Random Images & Notes - SilverGenes Photofix

Evening Light

You can hardly tell there were a million mosquitoes biting like mad when this was taken but the light made it all worthwhile. Photo was taken at Gull Harbour on Hecla Island, Manitoba, Canada. I set up a tripod on the bank and waited for just the right moment. This was taken at the changing of the guard, when the sun sets and the moon rises.

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi with a 75-300mm lens at 95mm. Shot in RAW at ISO 100, f/4.5 and a shutter speed of 0.4 seconds.

High Key

Trying new things involves a little risk and a lot of experimentation. High key is something I had never tried before and there is a lot to learn.

Overexposing slightly was the first step and it was important to avoid any blowout in either the background or the subject. This was shot indoors on a drab winter day in natural light. The camera was set to shutter priority mode which is Tv or S on your camera dial. Read more about this setting here. Film speed was set at 400 ISO, shutter speed at 1/50 second (use a tripod) at f/7.1 with the lens at 45 mm. No flash was used.

Using natural daylight and a piece of white paper on the left side to reflect light and another sheet under the eggs on a soft background resulted in this shot. There were problems that I may have been able to overcome if I had set a custom white balance and used manual settings. Converting to black and white solved the problem of reflected yellows in the heavier shadow areas.

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Through Rose-Coloured Glasses

Ontario evening sky colours are different from those on the prairies. They are softer with shades of pink that blend subtly with the orange sherbet colours closer to the sun. This photo was taken in high quality JPG format on the way to the convenience store with the Fuji F10, a little point-and-shoot that continues to amaze me with the way it handles low light.

In Photoshop, it was opened in the ProPhoto RGB colour space in order to avoid clipping the warmer colours and adjusted in Curves. This is my favorite colour space for processing everything, especially photos with yellows, reds, and oranges. These are the first colours to be clipped in smaller spaces. Then it was cropped with perspective to straighten the streetlight and horizon.

Sharpening was done lightly with the High Pass filter, image was converted for web colour space and resized. It’s not a spectacular shot but rather an everyday memory. It captures a brief moment when the world was filtered through a rose-colored sunset.

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Restoring November Light

A Little Work in the LAB

These photos were taken in the late afternoon with a Canon Digital Rebel D400. After experimenting with various settings, I settled on Tv for more control over exposure and set the focus to Manual. The shadows had deepened and the colors were bordering on surreal but when I brought them into Photoshop, the images seemed drab and lifeless compared to what they had been in reality. I didn’t want to increase the saturation and risk blow-out in any of the channels – my days of increasing saturation were over shortly after I discovered that everything did not have to look like it had been shot in the Amazon jungle. I have old photos processed in my early Photoshop days that now belong to a category called “What was I thinking?”

Bringing back what we saw in the first place

So… to bring back a sense of what I had seen along the forest trail, working in the ProPhoto color space, I converted the images to LAB mode and gently steepened the curve in the A and B channels, leaving the Lightness channel alone. I reduced the effect about 50% and switched back to RGB for a little sharpening using the High Pass filter before converting to sRGB IEC61966 and reducing the size for web. The final result is much closer to what prompted me to take the photo in the first place!

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Road to Minnedosa

Photo taken with the Canon Rebel D400 in the early afternoon along the side of the road. This is not the optimal time of day for a shot like this but I was there and the cloud was there. The ISO was set at 400, shutter speed 1/500 sec, f/18 and a 28 mm lens. We were on a road trip and I had been taking shots from the window hence the higher ISO. I wish I had taken the time to make some better adjustments. This was shot in RAW, cropped and levels adjusted in Aperture. Sharpened with the High Pass filter in Photoshop and then masked before final sizing and converting to sRGB color space for web.

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Tango Geranium

Just before the rain, the light shifted and the color temperature warmed making the geranium look almost surreal. Photo was taken in RAW. I used the Orton Effect to take advantage of the particularly brilliant color of the flower then used a layer mask to remove the effect from the center of the bloom while retaining it in the rest of the photo.

Image was imported into Photoshop in the ProPhoto color space. This is the only space large enough to work where reds and oranges would not be clipped. When I was finished with the editing, it was then converted to sRGB and sized for web.

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Blossoms

North of Winnipeg, Manitoba: After having tea at what was formerly the Kennedy house, we returned to the old cemetery down the road to take some photos.

The camera was a bit unpredictable at this point – maybe some friendly spirits playing with technology?

This shot was taken in RAW ISO-100, f/9, 1/160 sec.

Once again, processed in Aperture and exported as 16-bit TIFF in ProPhoto color space to Photoshop for slight curve adjustment and sharpening. Then converted to sRGB IEC61966 and sized for web as a JPG.

Shadows

The shadows caught my attention first, then the textures that filled in the spaces of light. I notice things like this all the time, ever since art school when we were asked to create a piece of work focusing on the ordinary and executing it with extraordinary media. The concept is simple. It means looking for patterns of interest in seemingly mundane subjects – things you would never ordinarily think to photograph or paint. Then, instead of rendering the subject in traditional materials, choose something completely different. Sounds simple enough, but wrapping your brain around the actual creation of it is a little more challenging in the beginning. As you start to experiment, interesting things happen. One particular piece that stands out in my memory was done by a student who, after becoming thoroughly frustrated with the assignment, decided to work with whatever was in front of her at the time. The result was a drawing of her cutting board filled with sliced beets and rendered in their own juice. Suddenly there was focus and clarity from something completely random – and it was spectacular!

Formula CS2 and a Sponge

We all have those days when finding ideas is more elusive than usual. It was such a day when I decided to create an exercise in exploring the ordinary. Finding the design element was relatively easy; it had been sitting beside me in my car. I took the photo a few years ago, dredged it up from the archives and brought it into Photoshop for cropping and cleaning. Yes, cleaning. Even though it was shot on digital, I had failed to notice the smudges on the inside of the door and in lieu of a good spray cleaner, used Photoshop. There could be a good argument for leaving things as shot. After all, this was the subject in all its gritty realism and ‘perfection is in the imperfections’. On the other hand, it could be a serious distraction with the way it compels the viewer to reach for a paper towel. After looking at it both ways, I opted to clean it. However, in the ensuing progression of thoughts it occured to me that marks, splotches, scrapes and tears could make for an interesting series – you know, a search for the perfect imperfection kind of thing. Or maybe not. Only a little exploration will decide. Celebrating the seemingly mundane is anything but mundane.

Winds of Change

There are some moments that come and go in an instant. The day was hot and sultry. As dark clouds accumulated overhead, the wind began to sweep across the open prairie. I could see it coming over the fields in my direction so I got out of the car, grabbed my Fuji F10 and took the shot just as the wind got to where I was standing.

You can see it arriving on the right.

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