Dancing #13

 

Dancing #13

Ok, I still have not been out shooting anything yet.  So, I return to my Dancing assignment from the Freeman-Gallant workshop.  When we left off, I was switching from my focus-optional strategy.  This is from the quarry.  The rocks were really beautifully colored.

Now,  a moment of silence for the demise of my favorite photo tool, Rawshooter Premium.  Pixmantec (the maker of Rawshooter) was acquired by Adobe earlier this week.  Maybe, I will have to evaluate Capture One.

Grungy or Not?

(rollover mouse to see color version)

I could not decide if I like this grungy or not?  Probaby tomorrow, I will not like it at all.

Adrift

Adrift

I have not been out shooting for far too long. After trolling the archives for a while, I am going to post this unspired shot. When I returned from my Freeman-Gallant workshop, I was inspired to go out and take new images. However, my other responsibilities have interfered. To my surprise, I went out to Sunol and did not really feel like taking any images. This is the one of those few images.

Unsettled

Unsettled

Today, I pulled out my little Canon S1. I have not touched it for several months. I purchased the Canon 5D and my Canon 20D became my purse camera. Well, the little Canon still had a memory card with a few images on it.

At first, I could not remember where I took this image. However, I now remember. I was sitting next to the fountain and noticed the reflections in the water. I felt really stressed and horrible because my job was miserable (I now have a new job). So this picture really does reflect my feelings of stress and worry.

Yosemite #20

 

Yosemite #18

Okay, one more from my Yosemite archives. Like the previous two postings, this image was was never processed during my first pass.

Yosemite #19

 

Yosemite #17

Another raided from my Yosemite archives.

Yosemite #18

 

Yosemite #16

Earlier this week, I attended a planning meeting for PhotoCenetral Color.  The curator of the show is Monte Hartman.  I took a class winter with Monte and value his input and teachings.  I struggled over what prints to bring.  So, I just procrastinated and had a lot of prints from teaching HDR techniques from Yosemite.  To my surprise, these prints were a hit.  After looking at Yosemite #2, Monte suggested a vertical crop putting more emphasis on the leftmost tree.  I went into the archives and found a panoramic HDR shot that I never processed.  I put it together and this is the result.  Per Monte, I could crop it to a vertical 3 by 2 format but liked this square composition.

Dancing into Blue

Dancing into Blue

To interrupt the Dancing assingment, I made this composite image this weekend from three different images taken during my Dancing assignment. Here are (2) that were posted. See Dancing #12 and Dancing #3. Originally, I had planned this as a vertical but was shown that a horizontal composition worked better.

Dancing #12

Dancing #12

Ok, I know that I said I was switching directions in my Dancing assigment away from focus-optional. But, I forgot this one. So back to blurry for one more image.

Dancing #11

Dancing #11

Continuing with my Dancing assignment at the Patterson-Gallant workshop, I took to heart the comment that focus-optional would be cheating, eh. So, I decided to broaden my definition of dancing again. This is taken at the quarry's log pile. There were several huge birch logs and their bark was gorgeous.

Dancing #10

Dancing #10

This is the last of my flowers for my dancing assignment of the Freeman-Gallant workshop. I mentioned at breakfast that I was doing focus optional shots and one member said "That would be cheating, eh?". So, I switched directions. Stay tuned...

Dancing #9

Dancing #9

One more from my Patterson-Gallant workshop for my 'Dancing' assignment.

Dancing #8

Dancing #8

Another from my Dancing assignment while attending the Patterson-Gallant workshop.

Dancing #7

Dancing

This is another from my dancing series. As my time runs out for finishing, I started to take a more liberal view of dancing. I looked for rythmic, graceful shots that showed some sort of movement.

Dancing #6

Dancing #6

More from the Dancing series. I am still in the gravel quarry. It is now after sundown and raining.

Dancing #5

Dancing #5

Anothere from the Dancing series. This has a color shift when I converted to sRGB for the web.

Dancing #4

Dancing #4

More of my dancing series with focus optional. At this point, it started raining on us but I was on a roll.

Dancing #3

Dancing #3

At this point, my inspiration started because I decided that focus was not required. Instead, I just looked for beautiful patterns of colors. How does this relate to dancing? Well, I looked for visual rhythm, repitition and grace.

Dancing #2

Dancing #2

Continuiing with my dancing assignment from the workshop, Bill and I went out and visited the gravel quarry. Right near the entrance was a beautiful stand of lupines (of all different colors). I have never had much success shooting lupine but started working it. This shot was the basis of my inspiration. When I leaned in to get this little bug in focus, I really liked the out-of-focus background. More tomorrow...

Dancing #1

On Thursday afternoon in my workshop, we were given an invididualized assignment. Each assignment must be completed and ready for presentation by 10 am Saturday morning and contain a minimum of 15 images and a maximum of 25 images. Realistically, we all had that evening and Friday to complete our shooting. Because we had lectures and dinners during the afternoon and evening.

My assignment was 'Dancing'. It could interpret it literally or not. As I pondered what to do, my classmate, Bill, received 'Heavy Metal'. Since Bill had a car, I suggested that we visit the local gravel quarry to scope out the equipment. Little did I know that the gravel quarry would be my inspiration. This first shot of my series is my most literal interpretation of dancning and is actually the boots of a married couple from the class. Stay tuned and I will post the remaining images in the order of my shooting.

Freeman Patterson’s Garden #3

Freeman Patterson's Garden #3

Another from my visit to Canada.

Freeman Patterson’s Garden #2

Freeman Patterson's Garden

This is another image taken around Freeman's beautiful gardens. I used the 'Dreamscape' technique taught in the workshop. If you are shooting digitally, start with a tripod. Compose your shot. Overexposure by 1/2 stop with a large depth of field. Then, open the lens wide open and over-exposure by 1 stop. Also, de-focus the lens enough where the details are obscured by the main compositional elements are still obvious. Take a second shot. Open the first image in Photoshop. Then, open the second image in Photoshop. Select the Move tool ('v' key), hold the Shift key, and drag the second image on top of the first one. Your first image should now have two layers with the out-of-focus layer on top. Change the blending mode to Multiply for the second layer.

If you shoot digitally and use raw files, then you do not need to shoot the second out-of-focus image. Process the first image with an exposure compensation of +1/2. Then, process the raw a second time with an exposure compensation of +1. In the second image, apply a Lens Blur (enough to loose all the smaller details). Change the second layer's blending mode to Multiply. You may need to do a Level adjustment to taste.

Haunted House #3

Abandoned Home

To my surprise, my mother has really responded to the other two Haunted House shots. They remind her of her grandmother's home in rural Wisconsin. So, I have posted an exterior shot of the home.

A Walk in the North Woods

A Walk in the North Woods

When I arrived in New Brunswick, I was struck by how lovely the scenery was and how much the area reminded of my childhood home in Wisconsin. On the first morning, I wandered down this path in the woods. Emotionally, I enjoyed the woods and realized how much I missed the forests and green-green landscape. Photographically, my eyes were overwhelmed by all the plants and struggled to make a composition.

Freeman Patterson’s Garden

Freeman Patterson's Garden

After completing my assignment for the workshop, we were free to wander around Freeman's beautiful gardens. Although set in Canada, these gardens reminded my of Monet's gardens at Givenchy. They were his constant source of inspiration.

Oriental Poppy

Oriental Poppy

Just for fun. An oriental poppy and white peony put toegether with a lot of Photoshop filters.

Two Paths

Two Paths

A composite of two images from the 'Haunted House'. The windows was gone and this apple blossom was laying along the window sill. The other image is a shot of the front door.

Haunted House #2

Front Door

Another infrared from my Freeman-Gallant workshop. This was taken looking from the kitchen to the front door of the home. This was a lovely old two-story clapboard house overlooking the river before it was allowed to deteriorate.

Haunted House #1

Kitchen of Haunted House

One of the days of the Freeman-Gallant workshop, we visited a nearby abandoned home. Apparently, the owners of this house just did not care that the house is decaying and close to falling down. This is the kitchen of the home. I did not feel inspired by the house so decided to try infrared. I like the glow from the 'window'. There was no glass left in the windows.

Panning Poppies

Panning Poppies

One of the techniques that I learned from the Patterson-Gallant workshop was panning. You want to start with an exposure timeof 1/4 to 1/2 seconds usually with a fairly large depth of field like f/22. Going with a longer exposure time results in mush. Make sure that you are correctly focused before you start. Trip the shutter and pan the camera. In general you want to pan with your subject. For example, pan up and down for tree trunks. In this case, I was shooting a bed of unopened oriental poppy blossoms. I thought that I panned along an arch shape but it really looks like I panned from upper-right to lower-left.

Morning Light on Pond

Morning Light on Pond

This image was taken during the Sunrise shoot on the first day of the Freeman-Gallant workshop. The sunrise shoot was optional and we needed to be ready to leave by 5:30 am promptly. For me, that was really 1:30 am California time. To my surprise, I was awake and ready to go. In fact, I felt very alert. Well...

I hurried to water edge after we arrived at the pond. I loved the waterlily pads. I took maybe a dozen shots before I realized that I had forgotten to insert a compact flash card. I would like to say that I had better shots before this one but probably not.

Ferns on Parade

Ferns on Parade

This was an image taken during an exercise in Freeman Patterson's gardens. We were each given a spot in the garden and not allowed to move until we had taken 'good' 10 images. This was later in my 10 and the best of the bunch.

Here are my notes from the image review by Freeman Patterson. The reviews always worked from composition to depth of field to exposure (ie CDE).

Review: The composition is two rectangles of basically equal size. There is a green rectangle on the bottom and dark rectangle on top. The composition is not static because of it is broken up by the line of in focus fern heads. The magenta floating through the top rectangle adds a touch of magic. The depth of field uses selective focus to simplify the compsootion. The exposure is good.

Weird Windshield

Weird Windshield

I am back from a fabulous week spent in Canada attending Freeman Patterson's and Andre Gallant's photo workshop. I had a marvelous time and a lot of new things to share. This image was my 'weirdest' one. After some polling, I decided to submit it for the daily review. Both, Freeman and Andre, immediately thought it was too busy and then realized that it worked. Neither could analyze the image (which I will share with future posts). At the end of the workshop, they make a poster and book containing one image from each attendee. I gave Andre the choice of 10 images and this is the one that was selected.

Filoli #16

Poolhouse

I am very excited to be finally attending my photo workshop with Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant. I will be gone all week and posting due to the magic of Typepad's future posting feature.

This is the back of the pool house at Filoli.

Yosemite #17

 

Tenaya Creek

I am very excited to be finally attending my photo workshop with Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant.  I will be gone all week and posting due to the magic of Typepad's future posting feature.

This is Tenaya creek taken during my hike up to Mirror Lake in Yosemite.

Filoli #15

Tulip Explosion

I am very excited to be finally attending my photo workshop with Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant. I will be gone all week and posting due to the magic of Typepad's future posting feature.

I am still digging into the archives. During my first visit to Filoli, there were literally thousands of blooming tulips.

Filoli #14

Spring Blossoms

I am very excited to be finally attending my photo workshop with Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant. I will be gone all week and posting due to the magic of Typepad's future posting feature.

Just a simple shot of the blooming fruit trees out at Filoli.