First Endless Summer Art Work

Unfortunately its really overcast, not a perfect start to an endless summer, “Such is life”.

However it did give me the opportunity to experiment on a small canvas for #PatternsOfNature Series

Network Aquatic : Acrylic on Canvas 15 by 15cm (Jan 2017)

PhotoFriday :: Saturation

Saturation but getting wet as well as colour

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Saturation

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).

ThePatch :: Landscape & Water …aka At the Billabong

My original intention for this week’s The Patch theme on Landscape and Water was to be a dramatic surf seascape, but circumstance keep me from getting down the coast, and a usual time was running out. Saturday night bought the heaviest overnight rain for many years so I next morning I headed for the Jells Park Lake expecting to see flooding everywhere (or at least some good puddles to get a reflected landscape. Trouble was the sky was a dull grey, with just the occasional glimpse of blue and it was still drizzling!

The Creek was certainly in flood and I had to get my feet wet to get around the back of the lake (several very average water photos later I got to a normally dry billabong and with the sun briefly peeked through breaks in the clouds long enough to get a panorama set with bracketed exposure of the reflections and a nearby river gum, When I realized I probably had the makings of the unofficial Australian Nation Anthem (well the one any True Blue Aussie knows the words to) Waltzing Matilda. Ok it is not a real Coolabah tree but it is a real Billabong, and with some water in it!


Back to the Photo assignment, first step was let google+ do its autoawesome HDR* and then I used autostitch to join up these photos. Finally I used the new Perfect Photo Suite 9 (I’m still  checking out the trial version) to do the crop and a little further tonal tweaking, especially toning down the lurid HDR* colours and adding a little warmth. Finally adding that great Big Softy vignette (every so slightly off center).

Rain on the Duco

Created with OnOne Cross Process Blue preset in Lightroom followed by Comic Book Vignette in Picasa 

PhotoFriday :: Natural Mirror

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Mirror

Semi-Abstract Collage

Semi abstract patterns of reflections on the water surface whilst looking at my shadow below the pier  Created in Picasa's collage tool

Just in time?

I visited Cardina Dam yesterday, and have never seen it so full. So I was a little surprise to hear on the radio this morning that the Wonthaggi Desalination Plant will begin pumping “high quality” water (their term) into the dam from  today. However I would estimate there is less that 2m of freeboard available until the dam start naturally emptying itself via its spillway, which seems to contradict the claim that its website claim that it is only at 79.9% of its capacity. Just in time or not needed?

The panorama above was constructed from 22 images, using autostitch. I was trying out a new gadget, the little green cube on my camera, which is a multi-level slide into the flash hot shoe and it worked a treat. No matter how you position the camera on the tripod (portrait or landscape orientation), there are two bubble levels that help you ensure good horizontal and vertical alignment.

Wet in Wellington

  

Reflections

 
Autumn afternoon in Jells Park

Noumenian Dawn

 
Two photos stitched using autostitch

PhotoFriday topic dawn

South Pacific, West Papua

Passing the lighthouse at sarong

Preparing for a trip to Waimisi

Decent rains at last!

 

Photographing actual rain is a very complex task, its udsually very poor lighting, its falling fast and therefeore blurs in the slow exposre required, it usually has no center of interests, the list just goes on and on. So I have taken the simple way out, just photographing the effects and really zeroing in on just a small aspects, using the macro setting on my trusty telephoto zoom lens, the water droplettes on a grape vine. Still it tells the story well.

pure

Yet another two panel autostiched image. Taken in Mossman Gorge during heavy rain.

For PhotoFriday, topic purity.

Using stitched images is perfect for work deep in a rainforest where you actually want a super wide angle to take in all the detail, but not end up with a fish eye distortion. I just took one photo one above the other then used autostitch. There is plenty of natural lines and surfaces to help the software do perfect image matching. The results is a very natural wide view, without the disturbing perspective. It was dark and raining at the time so the aperture is wide and most things are in good focus.