Around the Garden in B&W

Trying a few different things and was inspired by a Facebook group competition.  My mission: to get out and take some shots that would convert to B&W.  So looking for subjects with high contrast which is a bit tricky when we all see in colour.

I found that flowers gave the best results as I wasn't patient enough for insects.

I may enter these in the club monochrome evaluation too.

Lastly an entry for Photogrofaffing as I haven't had a fluffy water shot for a week or so...

For your viewing delight I have also uploaded these at a higher resolution, the last few posts really highlighted the low quality I was using, so no longer, you deserve better.

no, there is no mercury it just looks like a stream of flowing mercury...

perhaps a greater depth of field would have improved the shot?

Ballloons, Blades and Railways

Early morning had me looking for the clouds to make a spectacular sunrise, decided to check out Coldstream.  Wasn't my best choice as I hit banks of mist and cloud.

In between the banks of cloud there were some images to capture, the first 2 images are closer to Healesville and a few years ago the paddocks in the foreground would have been covered with strawberry plants.

But with no clouds in the sky the sunrise was not going to light up anyone's life.  On the way home I got a glimpse of hot air balloons, now there's a shot in that...

The balloons were having a difficult time finding a clear patch where they could land.

 As you can see the mist was thick.

Blades of Grass.

A Spiders Web

Belinda's Balloon

Close by was a disused railway and a quick B&W conversion just finishes it off.  Is it Black and White or 50 shades of grey?

yep that was a cheap shot at increasing the page shits

A little post processing

Reviewing the blog on another computer under different conditions I saw some improvements that could have been made to one of the shots.

This was the shot and looking at it again it's too dark in the bottom left corner.

First let's look at where the image began (the image below) this was "straight out of camera" - well to be precise it was the unprocessed raw file as processed by Lightroom the software I use.

I added some clarity, increased the exposure, increased contrast a little and decreased highlights it's a fairly standard workflow that I use.  The image above was the result.

Had I increased the exposure  of the whole frame to lighten the left hand portion I would have lost some of the feel and emotion of the light coming in into the igloo and completely destroyed the clouds and light of the morning.

Lightroom allows me to select parts of the image to adjust in the same way that darkroom workers used dodging and burning, only it allows it to be done quickly and whilst learning it allows it to be undone too.  I have a lot of respect for the pain and cost that the darkroom workers must have gone through to get a reasonable shot let alone "that shot".

So a little playing with the adjustment brush with a little exposure increase and some detail brought out of the shadows I opened up the dark area to get some detail.  I applied 3-4 overlapping in different areas rather than try to complete the task in one go.

I think the image is somewhat improved with this extra 15 minutes of effort.  Only wish I'd done it the first time.

Sun, Igloo's and Blooms

Thought there might be a decent sunrise and set the alarm for an early start.  There was already some colour in the sky when the alarm went off so it was a dash to get to where I was going.  I chose a new area but soon found that my chosen destination had way too much electricity with wires getting into every shot, so I decided to move.

Note that not all east facing hills will provide uninterrupted views to the sunrise.

Having a failed ascent of a dirt road due to lack of grip and trying to be reasonably quiet on the local roads, I found a spot to park and wandered to a likely looking spot.

I liked the way the sun was playing on the igloo's in the local nurseries and these structures provided some foreground interest.  The rose was in a garden behind me and the warm tones of the sunrise gave some rich tones.

Returning I got a glimpse of the local water storage which I thought was worth a shot, the darker clouds promising a cool change.

Getting home the hippeastrum are in bloom and looking lovely.

Lake birds

Had an opportunity, between errands, to go and get some pictures but didn't know what I was going to do. Having completed my first task I was faced with an odd looking colouration in the sky. Rainbow coloured but not shaped.  Jumped out of the car took a shot to see if I could get the colours, got the shot but totally uninspiring scene in the middle of the road with wires and cranes.

I knew of a park nearby where I may have been able to improve the foreground (no that wouldn't be hard), jumped back in the car, u-turn to the park, parked up,grabbed the gear, ran across the rail-tracks (there was a path), into the park and....

...colour was gone, bugger.

However I ended up in the park which was almost deserted with a few of the lake life still waking up.

Not sure if it was the rain but the image below is not as sharp as I'd hoped and soon after I'd taken this the bird flew away and then it was onto the next errand...