Tuesday, 19 January 2010

The White Room






A brief update on the theme of abstracting the recent white out.
The only real editing these images underwent in post was a boost to contrast and a reduction of saturation.

Le Rouge et le Noir





Revisiting the past with Jacquie Oh.

Three Colours - White










The best thing about heavy snow is that the landscape become other than it is for a brief moment in time, including transitions into black and white.

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Up The Creek





A set of images shot close to Thorington Mill.
I recently purchased Photoshop CS3 - it was kinda forced as I'd previously upgraded my camera to one not fully supported by CS2 - really glad that I did.
The latest Camera Raw plugin available with CS3 (note - not the one it's packaged with) works with the Nikon D300 and is miles ahead of the CS2 Camera Raw when it comes to recovering detail in HDR situations. The last shot of this set is a kind of HDR image; it is constructed from 3 Camera Raw versions of one original file - one fine tuned for sky, one for the trees, and one for the foreground.
The first image is faux infrared, created using CS3's excellent black and white adjustment layer function (another improvement over CS2) and curve-toning.

Trees Lounge








Well, what else are they supposed to do when the birds have deserted them for warmer climbs?
Some of these were oportunistic snap shots whilst I was on a job, others were shot at the most recent Wivenhoe Photography Group trip.
Trees sleep during the summer, resting from all that activity in spring. They flirt outrageously in autumn, but then in winter we witness a darker side of them, one they'd probably rather we didn't see.

Nine



A mini post of two images, one old, one new. Different takes on the theme of crowds and movement. Both are long exposures.

Thursday, 10 December 2009

Winter Light







Back to experimenting with blur this week, as well as playing with some of the functionality Photoshop CS3 offers, after upgrading from CS2 - specifically the new black and white conversion method.
The theme of this jaunt into Colchester was supposed to be 'urban', but old habits die hard and when there's an old church to photograph, I become a moth to it's flame.
There are various themes or ideas running through this set - obviously movement, the hustle and bustle of the street, and the anonymity of crowds - but also a tilt into fantasy with 'neon' and the images of St. Botolph's. The final image of the cross, in particular, was intended to take on a cartoonish feel.