#TURNOFFSOCIALMEDIA :: Work in progress

Seems there was a lot of angst generated yesterday, because the social media drip was taken away. The really sad part was that the emergency services in Australia (triple zero) has to take to conventional media  to stop ringing to report Facebook and Instagram. So sad….

Well there is a good alternative #TURNOFFSOCIALMEDIA and go and do something in the real world, the more creative the better or actually talk to someone, especially a friend. It will be really good for your health.

Yesterday I when for a walk for with my sketchbook, watercolours & pens (the actually fit in my camera bag) Sat in the sun (and strong breeze) and sketched.

Time disappeared into a flow of seeing and sketching. The only rude reminder of reality was fighting against the wind. Such is life and it is good.

Against the wind

 

Photography doesn’t have to be just a fair weather persuit. As long as it safe to do so, rug up and go out and enjoy the atmosphere, keep you camera and gear dry . Then look for that moment that conveys the place and time (and cold!)

PhotoFriday :: Dusk

HDR Stitched Panorama of Jell Park Lake at Dusk

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Dusk

PhotoEditingTools :: HDR well After the fact

 

Some time ago I used to take 5 photos in my bracketed sets. I was experimenting with different EV steps and this set remained unprocessed. Further these are all jpeg not RAW. Its not a gripping image but has a little potential as an abstract composition. I came aross the set when I was checking through my photos and thought I should give Aftershot Pro”s HDR merge a try out with 5 images rather than just 3. There was no need to worry it worked perfectly. The only item of note was, it is very important to run the feature based align when you are merging 5 hand held images, but Aftershot did a great job.

Not yet a great photo but a pleasing improvement none the less, much closer to what I feel I would have seen and attracted me to take the photo. These days I normally only take three photos but 1.5 EV apart and in RAW on my Pentax and 3 photos 2 EV apart on my Canon. There is lots of well meaning advice of the right settings for HDR, most of it apparently given with authority but totally prescriptive and usually without explanation. If you have decent software I suggest you experiment for yourself and find those settings that best suit you and your camera, and be gentle with the sliders during tone mapping (aka avoid the lurid colours).

PhotoFriday :: My Favourite Location (this year)

My all time favourite photographic location is still probably South Walkerville, but over the past year I have been taking a lot of photos just down the road in Jells Park. The scenery may not be  world shattering but I am enjoying capturing the migrating birds, the subtle changes of light and reflections.


For PhotoFriday‘s topic My Favourite Location

Damn Mist :: Jells Park Lake

Today is going to be a scorcher, but the dawn was lovely and cool. 

PhotoProject :: Beginning the Year with a Wider View

After boldly claiming this might be the year of the photo book I have resolved to create several this year and write a bit about my experiences along the way. One of the books I would like to create is something like “A Year in Jells Park” (which is almost just on my doorstep, ok a short walk). Jells Park is vast and I’m sure there will be a lot to photograph and discuss. Already some of the post in the blog are fodder for the book. This evening I went to photograph the water birds down on the lake. on the way I liked the lighting across the lake but without a wide angle lens, I did my usually trick of taking a set of overlapping images, no tripod or fancy panorama head just hand held (like I always do). I then just sent the jpegs straight out of the camera into Autostitch to see what it looked like (well via Picasa)

I hadn’t tried to balance the exposure (of the sky and lake) across the set and autostitch returns ragged edges because my hand held overlap was pretty approximate. Yet it does give a wonderful view that is hard to capture without special lens (and cameras). I will certainly tweak this view further, when I have a little more time, perhaps even for a double page spread in a photobook! Ok lets not get ahead of ourselves here!

While I had all the images on my phototray in picasa I selected the collage tool to create a david hockney style joiner. I’ve set up one of the configurable buttons in the print/share area of the phototray. If you haven’t set up this key look under Create/Picture collage… item on the main menu. I then selected the Picture Pile under options. I set the without borders, and solid background colour which I selected with the eye dropper as part of the sky’s middle tone blue. I also click on the drop shadows to just highlight the photos edges a little. I then slide the photos around with the mouse to almost, but not quiet, have the photos overlap. Again clearly the photos don’t quiet match in tone and exposure but I think that just adds to the charm and realisation that this is a big vista.

Black Swan on Green Waters

The forlorn pelican

 I haven't seen a pelican at the lake for some time. This shot was a good chance to play with Ligthroom 5 beta's new radial filter (aka flexible vignettes)

Welcome back stranger

 

I have not seen black swans [Cygnus atratus] in Jell’s Park Lake for a couple of years now. They were once very common, especially in late spring.  I assumed the pelicans had scared them away. Today one was swimming around exploring the reedy areas and generally enjoying the sun.

 

No black swan theory here

sky & lake

These multi-image stitched panoramic views of Lake Taupo are more about the clouds and sky than the lake and landscape. I’m informed these unusual clouds are locally know as “Mare’s Tales” (thanks Wendy). Clouds alone are something that I have found can be a challenge to match up for Autostitch, especially for hand held sequences.  So I was careful to keep a little bit of the horizon in each image also I have taken the photos in the vertical “portrait” mode to maximize the vertical range and having two rows of images within each composite panoramic image.

twilight