Photography – Page 4

lake experiment

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Tim McMurdo

Lake Experiment 1

Do you ever get inspired to try out new techiques in your photography? I am always in pursuit of some hidden or undiscovered photography knowlege. I am convinced that after years of experience, I still have a lot to learn.

During a recent foggy morning outing, I decided to experiment with low contrast images. My goal was to create images that were recognizeable (no abstracts) while at the same time, use a minimal number of tones.

Lake Experiment 2

This is a new approach to landscape photography for me. The images certainly lack any sense of drama. On the other hand, they have a serenity and calmness to them that stands out. While they were shot in color, black and white seemed to be the way to go. I made the conversion from color in Aperture, adding 15% sepia to the images in the process.

Lake Experiment 3

Sometimes the value of an experiment is in the learning that the process triggers. Other times, it's in the end results. For me, I am pleased with the results in these images. It's taken me some time to get used to the low contrast tonality of the images. However, I am beginning to think that they can stand on their own. They certainly bring a new look and feel to landscapes. I think the emotional content has changed as well. I suppose that you could say that they have grown on me.

What do you think about the results of the experiment? Would you take this approach to your landscape images? What recent photography experiments have you conducted?

driving underground

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Tim McMurdo

During this trip to Seattle, I’ve driven through this tunnel on I-90 in both directions on three occasions. Each time, I thought…. Wow, what a classic photograph this would make. Unfortunately I had the thought too late to do anything about it. This time, I was ready.

The camera was on the seat next to me, ready to go. All I had to do was pick it up and snap off a few shots. It was that easy. I picked the best of them, made a few adjustments in post processing and presto…. I now have my very own version of a very iconic image.

Right now, I am feeling rather pleased with myself.

feeling a photograph

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

This past weekend I participated in a photography challenge over at light stalking (if you are a photographer, you should check them out). The topic was texture… no other explanation, just texture. The subject got me to thinking about how I could make the viewer feel the the subject of the photograph just using his/her eyes. There are a lot of ways to make us feel the emotion in a photo. That is not what I was after. I wanted the viewer to know exactly what the object would feel like, by just looking at the image.

I am visiting my parent's home in Atlanta this week and they are collectors of antiques and have a wonderful yard filled with plants and stone walls and ponds, so finding a subject would be a process of narrowing down the great candidates that are available.

In the end, after trying out several shots, I settled on this image of my grandfather's whistle sitting on a stone path. I liked the way the texture of the stone path contrasted with the rusted chrome of the whistle.

The image is certainly interesting with its shallow depth of field and the vibrant color of the rust. But can you feel the rust in your mind after seeing the image? I wanted to experiment a little further and to be honest, I thought that the color of the rust was just a little to close to the color of some of the stones and the similarity was a little too distracting for the image I wanted.

When I need to have my subject stand out from a busy background or one that has similar colors, I have a couple of options at my disposal. I could use a shallow depth of field or blurring the background in post processing to make the subject stand out. The DOF is already pretty shallow and about right for what I wanted, so I opted for another solution and switched to black and white, hoping that the resulting contrast between light and dark would make my subject pop and place the focus not so much on the whistle, but on the rust itself. The final result is the following B&W conversion.

I adjusted the color channels to filter out most of the blues in the image to create the final contrast. I think the result is successful. The texture of the whistle really seems to pop, giving a really grainy feel. What do you think?

Tim