SF 3 Backstage
indiegirl
Registered Users Posts: 930 Major grins
indiegirl
Registered Users Posts: 930 Major grins
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Time Pilot is something I have wanted to shoot for some time, almost a year in fact. I have to admit it was far more challenging then my mind would have ever lead me to believe. The shot has inspirations from several sources including Rene Magritte and Storm Thorgerson. The shot is all real and nothing has been ps'd into it. However, I must admit I did clone out from under the clock to give the impression it was floating.
First will start with the test shots
Location was found early in February when shooting these shots for another project.
The site is ShearonHarris Lake and the nuclear reactor certainly makes ones mind meander in the surreal. This is stuff dreams are made from.
I had found the yellow door and its friend later that year after keeping my eye out for one. The door came from an old deconstructed school and at this point in September I knew where I wanted to go. Getting my son on board with the idea would take another couple months of work though.
I had found the second (Red) door at a reuse center for 30 bucks – great place to go if you have never been.
Day of the shoot
My son and I traveled out to the lake this past weekend on Sunday and spent the entire day. We stopped in to the grocery store and picked up some snacks and 15 lbs of dry ice.
I had originally had envisioned the door floating above the water suspended as you see the clock. However, Newton’s law of gravitation prevented this concept from taking form. Fortunately, for me the spot I had chosen to shoot Time Pilot had a very unique feature. The lake has sand bar that runs far out into the lake and is only 6 inches deep. Add a little dry ice to the lake and a setting sun for nice soft light and this is what you get.
1) Original shot – completely untouched
2) Shot during the day so you could see the depth of water
3) Walking back from the door
Some other shots from the day that just didn’t quite make it.
4) Back side – shooting into the sun doesn’t really work very well.
5) This one was very close to as I liked the fog coming through the door
6) Just a bit to dark on this one.
Hope you enjoyed the shot as much as I did taking it.
O – and btw – if you decide to do something like this --- better to let the park rangers know about it as they where not impressed when we came out of the woods in the dark with a wagon and some doors. Turned out they where very close to sending in a search party as the park had already closed for the day…oops…time change…
Great Work, Great Shot...
Here is the story of the oil spill: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/09/BAD8T8PLU.DTL
First off congratulations to everyone, great images by everyone.
We always knew that our daughter Sierra had a way with animals. Her cat Cody has always been her best buddy and where Sierra goes so does Cody. Since we got him he has always sat with her when she eats and he has gained a taste for everything she eats. Back in August I happened to wander in and she was sitting with him sharing her Turkey sandwich. I thought it was cute so I tried to capture it.
I couldn't quite get the shot I was interested in but I managed this one of Rusty
I never entered them because they did not measure up to what I had envisioned. So last week I'm walking out of my bedroom and my daughter once again was eating a Turkey sandwich., This time she had the attention of all the cats. Unfortunately they were not too cooperative.
It was hard enogh getting one to look at the sandwich let alone three
ANd then when I got one I liked of the cat the background had something in it that needed to be removed whether it was one of my kids or a cats butt.
So after a long week at work I sat down on my couch today to enjoy my team the Dolphins lose another game ( hoping they go 0 and 16 to prove a point) and I was kicking around some ideas in my head to enter. I made myself a nice sandwich and wouldn't you know that the cats decide that its there for them.
So I figured what the hell, the other ideas involved me going out, I figured let's see what I could do with this. Cody and Teddy had no desire to participate but Rusty was gung ho. It took a while but I finally got one that I thought would be a winner, which is the one I entered. It made me and my kids laugh and hopefully it wil do the same for you. After all isn't that whats suppose to happen, cause an emotional reaction when viewing?
ANyway that's what happened. Oh and don't worry Cody came back around later for his share.
Have a great night
Joe
I put the camera on a Joby Gorillapod for SLR (thanks for the discount!) and set the rig on my living room table and then stacked up some books and placed the DVD on top of them so I could get the DVD almost level with the camera. I used an MP-65mm macro lens and an Xti set to aperture priority F11 (I knew I'd end up shooting between one and two times life size and the MPE is razor sharp at both magnifications with the Fstop at 11).
Once I got the Gorillapod at the hight and angle that I wanted it was a simple matter of moving the books and changing the magnification of the MPE-65 to focus the shot -kind of a poor mans focusing rail. The final magnification ended up being close to twice life size, so the entire scene is only about 12 millimeters wide (less than half an inch).
I then used a 3 watt LED held at an angle so that the light would reflect off of the DVD and split into a rainbow of color like a prism. A little trial and error resulted in several images, but I was specifically looking for a shot that appeared to show movement, and that's the one I entered.
Most of the post processing was done in Elements 5's RAW converter to bump midtone contrast and vibrancy. About the only thing I did in the main editor was use the auto sharpen option and clone out sensor dust spots and one deep pit caused by dust in the oil (it was too distracting). Most of the abstract macro that I do requires very little post processing since I try to get the image I'm looking for with the camera.
The hard part is coming up with something unique -and then getting it out of my head and into the computer
Looking for tips on macro photography? Check out my Blog: No Cropping Zone.
My whole world turned upside down about 3 1/2 weeks early when my wife woke me up late Sunday night/early Monday morning with the news that her water had broken. By 4pm Monday, we were parents (again) of a beautiful almost-6lb baby girl. Needless to say, all of my photographic efforts were aimed at capturing her first days of life and my son's reaction to the new baby.
While at the hospital, I noticed my wife stroking Leila's tiny feet and tried to capture the moment. I got this on a quick PP job late at night:
Posted with a few others for suggestions and Tessa recommended warming it up, cropping tighter and something called warm glow which I had never tried before. Went back into CS3 after some rest and got this:
Regardless of the outcome, I'm thrilled with the new photo as I feel it captures the emotions of the moment that I initially felt on taking it. So happy to have learned some new tricks from this latest round.
That's the story...
E
My site | Non-MHD Landscapes |Google+ | Twitter | Facebook | Smugmug photos
http://www.vxphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/3792451#218772715
I hope I picked the right one!
Winston
I had been thinking of a couple of different ideas over the past two weeks but kind of fell into a life rut, lost some of the camera zeal (was discouraged with how some of my stuff in general was turning out) and so Sunday came and still didn't have anything.
I had checked and seen all of the fantastic entries coming in and seriously even considered just not entering at one point as in giving up.
My husband had an idea but it just didn't hit me the same way. We bundled our LOs up & went outside to see my husband's idea. After that, the trike was brought out because our oldest wanted to ride it. Our second daughter often rides on the back of her sister's trike. The first time I tried, the pics were ok but wanted to try again just to make sure I had something. I had to promise them hot chocolate and a Tootsie pop to give them incentive to go out in the cold a second time.
My husband is the one who came up with the name--he's soooo much better at that than I am.
THANK YOU all for the continual encouragement & motivation you give out on this board--it really has been a GREAT experience!!
~kenlyne
What a cute shot! it made me laugh... If I had shot it I would have called it "Tykes on Trike"...
Winston
Winston[/quote]
Thanks! As soon as he said it, I knew I liked it.
For this piece my first thought was of a victorian gentleman going on a Mary Poppins style surealistic adventure through balloons, the first scene I first had in mind was of him loosing his grip and be in the act of falling. What I really wanted to portray was the spirit and style of fantastic adventure that is seen in Jules Vern novels. I like the idea of looking back a hundred years and and finding hope for a new century.
Here are the elements that went into the final result
First, the background is made up of a hilly ladscape near my house and a blend of two cloudscapes from saturday morning.
For our gentleman, I set up my backdrop and camera set to rapid fire and shot about 60 different poses, the final was a combination of 2 poses. The balloons were hanging down and flipped.
I thought that our gentleman might need some traveling companions and what might be better than the curious and clever crow. They're not harbingers of death or anything, right? There was a murder of them in a tree outside my window on sunday morning, and they flew off nicely when I went out with my camera. I was also able to get a bunch of closeups as random singles would fly past.
So put them all together with a little cut and paste, rotation, contrast and top it off with a nice vintage color scheme we get our gentleman adventurer.
http://joshfreeman.smugmug.com
www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com
www.printandportfolio.com
This summer's wilderness photography project: www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com/gallery/3172341
Saturday before the deadline, I met at the warehouse early in the morning and shot for 8 hours (958ish frames). Went home reviewed them all and selected this one becasue of the expression and lighting.
For snow, I purchased 6 boxes of potato flakes and had someone throw on each jump. After a while, there was enough flakes that it created some accents as it was kicked off the board (see front side of her board).
My insperation for shooting so long was watching a video of Chase Jarvis. Out of 2000+ photos, he only used less than 10. I figured if I shot enough, I could find one that would work.
Finally, I grabbed a shot of the sky, then started a few hours of post production to get the look (or something close) that I wanted.
Sooooo, minus the incomplete "honey-do" list and the sore throat, I was pleased with the day.
Some of My Photos: app.electrikfolio.com/v/steven-hatch
wow!
The true master of the LPS.
Regards,
Peter
It's not easy to tell from the final version, but this image began as a dried, curled Japanese maple leaf - an unusual kind that has 11 points. Here's a copy of a raw shot, taken in diffused light with a tripod & macro lens:
You can see what a live, fall version looks like here: http://drdane.smugmug.com/gallery/2462602#145186282
At f9.0, there's a lot to desired in terms of DOF, which I felt was important for the final image - so a series of 12 shots were taken, at successive focus points. This series was run through a program (Helicon Focus) to produce a focus composite, which I brought into PS CS3 and cleaned up a lot of distracting crud and blotches. So far, I've intentionally held back on contrast, to preserve highlights and shadows for the final workup. It now looks like this:
The next 3 images are derived from the completed image that was entered in SF3, which was fully processed. In reality, I didn't add contrast or do selective modifications until the final composition was in place. I learned this the hard way, as I tried to process the thing before creating the mirror images, and found it was way overdone because I couldn't really visualize how it would all look in the end.
Here's the first mirror image set, created by:
1) Selecting and copying the starting image (immediately above)
2) Opening a new canvas (Cntrl N)
3) Pasting the copy into the new canvas
4) Flipping the new image vertically (or horizontal, depending on your image) (Image>Rotate>Flip Vertical)
5) Selecting and copying the new image
6) Back to the starting image: Image>Canvas Size>Increase height to 200%, expanding toward the bottom in this case)
7) Paste the new (flipped) image in from the clipboard (Cntrl V)
8) Move Tool: position flipped half to align with the starting half (use arrow keys for fine alignment) and merge down (Cntrl E)
9) Rotate image (if necessary) to desired orientation for viewing (I actually left this one unrotated in preparation for the second mirror process shown further down)
Remember, in actuality, I hadn't processed yet at this point in the flow. Interesting enough, but I wanted to see what it would look like if I took it another step further by repeating the process as outlined above, except that this time the canvas was expanded in a direction that was 90 degrees from the previous expansion. Here's the result, which intrigued me more, and was entered in the contest.
In addition to overall contrast, I had to hold back the highlights and lighten the shadows to avoid loosing detail in those areas. The image also received a lot of selective curves adjustments, and selective blurring between the "ribs" to make the detail in the main "subject" areas stand out more. I also used Color Balance to decrease red and maintain the golden brown-bronze tone I was looking for. Mild sharpening was added overall, then selective sharpening on the areas of interest (center and ribs).
There are nearly endless possibilities when playing with this technique. Here is one variation, wherein a crop from one half of the image was mirrored, omitting the central portion in the result:
I liked this one, too. The problem is, you can generate so many variations, that it's hard to choose a favorite!
Another way you can play with this is to reduce the layer opacity of the flipped half to 50%, then move it over the other half, looking for interesting patterns and faces. Here's a quick example I just created from the first mirror image in the sequence above. That image was rotated, flipped (without adding canvas), placed directly over the layer below at 50% opacity, and cropped to the upper half. Some curves and a little more shaprening were added to compensate for the loss of contrast inherent in the transparent layering.
Are you beginning to wonder what this has to do with photography? Me, too - but it does stimulate creativity and different ways of seeing things, perhaps you'll create something to use as an element in a more traditional photograph or a surreal composite image like the one below:
The sky here was created from two different mirror images of similar color tone, from parts of magnolia and rhododendron flowers.
I'm realizing I've gotten carried away at the end here and strayed from the specific intent of this thread, but I wanted to show you some possibilites in case you were inclined to play with this using some of your own images. But be careful, it can be habit-forming!:D
PS - if you decide to try this, here's a final hint: start with 8 bit files, and reduce the size to 250 KB or thereabouts, so you don't fill up your hard drive with endless variations on large files! If you find something you really like, you can easily repeat it with the full size original, which will allow you to make incredibly large prints if you are so inclined.
Have Fun!,
Dane
Celebrating the essence of Nature, the Human Spirit, and the Divine Presence in all
http://www.drdane.smugmug.com or:
http://www.inner-light-images.com
But just have to say that the last image is very different and very intriguing.
Regards,
Peter
My images | My blog | My free course
During the wedding, I was very focused on the couple happily shooting photos when I went to take a few photos of the petals on the aisle. And I noticed Josh leaning into the aisle playing with his toy. I had my flash on my camera, but had turned it off and the first shot was way too dark with him. So I turned it on quickly hoping he wouldn't hide... Luckily, not only did it illuminate him without looking flashy, he decided to peek out to see what i was up to - and I got the shot!
I have to admit, I still wonder if I should have used the shot in the car.... I have gotten so many compliments on it. But this one has a special place in my heart and I'm thrilled to be in the running for the top 3!!!
Thanks so much!
www.tippiepics.com
This is sooooo cool to see and hear the thought patterns behind the amazing images this round.
So you want to know how to capture a wood nymph basking in the morning sun. First of all you need to be absolutely at your wits end. You need to have been working on your photo project for over a week with at least 3 or four major failures.
My original idea was to have Shannon (the model) become part of and be multiple places within a tree sort of molded into the bark sort of part of the tree. The image in my head seems to work but in practice nothing I did I liked.
Then comes Saturday and I am desperate to find that "perfect" shot. I had been to this section of forest before and I knew that in the mornings the light filtered through the trees wonderfully. I took a chance that my timing was right and set up a few images that I felt would work.
the resulting image of the forest was just that... a forest.
The week before I had been to a studio lighting course run by a good friend and fellow photographer. Part of the course was to work with a professional model. I had 1 hour to take as many shots as I liked. I spent my hour setting up what I thought might work for the "tree of life" idea I had in my head. Here is the image I ended up using of Shannon in resplendent.
Notice my shoe in the bottom of the frame.
Shannon is a beautiful model and she needed almost zero direction to achieve the look I wanted from her.
Now I have a forest and I have a wonderful model. Now what?
How about adding some fantasy look and pretend I am a secret wandering forest explorer happening upon the queen of the woods. The image was never meant to be 100% realistic, it is meant to pull you into a fantasy world beyond reality.
Here we have some light rays added to the image along with the initial insertion of Shannon.
Next I cropped and enhanced the image to give it more mood.
I worked on the lighting happening around Shannon giving it a semi realistic look, enough that you believed she was there but almost in between dimensions of magic and reality.
The biggest flaw about this final image is it defies gravity with the way her dress clings to her knee and down towards the tree instead of the ground.
but I felt that since I was going for fantastical I could get away with such idiosyncrasies.
Here is the final entry just to round out the post.
I went through over 18 progressive versions to arrive at a place I felt I was comfortable with.
I am of course pleased to be in the top 10. Thank you!
Sean.
Ahh well, a decade into it and I still love good images, however they are made
I never thought it was a real thing, but this doesn't make it any less a truly stunning image for me!
I'm certain to be slammed but am moved to at least say it. This LPS is now become more about a creative photoshop "art" contest than a photo contest. I love the originality of ideas and the cool methods you've all executed them...but....it is no longer a photo contest. Layering in several images and combining them isn't really about "getting the shot" but rather "imagine the shot and create it". Sorry, that's art in any rational view of thinking.
Congrats to the winners.
NAPP Member | Canon Shooter
Weddings/Portraits and anything else that catches my eye.
www.daveswartz.com
Model Mayhem site http://www.modelmayhem.com/686552
You are certainly entitled to your opinion... did you mean to say "that's not art in any rational view of thinking"? because if it is I would have to respectfuly disagree...
Any way I just hope your opinion doesn't cause you to stop competeing in the competition...
Cheers
Winston
I don't think you'll be slammed, because there are many who will agree. There was a big thread on this a few weeks back and a lot of different opinions on whether PS is or isn't needed.
So at the unintended risk of stating that discussion again, I think that the PS'd images that win are the ones that could have be shot anyway.
The real digital art images might score highly, but so far they haven't won and there is still plenty of room for straight photos that execute well on a good idea.
So personally I still think it's a photo contest, because most of the winning images have some air of realism that is normally associated with a photo (there are a couple of exceptions to that).
Regards,
Peter
Some of them are just not possible without Photoshop -but at least you know they are "computer generated" by the way they look. For the rest you're right they could have been done without manipulation but the simple fact remains that they were not and there is a HUGE difference between capturing light with the camera and painting it in on the computer -completely different skills...
Due to the relaxed rules on photo manipulation this has always been a graphic arts contest and those of us who are concerned with getting it right before we press the shutter release are going to find it difficult to compete -but not impossible...
I think it's funny that someone can enter an image that everyone thinks is real and yet people accuse me of computer generating images like this:
Like all of my photos I spent less than two minutes in post processing on that shot...
Looking for tips on macro photography? Check out my Blog: No Cropping Zone.