set up with 3 panels. Large central being the photo being edited. The panel on the right is the main adjustment panel color. See composite below. There is enough functionality to do almost everything you want.


A minor problem with the numbers dialog boxes. When you enter a number it doesn't apply until you click the panel and if you use the Enter key it applies the Exposure 4 application. I would rather have that only happen when I click the OK button.

The panel on the left are all the pre-set film settings which are based on some combination of settings on the right panel. This is great because once you found a style that suits your needs you can then tweak it to best suit the photograph.


I did find that using the color filter produced better color (brighter) for me than using the same color on a layer in Photoshop. It might be the preserve luminosity check box.


With my sample photos the rendering of effects was clean with no noticeable distortions unless of course you cranked the saturation way up.


I like that both side panels can be minimized and it's easy to zoom into a section for better clarity. With a 24” monitor some apps don't allow full screen editing.
I also like how you can save your own presets.

The above image is from one I tested since I had created a B&W version previously. The software did produce versions that I liked as well and maybe even better than the original.



Who is this Software meant for?
For anyone how wants to experience the look of chemical film technology and its variant processes.
Definitely for commercial ad type photographic needs. Here with the press of a button, a vintage effect can be created without much time spent by the user.
For creative types who may want to create story-line or books where the type of photograph is integral to the story experience
For fine-art photographers that require a specific look, as with my image of the tree and bench, that is not easily achieved in Photoshop.
To create new layers that can be set to one of the blend modes. There is a practice to create a B&W version of your image that looks best and then set this to luminosity for your color photo. While I haven’t experimented that much with these I suspect I will find some of the film output useful as a blend mode.

Recommendations
This is a good solid product that provides a wealth of film types and genres. It is easy to use and intuitive.
I would give this software a 4 – 4 ½ rating. The limiting factor would be price for a new user at approx $249. but an upgrade is only $99.
As an investment, I view software the same as a lens. It's a tool to help you meet your needs or goals. Many people find the cost of software somewhat prohibitive and yet see no problem with spending more on a new lens. I love a lens also as there's something about that precision instrument you are holding. But I photo-edit every photo I show to the public. I always want to bring out the very best and convey the feelings and experience I had at the time I took the photograph. The straight out-of-the-camera version doesn’t give me this. It is a mechanical device and not a human.



Definitely do download a trial version and play with it.

Niels Henriksen

Disclaimer: Other than receiving a copy of the software to review, I did not or will not receive any remunerations, gifts or any considerations from this review from the company, its agents or any of its distributors

Buildings of San Miguel

This is a story that evolves over time. Every year as I explore new parts of town or even revisit other parts at different times of the day, there are new buildings emerging. Not new in the sense of being just built but new in the sense of discovery. Especially when its not your town and even not your region, everything is so different.

Along the side of the Biblioteca on Relox

This is almost an abstract image with 3 main sections. I wanted the yellow to be dominant so I increased the contrast in this section and a bit in saturation. On some monitors if not calibrated it will display as very bright yellow, whereas it should be a bit soft. I darkened the blue and decreased saturation to make the yellow appear brighter. I didn't want to lighten the whole road so I increased the brightness in the highlights and strengthened the yellows.


Sometimes you get a 'batch perfect apples in the basket' so to speak. In the image below, the house was painted a blue to match the strong blue skies of San Miguel. The sky is also a darker blue here at approx. 7,000 ft. Strong blues ranging from this sky color to almost navy-blue can be found on several homes.

Near the corner of Aldama on a walk-only side street between Xichu and Oje de Agua
Google map reference (20.90370, -100.7432)


A very skinny house. Not sure what it's used for. I guess someone wanted to build a house in an alleyway. I seen places like this in Toronto where the house is 3 storeys high and 10' wide. This building in San Miguel may be actually skinnier.

Even with a 18mm lens I needed to stitch 2 vertical photos to get the whole building in one combined photo.


San Miguel, like most Mexican towns, is always undergoing some sort of building repainting. The standard building colors are yellow, rusty-orange, burnt-red, and some white. They may be repainted these same colors or even repainted a vibrant new color such as blue. That's why in Google Street View the photos of the buildings may not now be as shown in Google. Sometimes as in the photo below there has been some new painting with bolder colors.

This small section of buildings has all the colors of the rainbow and a few extra. Corner of Aldama and Terraplén



This colorful green building with just enough red to give it some accent caught my interest I. It wasn't until after I looked around that I realized that it was beside the entrance to the Bull Fighting Ring.

And sometimes with luck a car drives by, whose color enhances the photo of the building.

Next year I will be in San Miguel for six (6) months and I be conducting photo-walks again. If you are in the area then drop me a line and we can go out and photograph this lively town together.


Niels Henriksen

Festivals in San Miguel de Allende

It seems like there is always some sort of festival going on in San Miguel. In fact, there really is. Most of these are tied to religious or Mexican national events, but at times there also those unexpected festivals. When they involve children they can make for extra special photographic events. And who doesn’t love the smiles and special faces that children can make. Add a few costumes and now there is magic in the air.

Last year and again this year there was the multicultural school event with kids coming from many districts. I wasn't paying special attention to the date as I didn’t even know it was happening again. I only came by the festival when I was heading by the Jardin. Which is a daily ritual for me in my treks around town. I didn't notice the festival event in the local paper Atencion which is great for highlighting events in and around town. There is always so much going on that it's easy to miss one, or sometimes the festival's name is in Spanish and it may not be evident by its title.

I asked one of the girls participants to pose with the rose as she seemed to have the best smile of all of them.

She and the boy in the image above were the central characters in their school skit.

The pair of them started off sitting on a bench and the boy appeared to reject the advances of the girl. I believe that this was part of a Valentines theme as every person had a heart on their palms.

After a short interval, with the music was playing all the time, the rest of their class mates joined them on stage and performed a choreographed dance.

It was great fun to watch and in this photo you can see all their hearts on their hands.

A few weeks later I came across an art festival called “Thank You Art' project. This is were kids and some adults, me included, glued coloured tissue paper to a clear plexiglass sheet.

They were allowed to cut the sheets into strange shapes or with cut-outs and even write messages on their sheets.

Then they were glued on top of each other in a multitude of different colors. When the panels were hung in a lighted area they glowed like stained glass panels.

During my photographing of the kids enjoying themselves one of the directors of the project asked me if they could use some of my photos for the up coming display of the final glass sheets.

I was fortunate to have several of my images selected for the Art show in the Biblioteca that ran for 2 weeks.

They printed my images 39cm x 52 cm (15” x 20”) and hung them on the wall around the 2 plexiglass sheets that looked like large stained glass windows.

When in San Miguel you should always, and I mean always, have your camera with you as you never know what's just waiting around the next corner. Three times during my winter stay I did not take my camera with me and I regretted it each time. Now I don't leave home without it. It may be a bit heavy so I carry it in my backpack.

Niels Henriksen

Why Photographing Hats Can Improve Your Street People Photography

This wasn’t something that I consciously knew, maybe deep down we all tend to know these types of things, but something I discovered while undertaking a new photography project in San Miguel de Allende.

There are many, many ideas to photograph in San Miguel. Doors are a very common theme, I did one last year and one I am continuing this year. I was looking for something different and with the almost constant blue skies and bright sun, even stronger at 6,800 feet, most people if not all the gringos wear hats.

Everyday I walk around photographing almost anything and everything. Great fun and focusing on Hats gave me a new challenge.

I am reserved when it comes to photographing people out and about on the street. I feel reluctant to invade their privacy but deep down I love how people relate and engage the city streets. Here in Mexico, being such a tourist destination, the locals are even more wary of being photographed and many times hide there face or just look away. If a person is not comfortable with their photo being taken I won't take it.

A different type of sun covering

When I photographed street people I tended to hesitate too long (should I or not) with taking the shot and the impromptu moment was lost as they tended to now be aware of the camera.

This man is not praying but doing close-up photography of the cactus

I found out after the fact that when I was just focusing on people's hats I tended to think less of the person and more on the object of the hat. This allowed me to be quicker with the decision to shoot and also it allowed me to shoot more often.

Who wouldn't love this big Mexican hat

Because I was focusing on an object it even allowed me to approach people and ask then if I could photograph them with their hat as this was a project of mine. I think people felt more comfortable in letting me photograph them because I wasn't really just photographing them. It was an inanimate object and somehow that was OK.

A hatted man with lots of hats

I suggest you give yourself a try at this project and see if you don't now photograph more people.

Niels Henriksen

An Explosion of Colors at the El Señor de la Conquista Festival in San Miguel de Allende

The one thing I enjoy most about San Miguel de Allende is that you'er busy. I'm taking photographs everyday, meeting old and new friends and enjoying lots of events. There are many artist shows opening every week and then there's the special film showing and theater plays. The downside, at least for my blog readers, is the problem with actually getting down and writing a new article.

I was working on a theme and then on Friday the 2nd of March there was the 'El Señor de la Conquista' Festival in San Miguel de Allende in and around the center square called 'el Jardin'.

There were 5 different groups from local towns nearby each with their own style of dress and costumes. Withh such a display of colors and action it was not hard to keep photographing as they almost performed continuously for 10 hours. There was a small break in the afternoon as they started around 10:00am and continued until 9:00pm.

Even the people resting provided good photographic opportunities.

It's easy to see from the next photo how much these dancers enjoyed and were engrossed with their performances.

During breaks they laid their headdress on the ground.

The music playing and drums resonated over the whole town all day long and if you wanted a quiet spot you almost had to head out of town.

Great costumes and action.

Even fathers and sons participated.

San Miguel is first an historic town with stunning architecture but the festivals which almost happen every weekend during some months add that extra spice and color to your stay here.

Niels Henriksen