Photostory (Week 15 Project)

Week 13 Portraits

I love these two portraits because they are such candid shots, but it was not easy to get these because the subjects were, initially, very conscious of the camera.

The first photograph, was taken at Sunday brunch on the last day of a weekend where I had my camera at the ready the entire time. I think my friend finally got comfortable enough (and I had my camera ready) so that I was finally able to get a good shot of her really smiling as she laughed at another friend's joke.

The second photo is of my daughter who, usually, likes to be front and center with a photograph. [All poses, no real expressions.] However, once again, I was just carrying the darn thing around in my hands most of the day and she finally forgot about it.  [When I cropped this photo, I allowed some room to the left of her image (the direction in which she is running) giving her some space to look in to.]

Week 10 Assignment

Original

 Edited

 I used the Clone stamp tool in Photoshop to eliminate the grasses that were blocking the sky and hill. I also used the tool to erase the trailer, toys, etc at the bottom right hand side of the photo.

Watermarked

I played around with the text tool to create a watermark on this photo. Interesting idea to prevent use of the original photo.

Filter II Week 9

I used the WaterPaper, but then changed the it to filter Glass. This look has the feel of an impressionistic painting. [I also cropped and rotated the picture to make it more balanced and square.]

Filter I Week 9

The original photo is untouched (believe it or not). It is of my husband's pumpkin; he carved out the back and stuck in an orange bulb and funneled a fog machine into it as well. The result is a very scary pumpkin.

In the second photo I merely added the Ripple filter to the picture. The difference is subtle but, I think, scarier.

Dodge & Burn Week 9

I used the burn tool on the sky to darken it. I attempted to lighten the mountains by using the dodge tool, but found that just a few strokes resulted in white-ish blue streaks. I used the burn tool to darken this area back up. Overall, I like the sunset colors in the second, modified photo better than the first.

Photo Adjustments - Color & Light

 [Note: I finally resolved my technical difficulties with Adobe Photoshop. The short story is my video card is insufficient for OpenGL Drawing so I had to disable this function (all I needed to do was un-check a box, who knew?). I have been having fun playing around in Photoshop this week and re-learning what I had learned on GIMP]
 




Original photograph




 Photograph with Auto Exposure Correction applied. Hue and Saturation increased (slider moved to the right).



Photograph with Auto Exposure Correction applied. Hue decreased (slider moved to the left) and Saturation increased (slider moved to the right).

 I really like the ease with which a picture can be manipulated to look completely different than the original. However, I did not see much difference when I attempted Color Cast Correction using Levels Color Channels. Did anyone else see much change when they 'played' with this feature?

Week 7: Image Size, Crop, Selection and Move

The three photographs above are my rather crude attempts to edit with GIMP. [I have Adobe, but I am suffering technical difficulties so I switched to GIMP for this assignment.] I am still struggling with isolating a single image, removing it and pasting it to another picture. [If you read this and you've figured it out for GIMP, please let me know.]

Week 6 Landscapes

Above are a collection of landscape photos taken over the past two weeks. The vast majority of my landscapes are representational. However, there is one photo in the collection above that I think of as more abstract. The photograph was taken at night with a 30-second exposure and maximum aperture (while a car drove by).

Week 5 Framing Slideshow

Week 5 Rule of Thirds

 In the first photo the frog is featured primarily in the central box of the imaginary grid (laid out by the rule of thirds). I think the shot is still interesting, but I prefer the second shot where the frog is slightly off center.

Composition - Using the edges & corners of the image

As I was reading websites related to photography and composition I came across the following: "Both the edges and the corners of the image can and should be used. They are not just “there” because there is no way to do away with them. They are there because they are important and can be used both effectively and creatively" (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/composition-2.shtml).

I find myself often trying to center the subject, but the other areas of the digital 'canvas' have potential to create just as interesting, perhaps even more compelling photos. Follow the link below to a very beautiful winter landscape. Note the clean, crisp picture with a rather large, snow-covered plant in the lower right corner.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images-10/Zion-winter-sunrise.jpg

Week 4 Lighting Assignment

Above are three photos taken of the hill near my house at different times of day. The first photo (top left) was taken in the later morning hours. The second photo (middle) was taken in the late afternoon / early evening hours. The third photo (bottom right) was taken after dark and required a tripod and my husband's advice on settings (ISO 800, F3.5, 30 second exposure). The photo that best captures the fall colors is, of course, the first photo, but the night photo is interesting for different reasons.

Week 4 Assignment - Color

Above are examples of monochrome and analogous color schemes.
The monochrome picture is a collection of handbooks on my shelves at work. A simple pattern of black and white repeats across the photo.
The analogous photo was taken near Middlebury College's Bread Loaf Campus. The colors range from yellow, to orange, and red.

Nicole's Macro Collage

I took a great many macro shots to get the twenty posted above. Many of the photos were taken in the woods and the lighting wasn't quite right (and using your flash for macros just washes them out). Another difficulty I encountered was my inability to hold still; I moved far more than I realized. Any suggestions from more experienced members of our class? I had a great deal of fun with these shots though; I loved taking macro shots of objects with unusual textures and shapes. [Note the unusual number of fungi above. They definitely have interesting shapes and textures.]

Week 2 Photos

In the photographs above, I was working extremely close to the object in question and I had my camera set on auto so that I could concentrate on staying still and keeping the object in focus. I was able to focus my camera better in the first shot, but I like the slightly blurred effect of the second photo. [It makes me think of the satellite pictures of a hurricane.]