Shadows are an example of something visual that our conscious mind normally ignores. Most often folk don't really see them or at least can't recall them.
Yet they can be wonderful aids to getting interesting compositions or even telling an intersting story. Also on a sunny day they can help get the best exposure (even without a light meter)
So remember "Whats in the Shadows
Stitching panoramas has become a lot simpler, but different programs did have different tolerance (or lack of) when stitching a handheld series of photos. Particular in three areas.
1) Near Perfect alignment woes, one photo out of alignment could sabotage the series.
2) Exposure varying from frame to frame, particularly in a clear sky for super wide views, could lead to obvious striping in the sky rather than a smooth blend.
3) Variable overlap, often tripped up the merging or just stop the merging.
I've been sending my updated ON1 Photo RAW 2022 many of these issues in hand held panorama sequences and I've been pleased that it is handling them well. Its also faster off the blocks (to preview) and much more efficient with time and space with the final render. You still have to export the propriety .onphoto file, which can be easily edited with any other tools in ON1 The export can now be a DNG file (ie.a RAW style format)
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| A Great Day in Jell's Park |
During the Stora's life the disk space was expanded from a 250GB single drive up to two 1TB disks, mirrored internally. In the early days it also gave family members their own shared space (discontented because it was seldom used). Then was my photo backup area until I started taking RAW format photos and movies and I soon overflowed space available.
I'm actually choosing to go back to having a traditional files server, (locked away in my old comms room). I have a couple of candidate computers that windows 10 updates have killed, well as far as Microsoft is concerned. I want it to be on 24/7 but secure. I also want this computer to have a DVD reader, perhaps even tape or Zip drive (to allow different media backups and/or reading old technologies). Finally, the ability to have two or more external drives connected (ie be able to copy whole archive disks setup). The downside is this will take up a lot more space than the little black box
Despite having used Ubuntu for some time on my little air gapped archive computer, which I have only been using roughly at six-month intervals and thus I hadn't time to become friends with Ubuntu. I've moved to using Linux Mint (it seems a lot cleaner and simpler for the stuff I want ie. little or no learning curve).
So I'm probably going backwards in technology but I trust I will be keeping things simple and reliable in the old fashion dependable sense.
Whilst I cringed at the ongoing tidal wave of "look-at-me" self-promotion on today's social media, I will begin reusing facebook with a bit of self-promotion. Infact I'll also promote my next PhotoWalk, here and on Instagram as well.
Next PhotoWalk :: In Memories of Trees Meet at Madeline's Cafe Jells Park on Saturday 23rd July at 10am. Register through mga (click on the photo to reach the link)
So sorry folks if you haven't heard from me in while, and now you are getting the same promotional stuff from three sources. Such is social media life!
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People are prisoners of their phones, that's why they are called cell phones. |
PS The caption on my bitmojie cartoon at the top of the post came from a cartoon I saw on Facebook as I was wading through the issues above. However, when I went back to find it so I could acknowledge the source and I can't find it. Damn you Facebook!
I think I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of the subscription model for software. In theory they deliver to you the most up-to-date versions of the software continuously. However, this really has not been the case in practise (at least so far), You just have to look at adobe who got into the very ..very ....very (there should be more very's but you'd probably stop reading) profitable subscription model a decade ago. Over the first 10 years if you paid the subscription for different bits of their software you would have paid twice to three times more than if you had just bought the software outright and three upgrades within that10 years. What's more they had not upgraded that much.
Now however, Adobe are becoming more competitive in terms of new upgrades and modules because of the number of alternative products. Also the alternative products quickly learned to offer both purchase outright (with upgrade under 50% of the original purchase price) or subscription,
Anyway the idea of waiting three years, two or three upgrades, has worked well for me. Unless of course the new upgrade has feature(s) I really need. I also like the option that I can download the new version as a trial, with all the new features active to test out.
All this is a long way around saying I was happy to update from ON1 Photo RAW 2020 to ON1 Photo RAW 2022.5, not just for the new resize feature (which is great) but it makes a big difference for me and multi-image panorama. I also find the export a processed image nicer/
Not that the 2020 version was bad, it was slower, particularly on the export) and didn't do a such great job when the dynamic range across the whole panorama is large (The result from the 2022 version is shown above)
I made the ABC weather last night with a photo of an unusual cloud. It appeared to be a regular puffy cumulous rising high into the sky BUT it was chopped in a series of segments, perhaps strata might be a better term. I could not figure out what might cause this.? Hence sending it into the weather and perhaps an explanation (there was none)
It wasn't till later as I was processing this ultra wide multi-image panorama taken shortly after the above photo that I realized I was tricked by the perspective. The puffy clouds were actually very flat, at the same height but different distances from me.
The morale(s) of the story are stay inquisitive, always be ready to take a photo (or two!) and don't forget to hashtag your photos on social media.
I have a great view to the east out over the coral sea, So it was back to early morning getting up. At least its not cold. In case you've never tried it, a dark to light stop motion is a challenge, But I like a challenge.
Go figure I'm a keen photographer, but not really into Stories or Reels, bit over all the ads popping up on YouTube and definitely not in into Facebook or Tik Tok. I set up this blog primarily to share what I was discovering about digital photography. So, what happened?
My suspicion is the rise of social media has gobbled up original content, and used it to keep you watching so they can charge advertisers (and they make squillions). The actual creatives get lost in the millions of copycat wanna-bees and if they receive anything it's a pittance. See my post about Danny Gregory's recent essay.
Really unfortunately we the viewers of social media gets suck into the black hole of the death scroll, picking up the photo to look at social media way too often, swiping and swipe again without really paying attention, not properly looking, swiping and swiping some more. At the end you don't feel refresh, you are more likely to feel frustrated or depressed. As Adam of Firstman Photography points out you are much better off spending the time actually out photographing, getting the benefit of exercise and being out in the real world, perhaps even nature.
It worth watching to the end because Adam gives some very heart-felt encouragement for those of us with a deep passion for and care about photography to stick in there
Well am I doing anything about it! YES
You can make the change too. It's easy to put down your phone and pick up your camera (or click on a different icon/app on your smartphone, phones can be good cameras too).
Ok what about sharing your photos? That will be an upcoming post (soon but not exactly sure when),
My attempt on the photowalk to demonstrate how to get a starburst effect really just showed I needed to clean my lens. BUT here is what I wanted to show. If your camera can stop down the lens to a small aperture (a high f number such as F22) do that. It is then a very small hole for the light to come through. Then find a place that the strong sun light (even though it was overcast) is peeking through (such as a gap in the branches of the silhouetted tree). It's that easy.
Remember to change the F stop back after taking the photo to avoid the diffraction (allowing you to get the starburst effect), causing problems in your normal photos.
What happens if you take a white sheet A grey Sheet and a Black sheet and photograph them separately.
Fill the veiwfinder with just a single colour.
If you have trouble focusing, you can move the center of the viewfinder to the edge and half press the shutter button. Don't push it all the way and move back into the center of the sheet and full press the shutter button.
Hmm, is this what you expected?
I do enjoy Danny Gregory's weekly essays (see also video below), but I am rapidly running out of patience with two things.
The lengthy covid-19 lockdowns and some personal health reasons, meant I stopped running Photowalks some time ago. I'm pleased to announce I am resuming them in conjunction with MGA (the Monash Gallery of Art). There will now be a small fee (to help cover the administration), and I encourage anyone with a camera (including phones) to come along.
Sunday June 12th. 1:00pm
Meet at Monash Gallery of Art
860 Ferntree Gully Road
Wheelers Hill, VIC 3150
Note registration is now via the mga eventbrite site or events on their web page,
Unfortunately, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi died last year. His wisdom from living through the second World War, his father being the Hungarian Ambassador in Rome at the time the communist takeover of Hungary in 1949. It is probably just my fantasy but it would have been great if he could have sat down for a quiet chat with Putin and explained the misery, tragedies, insecurities that are the toll of losing freedoms, jobs, homes, can impose on the innocent. His deep wisdom into the secret to happiness is still very relevant today.
This is an important TED talk that Mihaly gave in back in 2008 covering the lead into how he started describing the flow experience. It is wonderful context told in a series of stories,
His book (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, will give you greats insight in the Flow State
The wanderers began by happen-chance. Three of us started our own small plein air painting/sketching group out in the real world. Soon after Victoria began it first lock down and after a couple of rocky test, we started meeting on zoom on Wednesday at 10:00am. It was a welcome get together and we started painting a shared photo supplied by one of the participants since it was the free zoom meeting we only had 40 minutes for the session before we got cut off. Not a lot of time to carry out a watercolour painting of a scene you had not seen before.
The Watercolours Society of Victoria had purchased the Pro
version of zoom and kindly allowed us to use their service so we were no longer
bound by the 40 minute limit but kept the rough timing and format.
There is a Chinese proverb attributed to Lao Tzu
“If you are depressed you
are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
It is this being in the present when you are painting, that
probably explains lot of the popularity of the Wanderers
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| Mihaly Explains [watercolour on Canvas by Norm Hanson] |
I believe it has a lot to do with helping the participants
slip into what the Psychologist Mihály CsÃkszentmihályi identified and calls
the Flow State. In which the duration of time is altered, hours pass in minutes,
minutes can stretch out to seem like hours.
After interviewing many successful people for his study of
the Psychology of Optimal Experience, he concluded that there were seven common
experiences shared by these people. He calls these the Elements of Enjoyment
He believes you can
most easily move into flow if you are aroused (but anxious) by the challenge
and you take the opportunity to practise and improve your skills, or you are confident in your skill (but
bored) until you get inspired by the challenge. Flow occurs when a task’s
challenge is balanced with one’s skill.
A very important aspect of the Wanderers is the group dynamic. Mihaly studied and advised many sporting groups including the successful Australian Women’s Hockey team, Australian Olympics cyclists and ice skaters. He lists these important characteristics for teams to Achieve Flow and thus improve their collective performance by achieving group flow.
Whilst we were not always in focused together, and seldom on
all aspects. Those participating were generally focussed in the present
challenge testing their skills and often reaching the flow state. Mihaly says it is this flow that allows the
enjoyment of experiencing that you are good at something while you are doing
it. It didn’t matter so much if you had or had not finished or looked the same
as others.
Febraury 2022
What were you doing during the lockdowns? (well assuming they are over)
Here is something I did and we are having an exhibition, If you are in Melbourne or allowed into Victoria please come and have a look.
Immediately it became apparent that there was a need for something like this, as membership quickly grew. It has enabled artists who could never have come to a real-world paint-out to spend time some enjoyable time painting together in a safe environment. Time poor artists, artists who live far from Melbourne, housebound artists, and those caring for family members.
,,, Jane Elliston
Carting around water pods at the beach, if your sketching can be just one extra task too many. I decided to try out using a couple of pieces of foam/sponge. One to clean pigment off the brush to other to hole clean water to wet the brush.
