Always learning/close to home

Regarding Covid-19. Our trauma center is asking people to stay at home as much as possible. The doctors have asked that family indoor gatherings be avoided. 

Our own county is trying to recommend that also.

I don't mind so much because I am one of the lucky ones that can stay home and I have acres and acres of woodland surrounding us to explore. However, I miss my trips to places for hiking and photography. 

I thought I'd go back through my archives and look at what has changed for me in photography.

Here is a photo I shot in August 2016 at Eau Claire Dells. At that time I was into using the longest exposure I could when photographing fast moving water. The one below is a 15 second exposure. And although pretty neat, it is also pretty dull.

Most of the time I take several shots of the same scene with different exposures and at the time I really liked the smooth look of the water.

Now? Meh. I liked some more 'action' to be seen. I found the following shot exposed at just less than a second.

This shot has a lot more umph to it. The water has a sense of flowing and reflects the colors of the trees on the opposite bank. It isn't dull looking.

What changed? My taste for different exposures and sitting and learning editing techniques. 

There is a huge argument by some against edits. And as an old user of film, I was against edits for a long time. Do it right the first time was my motto.

So I decided to work with the old 15 second photo and see if I'd learned anything. I know when I sat on the rocks in the middle of the river, I had a 'vision' of roaring water, bright leaves, and an awe of Mother Nature all bouncing around in my mind.

I was seeing this in my head:

A warm August afternoon. 

And yes, I can still hear the roaring in my mind!

There will always be that argument regarding editing. But in truth, I feel I've had the debate myself and have decided that if it is my vision, the edit works. Photography becomes more of an art form than a recording of events.

Though there sure is a reason to record events!

Think street photography, or like one of my photography classmates does...news photography. 

Or like this... the deer that wandered into the yard last night and the moon later on...

An interesting technique that I haven't tried yet is one where you blend different exposures together.

Uffdah. That requires some heavy lifting from a software program like Adobe Creative Suite or Adobe Creative Cloud. I can't afford to pay monthly fees so I stay away from the program.

There are so many programs out there! Wow!

Anyway. Last shot and then I am taking my little pocket camera and going hiking. The morning light is fantastic.

From yesterday's morning walk with Charlie.

Have a safe weekend. 

The rest of this week is going to be work, work, work. Clearing dead and living Buckthorn Trees from one section of the pasture. 
Lots of fun!

Original vs Edited

Since I've been participating in a photography group that is stressing BW photography more as a Fine Art photography, I've been doing a bit more 'heavy' thinking on the topic.

I've also been experimenting a bit more.
As I said before Winter in the Midwest really allows for dramatic black and white photography. 

Here is a sample of the original shot.
When I first saw it, I decided that I should just delete it because it really wasn't what 'I thought' I was seeing through the lens.
Then I didn't want to just delete it.
I wanted to see if I could save it in any way.

Original:

I did get some motion on the water, but overall it looked pretty darned bland.  To me it was a toss away shot, overexposed and not useable.
But dang I liked the rocks and I put a LOT of effort snow shoeing to this spot, climbing down a steep bank and squatting in water for this.

So I dropped it simply into Topaz Adjust to see what might happen.

Well now, this was much better!  The colors are more lifelike, the water has a bright spot in the center which wouldn't be liked by some, but doesn't bother me at all.  There is a sense of movement and it isn't quite so BLAH.

So what would happen if I turned this into a Black and White shot?  Would it look better?  Worse?
I used this layer and put it in Topaz BW Effects.

I used a Platinum Toned preset:

Okay so I liked that a lot too.  But it doesn't give the viewer a feeling of being cold, which...darn it all, it was squatting there in the creek doing all sorts of contortions to focus on this shot.

So I took the color version and put it back into Topaz BW Effects and chose Selenium I which gave it a colder look.  I tried Cold Blue, but that just made it tinted too blue for my tastes.

I like this version quite a bit also.  It does feel colder, but I like how I am more mesmerized by the water than by the colors of the rocks.

In any way, for my personal tastes, I think I saved a pretty blah photo due to editing.
By the way, I am not saying you need to buy Topaz products, I've got them, so I use them.

There are other ways of doing the very same thing in different Photo Editing programs.

Conclusion.  I didn't produce Fine Art BW work here.  Just saved a photo that I'd put in a lot of effort and hard work to get.  
Think ~~ long hard walk through the woods, climbing hills, and trudging through heavy nasty underbrush ~~ just to get to one spot to take a few photos.

As a wonderful surprise I looked up from where I was and found this Bittersweet growing right above me!

PS~ untouched in editing!

Its all about Fractals!

Fractal art is stunning in my opinion.  It is not everyone's piece of cake, but it intrigues me because the possibilities are endless.

You take a 'Fractal Program' and literally design your own abstract artwork.

You can take images you make in a fractal program and combine them in any image editing program and come up with some stunning and unusual.

I have found some unusual and extremely beautiful fractals done with the Mandelbulb 3D program, the following artist is extremely talented in multiple programs.

His name is Jorge and his blog is called 'fraktalblog'.  You should stop and browse his artwork and check out his links to other blogs and websites.

I stumbled upon his artwork and am glad I have.  He has pointed me into some new and exciting directions with Mandelbulb 3D.

I have just downloaded the latest version of  Mandelbulb3d v1.7.9.3which can be found here:

fractalforums.com.

There are many tutorials that go with this program that can also be found at the following link.

fractalforums.com tutorials 

I just enjoyed experimenting with one of the new parameters included in this latest version.

Dodeca Torus.  I call this my Dodeca Torus Star.  I did fool with the formula a bit with this.