Final edits, finished series

Hello, I have completed my final edits on the four images that needed fixing, it was actually quite a simple operation so I was thankful for that, the only image I had to start from scratch was easy to fix up in raw. I just needed to desaturate the red in the zipper image while keeping the image colourful.

The animal wall image was simply a matter of increasing the brightness while still retaining the detail in the whites.

The cow image I needed to straighten up so I rotated the image then cropped it to perpendicular again.

The dodgem car image had an ugly grey background which was easily fixed by brightening the background image.

So that wraps up the project, I will get large prints done for the exhibition later in the year and maybe blog about the reaction of viewers.

Editing images

Hello there, once I had selected the images I want to use, I opened them up in Photoshop and went to it. The first image was of footprints in the soil, it was very dark so I bought the exposure up and played around with the gamma levels I played with the colour balance a little bit and was happy with the result.

The next image is of a wall of stuffed animals. I needed to brighten this image which meant the sky turned white so I duplicated the layer and enhanced the blue on a separate layer using a mask. I think I need to increase the brightness a bit more I think so I will have a second go at this.

This image is of a clown sideshow game. It was originally a very colourful picture but I decided to go in a opposite direction and make it black and white. I still played around with the colour levels to enhance to contrast and depth of the image.

I was going for a more extreme effect from these coloured neon lights, I had to mask the background as it was very light. I masked the lights and the lit area and enhanced the vibrancy, saturation and hue.

This image didn't need too much done to it, I put a mask over the top section of image to bring down the brightness and then I altered the colour balance slightly to give a more unified feel. What I need to do though is to straighten up the fence on the image, I will rotate the image and crop as required.

This image has been cropped down to catch the excitement of the show. The colours have been enhanced through saturation.

This image has been difficult for me to get my head around. I like the bottom half but the top half looks terrible with the grey background. I will need to get the background back to white but not overly bright and I will straighten up the horizon slightly and crop as required.

This landscape I didn't think I had but after going through the images I decided this would look good cropped, which I did. What I needed to do though was to enhance the colour of the sky because it looked washed out in the original.

The image below is one of my favourites, it looks crazy with the filter I put over it which was like an outline type effect. That's about all I did to this image. I like it because you can really see the different fonts standing out.

This image was a bit of an experiment, I'm pretty happy with the result. The right side of the sign is a bit blown out but the image works. It has been cropped slightly and the colours enhanced as well as being slightly darkened to reduce the shine.

The teddy bear cake didn't need much alteration, it was a well lit colourful shot to begin with. I just increased the saturation a touch.

This shot is of the afternoon glow shining out from behind this sideshow game I basically used the magic wand tool to select the sky and deepen the colour while lightening the foreground slightly and increasing vibrancy to make the animals more visible, I also cropped the image slightly.

With this image I just wanted to increase the colour and vibrancy of the image, I didn't need to do much more than that.

The shot is of the winning fleece for the year. I cropped it up and played around with the colour balance a little bit to increase the warmth of the image.

This last image is another that doesn't need too much work although I think the red is too strong after I saturated the image to increase the blue of the sky. What I will do is to go into Raw and only enhance the blue and maybe the yellows, leaving the reds as they are.

 

Quick note on camera settings

Hello, I thought I would just fire off a quick post about the settings I used while shooting my sequence at the show. The first thing I realised was that I would need a higher F stop to be able get more depth into the shot, I decided on using F5 for my aperture. This meant that I had to bump up the ISO and bring down the shutter speed to get a decent exposure.

Most of my shots were pretty straightforward, any effects I am going to apply in Photoshop. One image I used a much slower shutter speed on the dodgem cars to create a streaky motion capture effect. This image in particular needs a lot of correction especially the background which was blown out because of the slow shutter speed.

I found myself changing the ISO and shutter speed quite regularly as I moved in and out of sunshine and shade as well as inside the buildings, keeping the same aperture.

I just have one more shot to take and that will be a landscape looking from the grandstand. I will put the camera on a tripod and try to get a nice HDR image.

Photo shoot at the show

After driving past the show I realised this might be an opportunity to get some nice shots. I grabbed my camera and headed down, I got some good shots but ran into a problem when I attempted to use the hdr style of shooting. Unfortunately I forgot the the camera takes three images rather than automatically taking a series to create a hdr shot so I didn't manage to get the images I was after in that respect.

Walking around I was looking for interesting angles and subject matter, in particular I needed some product shots, a portrait or two and a landscape shot. After half an hour or so I had managed to collect many nice shots, I took a landscape shot from the grandstand that I will have to retake because it wasn't any good once I had a decent look at the images. Unfortunately I had to leave before night time so I couldn't get any shots of the lights that I would have liked to. Here is an example of the shots I took.

And another shot of a cow.

I will call this series 'Ten Minutes at the Show'. I will go for a colourful, fun feel to the series with maybe some extreme effects on some images to emphasize the artificial nature of the show.

Possible change of plans.

While I was driving around I passed the showground and the annual show was on. I took the opportunity took go in there and take some shots. Some look very promising. I will process these photos and see if they will be suitable for use as my assessment.

If they don't come out I will go with my original plan, but I'm mildly confident that I have all I need to make the show series work as a narrative. If they do I will go into more detail about how I went about taking the shots and what settings I was using and what setting I would have liked to have used.

Technique and equipment

Hello there, this is a quick post about one of the photographic techniques I will be using plus some equipment I will need.

After discussing my project with the teacher he suggested I use the framing mode of my slr to create a HDR (high dynamic range) images. This basically takes three photos; one is under exposed, one is over exposed and one is in the middle. This gives the opportunity to take the images into photoshop and blend them to get even lighting throughout the image.

To do this kind of photography you need a tripod to keep the camera still so I will need to buy one. I may be able to borrow an 18-55mm lens for the wider shots. I will need a few other bits and pieces but I will go more into that when I have nailed down the specific details.

Images of inspiration

Hello there, in this post I will show and discuss five images that I like the look of either in composition or subject matter. These images I have found on Pinterest.

I like this image for several reasons. Firstly, the colour is really vibrant, I like the strong reds of the barn with the Autumn leaves. The grass give a bright contrast although it looks like it has been altered a bit too much. The composition is good with a strong diagonal line from the roof of the barn.

The thing I like about this image is how it shows the passage of time that this bike has experienced. This is the sort of feel I will be going for with the shots of the older sheds and is the main thing I get from this image.

This image evokes abandonment with the vines and old wagon wheels, however the door provides a strong contrast both in colour and texture. That is the main thing I get from this image.

Another angle I can look at is including the machinery that might live in or around the shed. There is an additional level of texture to explore in the decay of metal

I like the feel of this shot with the dark sky and a patch of sun on the old stone shed. The overhanging branches add a sinister feel to the shot. It tells a story to me about a traveller who has come across this little hut just in time to shelter from the storm.