Photography – Page 16

last of the stargazers

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

This bloom was the last of the Stargazer Lilies for the season. I always associate these flowers with the height of summer. Their blooms always come to life during the hottest part of the season and soon after they drop, the heat breaks and cooler weather begins to creep into our days.

Our blooms have completely disappeared and I am hoping that the extreme heat of this summer will go with them. I won't miss the muggy hot days of 2011. Bring on the cool crisp days of fall and I will publicly dance a jig for all of you. Just make this heat go away!

Exposure	0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture	f/5.6
Focal Length	55 mm
ISO Speed	200

just because they are beautiful

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

Sometimes I create images that are striking in their beauty (at least to me) but, that I don't have a clue what to do with them. I know that I somehow need to share them with you however, they don't fit into one of my stories or I don't know enough about the subject to share something special about them.

Normally when I take a picture, I know the moment I open it up in my photo editor, how I will use it or even that I will never use the image. These are not that kind of image. I think they are wonderful but I have no idea what to do with them. In the past, this means that they would probably never see the light of day again.

I didn't want these images to disappear. I want to share them with you and so, here they are. I think they are beautiful. Not only do I like these photos but, meeting the young lady for the first time, I was really impressed with her. Smart, a little shy, focused, pretty, and very pleasant. She is one of those young people that remind me that the generation growing up behind us has a lot going for it.

I hope you like these images as much as I do. Maybe I get stuck thinking that in order to share photos with you, I need to have a purpose for them. I might be wrong in that respect. Maybe I should let some pictures speak for themselves.

sometimes cheating is a requirement

Posted on August 1, 2011July 5, 2015 by Tim McMurdo

The panographic image you are looking at was created in Photoshop CS4 by stitching together several images using their automated engine. I've passed by this grove of trees on the edge of a wood many times during the day and have often thought that it would make a great subject for a photo if I could get the light just right. That in mind, I paid the stand of trees a visit Sunday morning just before dawn and set up my camera on a tripod. With the camera only two feet above the ground, I took a series of captures from several locations. Here is one of the untouched images for you to see.

With the individual photos shot, I decided that the scene would look great as a pano. So, I found a good location and shot a series of images by swiveling the camera just a few degrees between shots. If you are going to try this, you need to ensure that your tripod is nice and level or your horizon will really be out of whack. Also, you will need to set your camera and lens to manual.

Here is the resulting stitched image with some minor adjustments for color and contrast.

This pano is nice enough, just a bit spooky. I like the image but, it seemed to be missing something to make it really special. I uploaded this to flickr and asked for feedback on what would make it a better image. Through the discussion, what I decided was that the picture needed some deer. I had some photos of deer grazing not far from here and because I would be silhouetting them, lighting would not be an issue. Back to photoshop.

I think the deer do the trick. Now the image has a real subject for your eye to focus on. Yes, this might be cheating. After all, the deer were not in the original photos. However, I think that in this case, cheating was the way to go. And… is it cheating if you tell the world how and why you did it?

Have a great day folks. Don't let the heat get the best of you.

maximize your color

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

This image was taken last night during civil twilight from our local marina located at Buck Creek State Park. What you are looking at is the final image after post processing. The "blue hour" after sunset is the perfect time to capture brilliant colors. The reds and blues that result from the sun setting behind the horizon can be spectacular. This kind of display begs for you to get the most out of your colors. Don't settle for ordinary colors.

This is the image SOOC (straight out of the camera) and though the colors are there, they are somewhat subdued. I want to maximize the color and make it explode out of the image. How do I do that?

I get over the top colors by making color adjustments in my photo editor. I use Apple's Apurture for my relatively straight forward image adjustments. However, when I need something more complex like multiple layers and localized adjustments, I turn to Photoshop, a tool that I use professionaly as well as on my personal work. In thi simage, I want the blues and reds to come to life. Adjusting two seperate colors in different areas of the image requires multiple layers and layer masks… that means Photoshop.

First step is to copy the original layer twice, once for the blue and once for the red adjustments. I will save the original layer image unchanged in case I need to go back to it. In the image above, I have adjusted the reds so that they are stronger than in the original. I repeat the same process with the blues on a separate layer.

Notice that as I adjusted the reds, the entire image is changed. The blues are more purple and there is now a lot of red in the white boat that I don't really want. By placing the red layer on top of the blue layer and by adding a layer mask to the red layer, I can "paint" out the areas of the red layer that I don't like. This will allow the blue layer to show through from beneath. Using a soft brush with low transparency settings, I can slowly build up the blues that I need in the final image.

Once again, here is the final image. Notice the vibrant colors. I was able to showcase Ma Nature's color show without ruining the whites and greens that I wanted to remain untouched. Don't be afraid to maximize your colors when the occasion calls for vibrant hues. Go ahead, don't settle, knock your viewer's socks off.

internal conflict 2

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

As you can guess by the image, I am still playing around with the idea of multiple self portraits and what I could do with them. I continue to have a lot of ideas for what I could do and this image is another step forward in practicing and developing the Photoshop skills needed to pull it off. In this image, I wanted to get the individual portraits closer together and overlap the bodies. So, I had the right hand portrait overlap the center figure. The actual photographic process remained the same one used in The Five Tims image that I posted last week. On the post process ing side of the equation, I still struggle with the overlapping skin tones and have pretty much decided that the problem I am encountering starts in the photography and will make some changes on the front end. Stay tuned, there will me more images of this type to come in the future. When you have had enough, let me know.

The mustache? It won't last much longer. I have never had a full mustache in my entire life and I wanted to grow one while I could. The stache is on thin ice right now. Everytime I eat ice cream, I get the cold confection all over my upper lip and that my friends, is just silly. Who wants to waste perfectly good ice cream that way?

changing the light

Posted on July 26, 2011July 5, 2015 by Tim McMurdo

Remember that in this morning’s post, I wrote about a picture that I was not happy with? This is it… after I worked on the image a little.

This is the same image before I made any adjustments. The image just does not reflect what I felt when I took the picture. What did I do? I made tone, contrast and color adjustments in Aperture. As far as color adjustments, I tweaked the red channel until I got the morning light tones that I remembered.

I am still not completely happy with the image and am still toying with going back earlier tomorrow morning. If I do, you will be the first to know.

tattoos and body piercing

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

I don't have any body art. I am pretty much just a plain old vanilla kind of guy when it comes to permanently changing my body. However, I am fascinated by them. The "I'll have a number 37 on my arm" kind of tatoos do nothing for me. It's the one of a kind artwork that makes me look. Until the last fifteen years or so, you had to really want to thumb your nose at society to get a piercing or a tattoo. I think mainstream body art must have started with all the girls getting belly button rings in the mid to late 90s. For them, the piercing was more of a fashion accessory, not a statement.

It's the statements that I admire, not the fashion. If I were to get a tattoo (forget piercing!) I would have to give it a lot of thought. What statement would I permanently like to place on my body? Where would I place it? Is this a shout out for the world to see or something more private that I would keep to myself? I could go old school and get a tattoo that a sailor on an eighteenth centuring sailing ship would be proud of, or I could go all modern and colorful. Though I love her dearly, I don't think I would get an homage to my mother.

I think we need to take a poll. Which of my readers has some form of body art? If it is not too personal, what is it and where is it? Would you do it again? Did it change the way you think of yourself?

Exposure	0.033 sec (1/30)
Aperture	f/3.5
Focal Length	18 mm
ISO Speed	200

This image was shot on an early morning photo walk/drive over the weekend. When I saw the sign, the advertisements in the windows, the chair in the doorway and the gerneral appearance of the building, I knew that I would want to convert the scene into black and white. I was feeling that grittiness that color can't do justice to. The image had to be B&W, as apposed to yesterday's neon sign that was all about the color.

split personalities

Posted on July 23, 2011July 5, 2015 by Tim McMurdo

Ever feel like there is more thatn one person bottled up inside of you? Yestrerday, I was having some of those feelings. This extreme heat is driving me crazy. Part of me wanted to go outside and brave the heat just to take some pictures. But, every time I would go outside, the heat would drive me back into the air conditioning. A heat index of 110F will drive you nuts. Another part of me just wanted to take a nap. Still another part of me was bored and wanted to get up and do something, anything!

That is when I decided to make this image. From beginning to end, an hour and a half for photography and photoshop. Not bad at all. Now that I've finished it, I want to shoot more shots & modify the image. I also have new ideas for other multiple self portrait images. I love it when a little bit of creativity gets the blood going and leads to new ideas.

In the end, going a bit stir crazy led to some great results. The key was acting on that "getting up and doing something, anything" feeling. I am glad that I went with the active personality and not the nap personailty. Though, I have to tell you, I am the king of naps!

Want to make a similar image of your own? Their are probably plenty of methods to choose from but, here is how I did it:

1. Set up your studio. For me this meant moving some furniture around and selecting a big blank wall.

2. Get your outfits ready for your "costume" changes.

3. Set up your camera on a tripod and test out your lighting. The more you perfect your lighting at tis stage, the less work you will have to do in your photo editor.

4. I selected an aperture of f8 to ensure that I had a fairly wide DOF. I wanted all of the "Tims" to be in focus.

5. I shot an image of the chair in AF mode. With the image in focus, I switched to MF mode to lock in the focus.

6. I had decided to shoot five "positions" of myself & placed a pencil on the floor to mark where each position would be centered.

7. I then shot several poses for each position, using the camera's timer. I tried using the remote but, every test image showed the remote in my hand & that is not what I wanted.

8. I then downloaded the images and brought my favorite image for each position into Photoshop by placing each of them on a seperate layer. I stacked the layers so that the over laping positions were on top of the underlying positions.

9. I added a layer mask to each layer and used a black brush to remove the portions of the layer that I did not want to show. This allowed the underlying layers to show through.

10. When I was satified that I had all of the layers the way that I wanted them, I copied and merged the copied layers into a single layer. This allowed me to retain the original layers just in cae I needed them again.

11. Finaly, I made all of my normal curves adjustments for color, tone, contrast, etc. on the new merged layer. I also used the healing brush and clone stamp tool to remove or blend any inconsistencies.

Of all the raw images, this one was my favorite. Why? Because I look skinny. Plus, how cool is that pose?

That folks, was all. Not a whole lot of work for such a fun image. If you give it a try, post your results in the comments. I would love to see your split personalities as well.

talking to jack

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

Jack is an old mule. When I say old, I mean that Jack is really old… in the neighborhood of thirty years. Poor jack has seen a lot of life & his replacements have already arrived ont the farm in the form of Kit and Kate, two much larger mules that have already started to pull their own weight. Jack may not be around much longer but, while he is here, he will always have some company and conversation from this young child.

Exposure	0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture	f/6.3
Focal Length	300 mm
ISO Speed	100
Exposure Bias	-1 EV

In this image, I stopped down the exposure one stop because the sun wanted to blow out the bright colors of her pinafore. I knew when I took the image that I would want to convert the photo to black and white and thought that having a blown out area would ruin the tones that I was shooting for.

event horizon

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

Event Horizon, June 2011

This is one of those images that surprised me when I saw it through my lens. My original idea when taking this photo was to see what the underside of Queen Anne's Lace looked like. I got my trusty long lens (thank you again Uncle Eddy) out of the kit bag and laid on the ground. What I found was that the edge of the flower blooms was really interesting and the underside wasn't nearly as impressive as I had imagined. So, I took the shot of both just in case, but took a few extra shots of the edge of the flower to be sure that I got it right.

Back at my desk, I performed some basic tone and contrast adjustments and converted the image to black and white in Aperture. I then cropped to 1×3 (one of my favorite crops) and called the image finished.

Exposure	0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture	f/5.6
Focal Length	280 mm
ISO Speed	200

Here is a picture of the entire bloom, just in case you forgot what Queen Anne's Lace looked like.

Have a great day folks.