Contemporary and Edgy?

Tuesday night, a representative from The Arts Alliance Center of Clear Lake discussed at the Bay Area Photo Club’s officers meeting an upcoming art show that they will be presenting in the near future. I am not really sure what the theme of the show is, but, I think it has something to do with contemporary and edgy photographs.

For some reason, I started searching my Lightroom catalog for something that I might submit. While searching, I came across this photo. I took this one at Dickens on the Strand last December. I thought the masks were really cool, but I never seemed to get the light and the framing of the image quite right.

This morning, I decided to “push” it towards that edgy look that I think TAACCL is seeking.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 43mm with shot at ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/125^th of second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast.

Photoshop—used nik Silver Efex Pro tonal contrast filter to add contrast to shadows, mid-tones and highlights of the mask.

Another Around Houston Photo

Today’s image is one that I took while doing my around Houston series. I really liked the image both when I took it and then when I processed it in Lightroom. Why didn’t I use? I decided that I wanted all the photos to be “outdoor” photos rather than indoor ones.

The photo is from St. Basil Chapel on the University of St. Thomas campus. As I was about to leave the chapel, I noticed the reflection of the Madonna and Child above the holly water dispenser. The photo was relatively straight-forward exposure, however, the composition was the problem. Because of the distance between the reflection and the holly water dispenser, the composition either had to include a lot of dark negative space to the right of the holly water dispenser or be a long, but thin image. I decided on the latter.

Any suggestions to my composition dilemma?

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 42mm, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 3 seconds on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity.

Photoshop—Cloned a few highlights in the granite wall and used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast on the holly water dispenser to add contrast to the shadows, mid-tones and highlights.

Another Punishment Shot

This is another shot from my afternoon of torture and punishment (see January 15th post). 

In one of the stores, I spotted this old time bulk grain section that had these really cool handles to dispense the grain.  I really like the chrome and how it dispersed the light here and there.   I also like how they formed a great pattern.

This photograph was actually shot using the Nikon D3's built-in 4x5 format--the camera takes an image in the 4x5 format rather than the normal 2x3 format.   I had never used this feature, however, I knew that I would have to crop the image in post processing if I took it in the normal 2x3 format, so why not do a little in-camera cropping?

Camera Settings:  Nikon D3, 105mm Macro f/2.8, ISO 400, f/3.3, 1/60 second.

Post Processing:  Lightroom--cropped a little more from the right side, set white and black points, changed the white balance to get a different feel, increased midtone contrast.

Breaking the Rules

A few days ago, I was out with JD while she was shopping for something (?).   I am still not sure what I did to warrant this terrible punishment, but . . .  

We were going in and out of all these little shops when I spotted these bowls of candies.   I was immediately attracted to the colors and shapes, so naturally I thought "PHOTOGRAPH."   

But, I was not sure what I wanted to do with the shapes and colors.  For some reason, an assignment of our photo club late in the year came to mind:  Breaking Photographic Rules.   I looked hard at the bowls and tried to think of the rules that I wanted to break.  

Now, here I must admit, I often break rules (all sorts of them) without even thinking about it.  I was now having trouble coming-up with the rule(s) I wanted to break.  I finally settled on centering my subject--the multi-colored bowl.  After taking a few shots, I knew that I needed to open my lens up to get a really shallow depth-of-field that I thought was needed to clearly show what my subject was.  In doing this, I broke another one of those sacred rules, do not have anything in your foreground that is out of focus. 

Is this a great photograph?  No.  However, it was a learning exercise.  It reinforced the idea of using depth of field to make your subject stand out.   It also shows how a little extra care could have produced a much better photograph by moving the bowl in the upper right hand corner down so that the pattern formed by the bowls was even more obvious.

"Old and over the hill, but still learning" --I think I might put that saying on a bumper sticker. 

Camera Settings:  Nikon D3, 105mm Macro f/2.8, ISO 200, f/3.3, 1/60 of a second

Post Processing:  Lightroom--set white and black points, corrected white balance, added midtone contrast, and increased vibrance and clarity.

Old Sewing Machine

I had taken several photos before Cole and Chloe came over and was heading up to process the images when I noticed the light on JD’s sewing machine.  I really like the way the lighting was falling on the various parts of the scene; so, out came the tripod and down went the camera on it.   I immediately decided that I would process the photo as a black and white and wanted the overall tone of the image to be low-key photograph.

I think that the overall treatment complements the subject matter.

Camera settings:   Nikon D3, 17-35mm at 17mm, f/2.8, shot at ISO 200, f/22 and 3 seconds on a tripod

Post Processing: 

Lightroom—set white and black point, and added mid-tone contrast.

Photoshop—used nik Silver Efex Pro with antique preset to convert image to B&W.

Light Painting

This one is hot of the press.   I had completely forgot about posting my image today until I finally sat down at my computer to check a few things.   Then, oh my gosh, I have not posted my blog for today.  Oh, my gosh, I have not taken my photo for today.

From my computer, I decided it was going to be a light painting; so I can show everyone that I am no David Black. So out to the back porch to photograph some fish that JD has laying on an antique bench.   After too many tries, I finally got one that was not too bad.

Hope everyone enjoy this one.

Camera Settings:   Nikon D3 with Nikon 105mm Macro f/2.8, set at f/32 and 25 second shutter speed.

Post Porcessing:

Lightroom--set white and black point.

Photoshop--duplicated layer and ran nik Silver Efex Pro to convert to B&W and then reduced opacity of layer to 38%