Thursday 26 March 2015

March Evaluations

As part of my photo adventure, I open myself to external criticism.  A healthy need to improve needs robust evaluation by your peers, particularly those of extended years...

Although I have had a camera for umpteen years I have only taken it seriously in the last couple of years.  As such I enter into my photo society's novice worker evaluations, yet I have a blog in which I put images to show the world as if they were the best.  Well they are, they are my best.

However having held a camera for so many years and occasionally taken good shots I do feel a bit of a fraud in not moving to the Open class, however I am going to continue as a novice for the remainder of this calendar year or until I get 3 highly commended images in the same evaluation

I thought I'd share the images that I put in and the comments and results that come out, it will also remind me where I was, should I ever think I haven't improved.

The Hungry Catepillar (EDI) 

It took me ages the stage this using a ring light, a hand held LED light and several centimetres of extension tubes.  The leaves were carefully arranged to hide the shed walls.

Comments:

Too much distraction with the bright leaves which could have benefited from some extra separation from the main subject.  The leaves could have been further away and darker and more out of focus.  Need to wait until next spring before I get chance to repeat this one...



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Several Seconds of Water (EDI)

My favourite subject but can be polarising for evaluations, amazingly not every one appreciates these images.

Comments:

Care should be taken not to overexpose area and it was considered that the large white water area was "blown out".  I have since reprocessed the image and it might look better... image below is as judged.


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The Last Delivery (Print) - Highly Commended

The first print I've entered for evaluation and it did well.  Hiding the sun behind the cloud, the rays of sun, the silhouette of the cargo ship and the format all added up to a good image.  It's worth clicking on the image to view the larger size.  The print as displayed was 10" long (the longest side for a novice print) although I might get this enlarged and framed particularly as it's got an award.




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contact me if there are images that you would like printing this can be arranged and I will send a quote, I do have some images on redbubble but think this is an expensive service compared to others.  If we work at it we could get them done at <75% of the redbubble price

Sunday 22 March 2015

Autumn

Although Autumn has been declared as 1st March (at least down here it is) I can't accept it starts until the equinox, but that's my issue.

So it's now Autumn the sunsets are earlier and the sunrises are later, there are some benefits to the shorter days.



Monday 16 March 2015

Full Colour in Black and White

Trying to capture the essence of a coloured flower in Black and White is a little tricky, contrast and form are important details and lighting as ever can make or break the shot.  I am still practising but I liked these shots.

I think I may also becoming very critical of  my own work - time to relax...

Two images I cropped so that some of the flower was out of frame I think they would look nice as a canvas print - but not from Redbubble who I've noticed are ridiculously expensive, however I will post there...






Sunday 8 March 2015

Thank Goodness for Public Holidays

Not sure I would have anything new except for the fact that today is a public holiday and at 5.30am I hit the road heading for the vineyards of the Yarra Valley. There was a period during today's shoot where I didn't know which way to turn, I had balloons and and a sunrise in completely different directions and needed two different lenses to get what I wanted in the images.  There was a lot of lens changing this morning.

The idea was to catch the sunrise, which I did, but the pictures below are of the balloons which frequent this part of the world.

I have to stitch a couple of the sunrise photo's together which may take me a day or two, I think there are some quite decent panoramas amongst them.

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This was moments after the balloons rose on the morning breeze, the pilots not entirely sure where they'd be going...


Fortunately in my direction...


There was some beautiful mist in the Valley dispersing as the sum rose higher in the sky.




Although not a technically perfect shot I like the colours from the flare from the sun and through the trees.


A little further along and just about to land.  The gateway giving a leading perspective and a pathway to get to the balloon.


Sunday 1 March 2015

Down the Valley

Only just managed to get out this weekend, it was a busy one.

I found a couple more subjects which will work well in monotone for the interclub comp.  I will need to revisit these places a couple of times to get the light correct, particularly where I've underexposed and the post processing is then creating a lot of noise.

The first image is a re-take of one from last time which I needed a greater depth of field and I thought rather than mercury the stream should be gold and this is my first image at greater than 30 seconds in an attempt to make the water appear more metallic.  I then introduced some selective areas of colour.

After the rain we've had over the past few days there were rocks in the foreground covered in water, these were the ones I wanted to increase the depth of field... When the water recedes a little I'll be back.



I revisited the rail lines to clears some bits and pieces off the track, better but not quite there yet...


Then discovered this trestle bridge and there's some scope for a few shots,  I didn't quite capture the detail in the shadows so this is down for a revisit.  The detail you can see under the bridge is all thanks to shooting in raw and post processing...


This is where I started the day and was the hill where I took the lightening shots earlier in the year. The biggest issue with this shot is I thought the sun came up 90 degrees to the left of the picture...

If I can get one or the better sunrises this will be a fantastic place with the hill being back lit...