Time to Smile

I’m looking rather pleased with myself,  because I just got a highly commended for "my gingko leaves in time" pencil study at the victorian artists society student & teacher exhibition

The exhibition is on until 7th August.

Many thanks to VAS  & Art Spectrum

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

PhotoProject :: Experimenting more Artist Tools into Photography

 

A very well known technique artists to help make compositions more interesting using  a simple techniques of lost and found lines (or edges). These leaves room for interpretation of the the image or more particularly the form of the subject.

 

This very simple black and white image on a japaneese stamp that show gingko leaves, but none of the leaf edges actually join to the stems but the image can be clearly interpreted as three independent leaves. Our subconscious vision processing has happily seeks where hidden lines or non obvious edges are likely to be and presents us with an easily understood image. The artistic hook here is the brain has become more interested in the image.

 

An experiment with lost and found lines in a photo

Best laid plans …

All to often if you are chasing creativity, you can get struck in a rut. Today was really wet and overcast most of the day but the sun broke through for a few brief moments so I grabbed my polarizing filter and headed out to try and photograph a rainbow and see if I could enhance the colours using the polarizer (because the rainbow colours are reflected and thus polarized light I was convinced I should be able to darken the sky but brighten the rainbow). Despite dodging sun showers and cold winds I saw no rainbows. One the way back inside I saw my cretaceous garden was beautifully backlit for a just few moments and the revived gingko looked resplendent in its refreshed green.

I think it was Matt Kloskowski that once said if you see good light you must photograph it. Not a wonderful composition or compelling subject but the light was terrific enough to become my photo of the day.

Moral :: Don’t try to plan creativity

PhotoFriday :: HDR+Macro

Raindrops on Gingko Leaves

Trying out HDR techniques with Macro (close up) Photography

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Macro

A Bit of Nostalgia

My trial of Perfect Photo Suite 9 had not been progressing well, I was running up against an 1018 error which relates to Open/GL 2 support and the graphics card. My Toshiba laptop having two graphics cards an standard intel and the Higher performing Nvidia GeForce but alas I was only seeing the intel driver and the 1018 error of a warning about Open/GL support. A fair bit of research and asking the right question to OnOne support has got me through this serious "trial" of my patience. 

Anyway I noticed that amongst the presets in Suite 9 is a comprehensive set of slide film emulating filters. Slide film was great it bought a true luminescence to photos, particularly landscapes, but at the same time it was very demanding, even half a stop out and you could "blow the highlights" or a stop under exposed and you would have gloom. However in between was a magic place full of rich colour.

Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/a-bit-of-nostalgia

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.