Photostory (Class week 12/Final)

After much trial and error I was able to get a set of photos that I like. Shooting from six feet below my normal eye level took a little getting used to. I'm posting the images in order below. I had to compress the video too much in order to upload it and the quality has been greatly diminished.

Enjoy!

Yaya Emerson

Many of you knew my great-grandmother, Barbara Emerson. She passed this evening, surrounded by her family. She brought so many wonderful moments to all of us. I remember how she was able to make anyone smile, even at the worst of times. In that spirit I smile now, knowing that she is up there helping the big guy make the world a better place. 

We will miss you Yaya. I love you.

Of Cats and Beautiful Ladies

1/25 f/5.6 ISO 800 40mm 

After reading so much about calotype photography for a research project, I became interested in making my own. Unfortunately the chemicals are not easy to come by. Fortunately, I stumbled on a guide to making a digital calotype. A new-age twist on an old technique. 

This photo was taken without much planning. I just pointed my camera at her and she smiled. I didn't look through the viewfinder before I snapped the image, and I think that's the biggest problem with this image. I wish I had looked and stepped back a foot or so...

1/30 f/2.8 ISO 400 40mm

This is Mogs. Mogs is quite possibly the craziest cat on the planet. Unfortunately she likes to lie in dark places, requiring high ISO and shooting wide open. I was able to remove most of the noise from the high-ish ISO, but there wasn't much I could do for her ears... It kind of works though, bringing focus more onto her eyes.

Text and Clone (Class week 10 part 2)

This is Baby. While his age puts him far away from baby-hood, a traumatic experience as a kitten left him with severe PTSD and extreme skittishness.  He is terrified of almost everyone and views any movement towards him as a threat. In this image, while it looks like he is sleeping, he is actually pretending to be asleep. It seemed a fitting caption for him.

Top: Original.

I used the clone tool here to remove the top of the telephone pole and the power line running off right. I wasn't able to remove all of the pole so I ended up cropping the bottom of the photo a little. I'm glad I was able to remove what I did. The little bit of cropping worked ok, but any more would have taken too much away from the image.

Potential Photostory... (Class week 10)

These are the images I will most likely be using for my Photostory project. I'm not as happy as I thought I would be with some of them, so I may go out next week and take a similar set of images in a different location.

Fish Eyes and Oil Paintings (Class week 9 part 2)

Top:Original

This landscape shot has the fisheye filter applied to it. I used the filter to make the horizon look curved, exaggerating the curvature of the earth. This filter was fun to play with because it allowed me to alter the perspective of the shot without having to take it at a different focal length.

Top: Original

This picture was taken last winter while a friend was visiting from Singapore. I did a little extra editing with this picture. Before applying the filter I created a separate layer to apple it to. I made sure that the filter layer didn't cover my fried or the horse. I applied the oil painting filter to make the background look like a painting, while leaving the two subjects life-like. (You may have to enlarge the image to see this effect. Clicking on the image will show you full size.)

Forest Gnome (Class week 9 part 1)

This image is taken just south of Battery Park in Burlington. I used the dodge and burn tools in Phototshop to lighten the left side of the gnome and mushroom and darken the right side. I need a little more practice with blending the light, but I'm happy with the way it came out. 

This is the original image. 

I don't think I will be using these tools much. I can see how they can be used in portrait photography, but I don't do a whole lot of it. Still good to know how to use them though :)