derekc

Photographers over 40, or those who study photography more seriously,

will probably figure out the "message" of the title. The sculptures in this

area lend themselves to B/W consideration. A possible future

photographer gazes on the landscape before him, possibly dreaming of

how Ansel Adams would see it?

A bit of a cliche shot, but it was sunrise and misty and I was there.

About 30 minutes after sunrise through low cloud cover combined with

the mist gave it a nice monochromatic look. Used an HDR shot to try

and capture a wider tonal range.

For the curious, you can see other shots from our club outing to this location (not just mine) at our club site's outings page

yet another sunset. But the setting is unusual and pleasant. Saturation is nice without being overpowering, and no burned out highlights or lost shadows -- exposure is well handled. Horizon is off centre (another plus) and the mix of colours is pleasing and out of the ordinary (no blue in the sky at all, and landscape has not gone to the midnight blues yet). Well done.

Exposure is well handled (the cloud details almost suggest an HDR style image? or a very strong polarizer?). The band of fog lends an almost fantasy feel to the landscape. Saturation is good without being overkill. Nice shot.

My personal preference would be to move the bird a bit more to the right to bring it closer to a 3rds line. Sepia/desaturation works well in this image. Bright area is not over exposed, exposure was well handled.

(sorry if the category is not correct, not sure where to place this one, couldn't see a category for "machinery")

This was at a photo club outing at the Stave Falls generating plant. No specific theme other than the power plant itself, but I was trying to work on abstracts and taking subjects out of context, something I don't normally do.

In this case I liked the mix of blues on the panel from the deep shadows, but also the red reflecting off the concrete floor. To bring it out the colours a bit more, bumped up the saturation.

I'm not sure I like the empty space below the dials in the foreground.

(sorry if the category is not what people expect -- can't find a section on "machinery")

This was taken on a photo club outing to Stave Falls generating plant. I was attempting to isolate and take objects out of context (something I don't often do). Maybe not quite "abstraction" in the technical sense.

I liked that with all the joints and arms, the machine suggested furious motion even when it was standing still.

With strong sunlit rocks and deep dark shadows, this scene was a good candidate for an HDR attempt. After creating the HDR image, then applied the "Orton effect" to soften the colours. The two techniques work well together (IMO) in this particular type of shot.

I have a few more at our club's outing page.

Thiw is an HDR image made from 3 shots (normal exposure and then +/- 2 stops). Bumped up some of the settings to give it a more surreal feel to the colours and background textures.

One of those very fortunate shots when you happen to click the shutter at the most opportune moment. A good "Yes!!!" shot. It might even be worth the time/effort to photoshop out the poles/wires in the background (if you're not a "reality purist") ... i find them a little distracting --- thought the strong yellow of the car pulls your eye back towards it. A great captured moment.

putting the subject smack dab in the middle like this turns what should have been an action shot into something that feels pretty static. My own personal preference would have been to put the boy in the upper left corner (at a "3rds point" naturally ;-) ) moving into the frame, suggesting the momentum/anticipation to come as he rides the wave.

A "break the rules" type shot would be to put him in the lower right corner with the wake/trail behind him, suggesting he was moving so fast you almost didn't catch him in the frame. Traditionalists might complain about that (since traditional rules state to put a moving subject in the outer areas of the frame moving "into" the bulk of the empty frame ... "leading space"), but I might have found that to be interesting shot as well.

if you have filters for your camera (and you like filter shots), soemthing like Cokin's "speed" filter might be fun (or mock it up in your favorite photo editor if it has such a filter), putting speed blurs/lines behind him to suggest even greater speed.

 

if he does several runs, try different aspects each time he rides.

With yellow being such a strong colour in nature, your eye gets pulled to the building and then stumbles across the "shadow" on the wall. Once found, my eye keeps coming back to it. I like it. If the other yellow buildings weren't yellow, it would work even better, since they pull at the eye for attention.

personally I would have pulled back just a bit more. Even if you don't fit the whole body into the shot, I would have liked to see the whole head intact. As it is, the ears are clipped and merge with the edges. Other'n that, it's a cute shot if you like lambs.

This was the first time I tried doing pure abstract work. This was during a workshop on abstracts at our photoclub meeting. In this case this is macro shot of acrylic paint that was smeared on some matte board.

This was the first time I tried doing pure abstract work. This was during a workshop on abstracts at our photoclub meeting. In this case this is macro shot of acrylic paint that was smeared on some matte board.

This was the first time I've done "abstract" work. It was during a workshop at our photoclub meeting. Macro shot of backlit corn syrup.

I like the choice in depth of field, by letting background go out of focus, suggests an infinity of peppers. I like the "redness", good strong primary colour.

My only (small) fault is since the rest of the frame is filled with reds and greens, the grey bit in the lower right detracts from the shot for me. But still a very nice shot.

Not sure what I was after here. It was an idea I had. I had a "texture" type shot of a stone wall and wanted to see how it would work to use the mortar as placeholder to frame another shot. Originally I was just going to use the larger block, but then tried taking out a couple of other chunks.

The selection was feathered to soften the edges but still a little too sharp for my taste. The removed sections were layered on top and used to "texture" the fishing photo a little.

It's moderately interesting to me, but I'm not that happy with the final results. Maybe needs a different kind of photo in the background? Anyhoo, just curious if others find it interesting or not.

thanks for your comments (esp. on how to improve the rail shot, since I was having a hard time to get that to turn out how I wanted to in the first place). Though one more comment of my own -- just so you know, I wasn't going for a "realistic" moon ... I wanted the moon way larger than it normally appears to give the landscape an "other worldly" look. (I also toyed with the idea of putting 2 or 3 moons of different sizes in the sky as well for that matter).

I guess I'll have to work on finding a landscape shot that's more worthy of the idea. Originally this was an experimental idea and I grabbed first photo that looked like it would serve the purpose.

A combination of two experimental shots. One was my first attempt to do a moon shot, the other was a (failed in my mind) perspective shot along a railroad rail. But reading an article on double exposure techniques for digital images (not just cutting/pasting), I thought to combine the two for something a little surreal. The landscape was taken near high noon but blue cast and blue gradient in the sky was added to make it seem night-like, similar to the old TV "night" shots of the 50's and 60's where they just put a blue filter over the lens. :-)

Comments/suggestions/constructive critiques always welcome

I liked the shapes and sillouhettes that emerged as the sun set on these japanese ainu sculptures.

Love the blue hues. Good focus (macro? or zoomed telefoto?) Nice cool/relaxing feel to the shot.

I like the idea, the various lines of the background are broken by the subject shrubbery/tree. Though I find myself wanting a more interesting subject :-) ... would have been nice to have a nice red tractor or combine there.

I personally would also have put the subject a bit off-centre, maybe lower right, so the diagonal lines would pull your eye across the frame. I would leave it centred if there was some sort of radial symetry, but I don't get that here.

but even this is ok, it would make a nice "mood" or texture like picture framed on an office wall perhaps. Nice DOF from foreground grasses to background.

Wondered when they were 30 feet in the air if they would ever completely let got of their bikes ... and they did! Scary to contemplate (for me anyway)!