Looking for the Other Side of the Fence

For the time being I will be offline with regards to my (formerly) weekly blog. I'll be back as soon as I have something worthwhile to contribute, and feel that I'm ready to do so.

In the meantime, I'll be taking a break to explore some of the mysteries of the world in greater detail. Soon enough, no doubt, I will get bored with these pursuits (I always do) find some tranquility among the grasses (it will happen eventually) and get myself in a better frame of mind for posting.

Until then,

Michael

P.S. For the regular readers of my blog, please don't get the wrong impression. I'm in great spirits, but the creative side of my personality that produces photography is presently at odds with another, different creative side that has nothing to do with imaging. (or blogging!)

Walking The Line

I know, I know. I had originally promised something new for this weeks post, but that has given way to an older piece that I believe is finally at a point I am comfortable with.

The image was captured at the area around Arches known as the "Windows," and as you can see there was quite a bit of weather blowing through. I took multiple shots of this scene, fully expecting to blend them together later so that I could capture more of the dynamic range than a single image could manage. The problem was that, once back home, I could never get the image to look anything close to what I was after.

I kept after it, and would pull it up from time to time to give it a tweak, and have finally come up with a version that works well enough. The only problem I have with it now is one of ethics. On the one hand I really don't have a problem using photoshop to enhance an image. But on the other there is a point where you have either gone too far, or not quite far enough, to make your image believable. Ted's images, for example, go far enough that there is little, if any, doubt about the manipulation involved. The viewer realizes that they are not looking at a "straight" photo. Andreas' images, however, may have as much work behind them, but they still maintain the look of a more or less "straight" photograph.

Has this image stretched into the realm of fiction, or does it look like a straight enough photo? To be honest I can't tell anymore. I've got too much time behind it. For the sake of comparison I am providing the originally blended and tonemapped result from three images.

Until next time.

Sunglasses

Once again, a weak, weekly post. (albeit a day late)

I'd thank to thank everyone for their continuing support.

Would also like to note that I have not sat down to comment or even look upon what everyone is doing these days... but I will soon.

Promise!

'Till next time.

Peaches

Not many words this week. Just a few peaches.

'Til next time.

Down Time

As far as proper photo "taking" goes, I have been on extended leave. Call it "down-time," if you will. I stopped carrying my point and shoot as a matter of habit back in December, and I have been using various excuses NOT to carry ANY camera into the outdoors of late. And while I'm not sure what it all means, I am cognizant of the fact that I'm doing it.

Admittedly, I have been concentrating on hunting morel mushrooms the past few weeks. So far, though, no luck. In fact, I'm about to consider this year a bust and focus on looking for better sites to search next year. I say this, despite the fact that I just plopped down a not insubstantial sum of money for a shiny new Garmin GPS, an Etrex Venture HC, just in case I did (do) find a morel. Then at least, I would know where to look next year.

None of this, of course, is any excuse for venturing into the forest camera-less, and that is exactly what I have found myself doing.

This week I offer up another old image (goodness I'm tired of saying that) that was taken back in December. It showed up on my drive as a horizontal, but I think it works much better as a vertical. In any case, I guess it's better than nothing at all.

Steps

The image I chose to work with for this demostration is an old one. It was shot from the balcony of the second floor in the Old Arkansas Statehouse. And after working with it to put this post together it occurred to me that I could have picked a better subject. This one has more things going on with it than I would have liked, but at the same time the lack of color in the final image simplifies things a great deal. Hopefully the idea will still come across clearly enough. (figure 1--Original image)

The first thing I knew I wanted to do was crop, but because of the distortions there were no straight lines available to draw a crop from. Or at least not one that I liked. So the first thing I did was select the entire image and use the Photoshop Transform command (Edit >> Transform >> Distort) to bend the image and give me some straight lines to work with. (figure 2 -- Transformed)

OK. Thats better. At least now I some straight lines to work with. And in the process I removed an unwanted line as well (the rear section of tiling).

Next, I cropped the image to get the composition I desired.

Now is where the fun stuff comes in. The image was mostly balanced the way I wanted at this point, but the color wasn't working for me at all. I was seeing the image in monotone. So knowing that I was going this direction I made what was to be the first of many selections to manipulate the overall tones. (Figure 3 -- Crop and Initial Selection, Please forgive me for covering both with one image!)

As you can see, I made a selection of the tiling with the Lasso tool, and modified it with a mild tone curve. Next, and this has become one of my favorite tricks, I used the Invert command (Select >> Invert) to select the other half of the image. Then I modify it with a reverse of the previous curve. The trick is making good selections that Feather enough and/or follow existing lines of light and shadow so that you don't notice the transition zones.

The basic technique is nothing new, of course. It's really just the digital equivalent of dodging and burning using selections made with the Lasso tool. But with digital you can also use your selections to do lot more than dodge and burn. If I want to manipulate the color in an area, or the saturation, the sharpness.... whatever, it's all right there, just waiting to be adjusted.

Now, you could easily do something similar and make it even better (less destructive to the image) by working in layers. I typically choose not to because I dislike layers, but that's just a personal preference thing.

For the final image I did several more things. So many that I don't recall them all. But it includes everything mentioned above, along with a conversion to black and white that was later given a sepia tone. I also added a bit of grain.

From the original to the finished piece the individual changes were very subtle, but when taken as a whole they tend to add up.

A Picture in a Box

Explaining ones personal approach to composition, even to fellow artists, is always a difficult proposition. I believe most everyone learns the so-called compositional rules--the "rule of thirds," how to recognize and direct "leading lines," image balance, and any number of other esoteric descriptions that can be used to sum up what is essentially a picture in a box, if only so we can break them later.

But it's in the way we incorporate these elements into our work once we have an understanding of the "rules" that things begin to get interesting. This is where style comes in, because I believe no two people will see and compose things in exactly the same way, for all the same reasons. They may end up with results so similar as to make it pointless to dissect the differences, but the approach, the journey, and the motivations, will always be somewhat unique.

In fact, one of the most beautiful things about composition is that you need not know a thing about formal compositional techniques in order to be able to do it well. Some people, it seems, just get it right.

I am not one of those people. I have to work at it to make something happen. (I try to get what I want while framing with the camera, but it almost always takes some fine tuning in Photoshop to get it just right.) The only ideas I try to keep in mind as I'm cropping are how I can bring a sense of balance and order to the composition, and how will the cropping affect the amount of depth (or perceived depth) in the finished product.

That's it.

By keeping the formula simple I like to think I'm keeping the possibilities open. And, as corny as it sounds, I try to listen to the image, to visualize the finished product before I even start working with it. The idea being that if I can understand where an image wants to be, then maybe I can help it get there.

Over the years I have developed a few tricks and techniques to make my visualizations as complete as they can be. Next week I'll share one of my favorites--Selections and selective tonal manipulations.