Photographic Art

The best laid plans of mice and men..... I was hoping to be a bit further along with my art on a commercial level by now but it seems that I will have to be content with much slower progress. In an effort to progress more quickly I pushed my body (health wise) just a little too hard and set myself back a bit. The pressure is off for a couple of months as far as my photography club competitions go having submitted our final EOY Prints and PDI last night.

I am really enjoying my art at present and there seems to be a growing appreciation of it by my peers and the public in general. I have been asked by quite a number of people how I create the dust in my Rodeo images. Some are flatteringly referring to my style as 'Western Fine Art'. I do think that I have my own unique style emerging but I'm not sure that I want to be labelled anything just yet.

One of the sections or  genre catered to by our club is called Altered Reality / Creative ("ARC") and happens to be my favourite section. Most camera clubs do not have a specific section to cater to this genre and due of a lack of support in the Print category our club has announced that it will be discontinued in the new year but entries will still be accepted in the PDI (Projected Digital Imagery) Open section. The news was quite devastating to those of us that do support this genre and when we expressed this to the club they offered one of the more experienced ARC photographers and myself the opportunity to provide a presentation (each) to the members (our styles are very different so too were our presentations).

For my part I put together two presentation images which were to become working examples, one basic; Huge moon behind skyline and the other a more advanced; dust and grit layers with provision for members to insert their own element. I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to get a real hands on feeling for what we do and perhaps they too would like to try a little ARC. I provided a step by step construction handout for the first image and I was pleasantly surprised at the number of questions relating to the various processes.

In a future blog I'll give a detailed account of the presentation and access to the images so that readers can share the experience. - I need to do a little research on how best to do this. In the meantime I'll leave you with the two images.

That is finished but without the main element and the following is with my "Spirited" element.

So until next time... which hopefully will be in the near future - take care.

Pete

Brand development

Now that the Christmas holiday craziness is over for another year I can get back on track, I hope - What's that old saying, the best laid plans of mice and men.....

Okay so this is the plan, I want to create a video clip for a 30 second brand intro, more or less. Surprise, surprise, I've used the face of a lens as the background image for our 'P V Media Productions' brand. The scene starts with an orbiting earth which will morph into the lens face as the brand information begins to appear from a comet which morphs into the text as film strips. All of this unfolding in 3D giving the viewer the sense that they are witnessing the birth of a unique phenomenon. I've always wanted to do a little motion graphics the only fly in the ointment is that I have to learn how to use Ae (Adobe After Effects), so this could take a while but it will be done.

First step is to get all the text just the way I want it so I used Ai to create a film strip and I didn't want black or blue as the colour, too traditional so I opted for hot pink gradating to black. Next I needed to create a path to affix theses film-strips to, so I used 'Edwardian Script ITC' font for the wording 'P V Media'. BTW 'P V' are simply mine and my wife (Bonnie Ronnie is my nickname for her) Veronica's initials.

Once I had modified the path to present the film strips just the way I wanted them, I set about attaching them to the path and positioning them just right so that they flowed with the curves of the font, I then hid all layers except the group of 16 film strips.

I needed a background graphic, something simple that could be stylised in the future and it needed to be a strong association image. A camera is a little too complex and would date quickly, also the type of camera could limit association, as would a clapper-board. I thought yes a lens is a lot more associative depending on perspective so front on it would be! I photographed one of my lenses and modified it in photoshop altering the description from the original to LENS 10-1000mm 1:16-22 which is really quite meaningless but gives the illusion of a powerful lens for a powerful camera of whatever type.

The rest of the 'Brand' compilation was relatively easy, a little messing around with placement for sign production, business cards, stationary etc. Lastly I wanted to put this all on a colour background but not a standard flat colour - too boring! Gradated colours are nice, especially pastel shades so I started mucking about with a simple two colour gradation on a single layer in photoshop until I saw something I liked - simple is always best. This is the end result for all printed branding, the red border is simply my crop line.

Next step is to learn how to make a rotating earth with all the elements in Ae, stay tuned for more.

Till next time, God Bless.

HDR

Bonnie Ronnie and I have been testing a few lenses on our cameras and decided it was about time we did a few photos of our beautiful Brisbane City. We left things a bit late but arrived in time to capture a sunset picture while setting up our gear on the top of the Kangaroo Point Cliff. We had a ball trying out 2 crop frame camera's - both Sony, a55 and a65 with an 18-55 SAM lens.

Sony are notorious for poor performance in low light and I really wanted to see just how far we could push them with rule 16 settings but at night. So we kept the ISO at 100, f16 and then used a cable release as we pushed both cameras to photograph within 30 seconds just didn't want to go to bulb for now.

I thought we would try for a panorama or two and must say that both cameras performed better than expected with the a65 speed averaging 20 seconds and the a55 averaging 25 seconds. I've posted the results to my Facebook page so have a look, comment, share, like the page and tell your friends.

I thought I might give this HDR stuff a go while we were at it. A really touchy subject with some photographers including those who use photoshop. I'm not about to get into a debate over it, each to their own I say. I'm not a professional photographer, in fact, I'm not a professional anything anymore - I'm strictly an amateur artist with a little talent and will experiment with anything and everything to produce stuff that is pleasing to the senses, currently, I'm into photography as it was a medium of interest in my youth and I need to catch up enough to be able to incorporate good photography into my art... operative word being good :)

So I've done one HDR sequence and here is the result - oh I used Photoshop CS6 to produce this.

HDR with no further editing - not bad.

HDR Processed in Light Room - a little excessive.

Filters

For a while now I have been experimenting with various filters in Photoshop as I learn to use layers and adjustment filters, masks and clipping masks.

I don't mind telling you that I struggled with the whole clipping mask and adjustment layer scene, kept getting hung up on how to apply the adjustment to just one layer. Slowly I'm getting the hang of this as I start looking at experimenting with HDR. It was with HDR in mind when I started processing this photograph of the Eifel Tower which was taken just on sunset with the sun setting to my right. Not a good shot by any stretch of the imagination and taken with a Nikon point and shoot on the run. 

Anyway I decided that I would play around with it and see what could be done but I thought I would play around with some of Lightroom 4 settings first then the plan was to take it into Photoshop for some simulated HDR. I have had a copy of Nik's Color Efex Pro 4 for a while and one of my favourite filters is Detail Extractor (I have managed to achieve the same or similar results in Photoshop and have actually created 3 actions for varying degrees of detail extraction) which also gives a sort of HDR effect. This software is a plug-in to photoshop and I quite like it since it saves an awful lot of time while I'm still a novice in photoshop.

Well I got quite carried away and didn't actually get around to trying an HDR simulation. Most of the effects that you see in the attached photograph were created just using Lightroom and as many of the tools there that I felt I could possibly get away with, but I did finish off with (very little) Color Efex for a little selected detail on the Tower and a little warmth in the sky.

I have included a before and after shot so please comment and tell me what you think of it.

Till next time - "Capturing Inspiration"

Painting with Photoshop

I have for quite some time wanted to paint with a digital application and finally I have done just that using Photoshop.

I've used illustrator to create some vector art and wanted to paint using the same program but most reference material indicates that photoshop is the desired application so I decided to give it a go. Don't the pro's make it look easy, well it's not... at least not for me.

Even with the little Bamboo tablet that I bought when I got the iMac, I thought it may help and it certainly has but it is taking a bit of getting used to. I'm sort of flicking (in ultra slow motion) between the mouse and pad with the stylus. I'm all thumbs as I try not to keep pushing the stylus buttons with my right finger and thumb while I try and avoid the buttons on the pad. Cursor is down when it should be up and I'm opening tools and panels willy nilly as I try to remain calm and patient.

Then of course, what to draw or paint. My daughter tells me that she loves foxes, roses and butterflies, I have painted, sketched, carved and tattooed the later two so I thought I'd give the fox a go. The first attempt was shocking but relatively easy, just slapped on a bit of colour and pushed and pulled things into place with the smudge tool to have a little jumping fox (of sorts). Not great and you could almost make out what it was meant to be so I thought I would try a portrait (of a fox) next and get into a little more detail. 

I have always had a problem drawing and painting hair and fur, especially the latter so what made be try to paint a short haired fox - all fur, I don't know. Well it took me three times longer than anticipated and I kept getting lost with colours and brushes but I did learn to create a colour palette on its own layer so that I could keep going back to the exact colours used now I just have to create my own set of fur brushes as there are so many settings and I kept getting lost.

I'm not at all happy with the end result but I am satisfied with my effort since this was my first photoshop animal portrait. Practice makes perfect so I shall keep trying and I've no doubt that I will improve with each attempt. 

Fox_Face - first portrait with 3 roses for my daughter.

Blending Modes

Well I have been having a tremendous amount of fun as I learn and practice these blending modes in Photoshop. Seriously I never realised just how powerful this application is. It has taken over 6 months and 36 short courses to get to this stage. I've got to hand it to 'Lynda.com' their courses are great at explaining what the different elements are and how to use them.

Then of course there is 'Youtube' and my family and friends for the inspiration. I'm starting to build a little confidence as I explore some of the possibilities of texture and colour blends for backgrounds. Composition with different masking options and the most difficult for me was learning the clipping mask switches .... not that I am any more than a novice.

Thanks to my Bonnie Ronnie for providing her services as my model for this latest creation and although she absolutely hates pictures of herself in school uniform she did allow one but it had to be blended just right to hide the detail that she dislikes.... sometimes it is very hard to please this lovely lady of mine:)

Simply titled 'Veronica".

Till next time, God Bless

Different Techniques

Ronnie and I are starting to develop a fairly good workflow which is helping us to process and grade or rate our best work, sorting the chafe so to speak. When we go on a shoot we tend to take an overabundance of photographs and it can take quite some time to filter them whilst looking for that ever elusive perfect shot. This week we have been practicing our new workflow and it seems to be quite effective.

In addition to the workflow I have been trying a few new or rather different techniques to not just take good photographs but to make good photographs as well. As with everything the quality of the new work is a bit rough and of course there will be those who hate it. Now there are a million programs out there to create fancy special effects with little or no effort so that would of course be too easy so what I'm learning is how to make the tools that go into making those special effects so that I can be a little different and make my own mark in the end.

For now I'll post my latest piece and I will say before posting it that the photo's are not great since I had no sooner setup my camera and was in the process of taking a couple of test shots to check lighting etc. when my subjects decided to call it a day, consequently this is made up of those test shots.

"Electric Para-Surfing" - Hope you like it.

Till next time, God Bless!

Ps Brush

I've been looking at a number of tutorials on the brushes in photoshop and of course I've been having a ball creating various brushes. The majority have been terrible because although the pro's make it look easy it actually isn't quite so easy. One can make a brush out of just about anything and of course one could make dozens of poor quality brushes or one could strive to make a few really good brushes, I prefer the latter.

Anyway creating brushes is one thing, using them, quite another. I have taken what I consider to be a nice portrait photo of my very beautiful and cute granddaughter Hayley and decided to make something a little colourful and fun with some of my new brushes and a few of photoshop's more interesting brushes.

Till next time, capturing inspiration.