Puddles of Fun

I started photographing my (almost) daily walks about 6 week ago, Over COVID-19 restriction allow us yo "exercise" close by for an hour. In particular I was closely observing what was under my feet. The original intent being to create a photo easy of my walks but from a very different perspective. Well the project is still ongoing and I don't see any need to finish it to soon, I think we have a few more weeks of "lockdown". I enjoy the walks and always carry my camera.

The wet weather has created a lot of puddles and wonderful reflections and with some floating Autumn leaves. I am reminded of a couple of the lithographs that where displayed in The M C Escher  X Nendo exhibition at the NGV last year.

Autumn Colour

A little late

I visited Alfred Nicholas Garden late last week, seeking some autmn colour, but I was a little late. One exception was this magnificent gingko tree down beside the lake

Another Photo on #janesweather

My posting to twitter is falling away, because there seems so little connection with anything. I liken it to shouting into the wind. One very big exception is Jane Bunn's Weather segment on the local TV news.

Thanks Jane

ArtInspired :: Autumn Leaves HDR to Dreamscope

  
I’ve been concentrating of the possibilities around taking macro photos out in the wilds. Its a bit more challenging than say photographing something like a toy or texture in a brick wall, because the patterns go on and on and blend into other patterns. Nature has a habit of packing lots of things into the available space, whereas mankind has the opposite habit of stripping out everything away and replacing it with very little ot single functionality,

This began as a HDR Camera+ photo on my android phone, of the autumn leaves on a pathway. I like the texture. So I began with OnOne’s Dynamic Contrast and Fall Enhancer. to give me the image on the upper left. Then I tried two dreamscope filters “jewelled” and “watercoloured”. These use the methodology described by Google’s Deep Dream explanation of neural networks analysis photographic images. Finally I used OnOne’s layers capabilities to blend the three images together. Letting reality merge into art.

Last of Autumn Start of Winter

This was taken with my new android phone during a break in the rain. It was taken using HDR Camera+ and then lightly adjusted to soften the colour a square crop and add the ragged frame using Adobe’s Photoshop Express for Android. Photoshop express was one of the early photo editor apps I used on my previous Android phone so I am roughly familiar with its basic operation. By the way the controls are nothing like other adobe photo editors, At first impressions it has more in the common format of small filter icons to pick the effect you want from a scrollable ribbon underneath the phone giving the impression of a one-click fix. However if you look a bit deeper on the icon on the bottom line there are a number of useful tools for basic edit. The key is the several filters can be used cumulatively on the one image. The first three overlapping circle control cropping tool, which bring up the filters related to colour with a horizontal slider bar to increase of decrease the effect. Next is a small icon with two overlapping l shapes which is the cropping took. Then a simplified icon of two sliders to control exposure, and many tonal and sharpening/noise options. The eye is for red eye reduction and the small frame icon is for adding a frame or fancy edge. Finally there is a band aid to remove blemishes. All in all most of the edit tools you might want to use.

PhotoFriday :: Reflections of Autumn

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Autumn Colour

The Benefits of Bracketing for High Contrast Subjects

The Photographic opportunities at the Alfred Nicholas Gardens was pretty amazing but the sunny autumn day produced strong contrast in the pools of coloured light in the shade of the tall trees. This definitely a situation that gives a hard time for the in camera light meter to get a viable exposure. I have learned to trust my instincts in situations like this and go for slight under exposure to avoid burning out the highlights. If you are shooting raw you will usually be able to get a bit of detail in the shadows, whereas it is hard to fix the highlights when they are burnt out. I have also learn that this is also the time to run a bracketed set. In this case I cranked up the EV steps of 1.5 and run five exposures. Just looking at the back of the camera I was able to conform that I was approximately right in my choice, The histogram starts to rise up on the right hand edge when the highlights get blown out, In lightroom this is refered to as tonal clipping and when a number of pixel beloe just white (or truely In the case of this series I selected the EV=2.0 photo to post on flickr. Just in case I did run a few more bracketing exposures are I walked around and took different views. So I have a few over and under expose images but most turned out fine.

Where do Photographers go in Autumn?

I now know where Melbourne's photographers all go on a sunny day in autumn. They go en mass to the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens, just on the edge of Sherbrooke forest, in the Dandenong ranges. I have never seen so much high end gear and tripods.

What puzzled me a little was the number of very long lenses, when most of the scenery cried out for wide angel approach. Even with my 18-50 zoom (~ 30-75mm in 35mm talk) I was not able to get the right perspective of the lake. So I ended up taking a series of 32 photos from the boat house end of lake, which I was able to run through autostitch and produce a 9,400 wide panorama (unfortunately its a bit pointless trying to upload any image this size). Even so it may be worth zooming in and seeing how many photographers you can count. The wonderful yellow tree on the island is a ginkgo biloba (the maiden-hair tree), not shown at its best here. The reflections in the lake alone a worth a special trip, and the walk back up the hill.

Harvest Moon

Photo, originally uploaded by imageo.

A reminder that winter is coming.

the oaks

Winter is coming, and the lighting can be dramatic

Winter is approaching and the skies are getting much more animated, In particular the glimpse of strong sunlight between dark clouds so often bringing the landscape alive. Its a good time of year to always have your camera with you and not be afraid to stop and take in the wonderful lighting effects and get a few “special” shots. Both of these shots, where taken by the side of the road when I noticed a fleeting moment of great lighting. Both where shot without filters but I did use the Adjustment brush in lightroom to lift the highlights a little. The Panorama below was created with autostitch using 8 “portrait” orientated overlapping photos.

Autumn is upon us

Autumn is upon us, originally uploaded by imageo.

Experimenting with Lightroom 5 Beta's new Upright feature, on a natural landscape with the horizon hidden and no strong uprights or horizontals (ie no buildings). It seems to have made sensible decisions, but I'm puzzled what it based those decisions on? Perhaps the shadows and trunks of the trees? The poplar in the left?

Late Afternoon Visitors

Morning Light at the old Exhibition Building

PhotoFriday :: Springtime

Its actually Autumn here in the southern hemisphere, luckily the belladonna lily [Amaryllis] chooses this time of the year to put on its best blooms (and a springtime feel).

For PhotoFriday‘s topic springtime

PhotoFriday :: Mornings

For PhotoFriday‘s topic mornings

Autumn Afternoon