fred_j._lord

I have to say, in this setting, I like the foreground better as Kenneth did it. I can see what might be considered dead space in this small size but I would have to see a much larger example to definitively say that it is or isn't necessary to the composition. The remainder of the image is wonderfully evocative of the sea. The mood is dreamy and delicious.

 

Welcome back, Kenneth.

it's just that the power lines pull me up short on this one. Railroad tracks are always beckoning to me as well. It seems if you follow them far enough something interesting will turn up at the end.

I'm not sure how I feel about the second blossom but the bug's cool. This is the sort of thing that happens when one concentrates too hard on getting the shot.

There was a really nice home just across the road from this relatively new looking structure. They may have horses or something but there were none in this field. I liked the fence post so I left it. I don't really consider mild cloning and spotting to be manipulation anymore. This is essentially untouched except for the curves adjustments and hue/saturation to make it show up on the web. I'm still using ImageReady and very happy with what it does. I'm attaching a shot of the same field at about 135° to camera right just to give a feeling of the surroundings.

Haven't been to NZ since 1994 but it looks as nice as ever.

 

Image is typical of a digital image pretty much straight out of the camera.

It's a bit cyan, as well as a bit flat in contrast. Stephen's right, it needs a tad more hue and saturation and the selective color function can also be used to pump up the sky a bit. Here's your image with all those things done to it. Lovely place!

Autumn is here and here is autumn #2.

In dealing with the enormous dynamic range here, it would be difficult to expose it better short of doing two identically framed images and combining them in the computer. I think the center of the flower is the most interesting part of this and that's what is correctly exposed.

I too like the duo-tome. (Is that two books in one?)

 

This is a very nice treatment of a wonderful subject. The color treatment is quite nice.

The flash went off on this one.

 

Is this an old railway station? I see the stone builidng in the background and it makes me wonder. It might have been interesting to get up close and sort of concentrate on the wagon tongue and the sagging front upright. The thing I always find fascinating about these old artifacts are the close up details. There is so much texture in them.

I have to say that the relatively short depth of field doesn't bother me here because the colors are so perfect and the composition is so strong. Another dreamy, ethereal image to get lost in. Nice capture, Jim.

I know what you mean about the gravity, Jim. I feel it more every day.

Your flash illuminated the players with one color of light and the fluorescent lights illuminated the background with another color light. Your flash is full spectrum with an approximate match to true daylight. The fluorescent lights are missing great chunks of magenta in their spectrum. Not only that, they vary considerably by brand and age. I used Selective Color in Photoshop to delete some of the green without affecting any of the other colors in your action photo. Just go into Image>Adjustments>Selective Color>Green and dial back the cyan and yellow sliders to the left and watch what happens in this image. If you add magenta it darkens the affected area so try that so you'll see what happens there as well. You may have to do it more than once or use more than one adjustment layer to get rid of all the green. I also tuned up the yellow a bit in the same way using the Yellow adjustments. Thanks for your comments on my images.

Lisa! Is that you? Nice pink sky. I think I might just whittle at the top but I love the colors and I'm sure it lost some intensity enroute to the web.

Very interesting. I think it might work for this month as well. Somehow it looks like far more than 3 seconds of exposure. Totally cool, Jim.

Taking away the edge of the leaf makes this image a very strong abstraction. It's amazing how much the small change affects the way I see this. It's a very nice job, Jim, of seeing and capturing a different viewpoint.

Someone climbed a 12,300 foot peak here in the last few days and burned an American flag that had been placed at the top to memorialize the victims of 09.11.01. The flag had only just been replaced by volunteers on the anniversary date as the previous flag was in tatters from a year of winds and sun.

Thanks Jim. I tried many different combinations of BG/FG relative densities. It's always a personal call and I'll stick by what I posted. The Unsharp Mask techniques from Michael Reichmann's site are good but they don't help much on an image that was shot as a JPEG initially. I have other shots of the sheep (shot as RAW files) where the light is from camera right but this one has a lot of drama and feeling of place to it so I posted it.

 

The interesting thing about the light in Alaska is that the sun goes around in a circle more or less overhead in the summer so if you want an image with some particular direction of the light all you have to do is get there at the right time of day. It does dip down and dim down somewhat as it heads north but the sunrises and sunsets go on for hours. I hope to get back again sometime.

 

Interestingly, the sheep are getting fill light reflected from the pale beige cliffs behind the camera. It might not be enough to rank as perfect but it helped a lot. They were a bit too far away for flash fill.

It was rainy and gray the very next day. We've been there twice and both days on the buses were beautiful but the other days in the area were overcast.

I am attaching a small portion of the frame for your perusal. Unfortunately I shot this as a large smooth JPEG so it's not as sharp as it might be. On the positive side, the image as displayed is full frame.

Am I the only one who has the time to go back and improve images? Probably so. I haven't exactly been busy shooting nice scenic things lately. Mostly dogs and small children. Those are fun but not really suitable for this forum I think. The leaves are starting to turn here so I may be able to get some new things soon.

As you can see by the lack of shadows and the sky in the background it was mostly cloudy bright that day. As it approached sunset the sun came through under the clouds as you can also see in some of the images. The only PS work was for color balance and levels with some hue and saturation to prepare it for the web. There was some spotting and such as well but no major interference in the overall look.

I assume it's a quote. Can you attribute it?

 

Here's one for you. . .

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

When the background became more vivid, the sheep sort of disappeared into it. My intent was keep them separate and more immediate to the eye.

 

The image became very flat and uninteresting when I enhanced the BG.

I haven't been doing too much pretty photography lately so I went back and found some from earlier this year. This one

needed a bit of work to improve it some.

I haven't been doing too much pretty photography lately so I went back and found some from earlier this year. This image

at least is fairly recent.