Black and White or colors

 

I used to say that Black and White photography was my favorite thing to do and in some ways it still is. But who doesn't love color? Bright beautiful colors?

The photo above was a fern leaf on a plant attached to a rock in the creek bottom. It stuck out from the rock and was surrounded by snow during that last rainy day we had.

In my way of looking at things, I thought it would make a nice black and white shot with the leaf isolated. Then I could admire the patterns of nature. An additional surprise was the drop of water that is hanging on the leaf frond at the top of the photo.

On the 8th of January we had some incredible fog and frost. I hiked through the woods to look for interesting shapes and patterns. Since the light was still quite dim and flat, it was hard to get anything interesting except shapes.

When I took these I noted that there was nearly no color at all in the tree trunks so I went with Black and White for the the shapes.

Some of the Ironwood aka Hornbean trees keep their leaves until spring and I just love the slight color contrast they give the dark forest.

Below is a small understory Hornbeam - Ironwood really provides a bit of interesting color to the backdrop of a large old twisted maple tree.

I came to the edge of the woods and looked up at Staghorn Sumacs that are so brilliant in the fall. 

I loved how entangled they looked in the frost with the forest behind them. Moody as all get out. To me it looks like a scientist's drawing of brain synapses. I don't know why I think of it that way.

It feels.
Entangled.

I moved on to my favorite Locust Tree and tried to find a clear shot of one of the branches without a background of brush and forest. I took one shot of the branches against the sky that was just okay.

The photo of the one below appealed to my mood much more in the final cut. The foreground itself was naturally black and white, the oaks in the far distance lent some color to the photo.

I think this one and the Sumac are my favorite for that day.

The very next morning, the frost was still around but the intense fog cleared and there was sunlight.

Here color ruled.
The pinkish orange sunrise colored the land and the frosted trees in the forest.

ON1 and Legos Imagination

Photography can be

the art of

what you 

envision...

ON1 is a photo editing program that I started to use a few years ago. I ended my relationship with Photoshop once they requested a monthly ransom for the use of their product. I purchased Corel PaintShopPro which allowed me to do some of the fun things I could do in PS.

ON1 kept developing their software. And truthfully the cost was much easier to take than the PS costs. The program has great tutorials on line and it is always adding new features.

One of the best things is not having to learn all about layers. ON1 makes layers for adjustments for you. You can use layers too.

The program seems geared towards Landscape and Portrait photography. They have cool things like textures presets, color presets, and something newer called Sky Swap. Oh the horror of Sky Swap! If you don't like your scene as you took it, add an aurora borealis or perhaps a magnificent sunset?  Okay. I am not into that at all.

However, I do like mixing things up and see exactly what I can MAKE the program do that it wasn't developed for. Pushing the edit envelope is a fun brain exercise for me.

Here is a shot of some of my Lego people. I set the figures on a black plastic board used generally for photographing items like jewelry. I set the works on my laptop and used the flat black of the laptop screen as a back drop.

Not very impressive, but with a bit of a touch up of the blacks and the highlights along with a crop and straighten, it is better. I totally love the reflections in the black plastic. Wicked...cool.

This was rather boring. White plastic for the back and black plastic for the figures to stand on.

But wait. 
What if?

I could change all of that?

How about cutting the backround out and replacing it with something else? With the old photoshop program this was doable but it took a lot of time.

I chose to color the figures green for keeping and the other areas red to get rid of them. This is done in a simple masking mode.

Once I had the figures isolated, I added a layer of clouds and then used a fun little thing called Sky Swap and added an Aurora Borealis to the clouds. I mixed up the opacity and went from there.

There was a bit of brightening to do and then I was done.

Why not make things easier on myself and set the figures up with an image in back on the computer screen?
Oh duh, who forgot to move their cursor???

Easily fixed!

ON1 edits of cropping, resizing, and some adjustments to bring out the figurines. Add in some cracked brushes to the edges to cover up mistakes and....

Note:

Experimenting with photography and graphic programs is my hobby. Think of it as a huge empty canvas that I can paint on or make my own strange art.

PS~ Did you know that there are actually Adult Lego Groups out there? 

LUGNET ~ Lego Users Group Network

AFOL ~ Adult Fan of Lego

I had Legos as a kid but they were the hard stiff bricks that only came in red I think. We made buildings for our toy soldiers out of them. And the Kitty Hotel, a home for eraser animals. 

I doubt I will become a Lego collector, but it is fun combining them with photography while stuck inside!

Spooky stuff or Not

I am forever the experimenter....or is it experimentor? I like the ...or spelling better but spell check doesn't.

I wanted to try something different and new. I ran across a Seasonal Tips offered by Olympus which was fun. After all I couldn't be outside mucking about in the storms we had, so I decided to clean the basement.

You know how this works. I rearranged the tubs of clothing. I sorted the hunting clothing...I needed blaze orange for the 9 day gun season. The insulated coveralls come out of the tub and light jackets go into the tub.
Restack everything and think about getting rid of things.
Put the summer stuff under the steps in the hard to get to places.
It will be months before I get out that stuff again.

Get the winter stuff out. Oops! See the Fall decorations.
Pull them out. 
Sort.
Pull out the Halloween Stuff that the neighbor kids really loved.
Hmmm.
See the decorations for Christmas. 
Put them back. Go have coffee.
Watch the rain.

Rich gets hungry. Feed Rich. 
Storm gets worse.
Rich goes for his afternoon nap.
It is dark outside.
Sort the Halloween stuff and the Fall Stuff.
Time for Tea.

Nope, can't go out to walk.
Okay.
Get out the decorations and play with the camera.
Sounds good.

Dark and dreary. Some Still Life with plastic skulls and an old jar with marbles and lights.

In the shots below I used an Art Filter to create black and white grainy shots. This is a hanging skeleton/ghosty thing. I held it by the twine string attached to the top and shot it as it slowly turned back and forth.

Just the right amount of spooky-creepy.

And then back to the skull on the table with the lights:

I tried something I'd never done before. A long exposure of 10 seconds with moving the camera slightly during the exposure [twisting it slowly on the tripod].

The result was kind of fun.

Then one with a pumpkin.

Now a lot of folks shy away from spooky creepy stuff. Be assured that is not all that is on my mind. I just like experimenting with different ways of presenting a photo. If it creeps you out, then I did my job as a photographer. I made the viewer feel something.

So if that is not your forte...here is some other Still Life photos. I am not all Creep and Scare!

And the last photo. 

To make you laugh!

I was given my Virtual WOD for CrossFit and the coach said since I didn't have a rower, I could run one portion of my workout instead. I do have to be accountable once a week and send a photo of working out to the coach.

Here is my WOD photo of the week titled: I think I need a new rowing maching!

To which the coach replied..."I think it works better IF the water is on the outside of the boat."

Stay safe.

I'll be off to find more things to have fun with. Spooky or Not.

There I did it

This took longer than I thought it would however by the time I was done, I think I got the hang of it.

I feel like a mom sending her children to school for the very first time. I'm nervous too.

What a strange feeling.

I have two photos left to put on 'tag' board and then I am ready to hand them in on Tuesday or Wednesday morning.

I know, I know...it isn't being judged by National Geographic, but it still will feel odd until the judging is done.

I have a busy week coming up.

There are a lot of kids to watch at the fair that will be showing their animals. My neighbor's youngest will be showing his little goat in Open Class because he isn't old enough to go in the 4H classes yet. His sister will show a chicken and a cat in Open Class too.
Kudos for those kids who are willing to show with the adults!

I avoided the local fair for years after working in at the Kenosha County Fair for a few years as a Superintendent for the Chicken Barn. [Many many years ago!]

Tuesday after lunch, I get to go see Charlie's little siblings from the July litter. I've offered to take photos of these cuties so the owner can use them on her Facebook page.

My resistance will have to be phenomenal as these pups are so adorable.

In the works, Still life/Night Life

This is where I work. I decided to try a pretty cool thing that comes with the Olympus OMD E M5 camera. Live Time.  So I used a little tripod and pushed the button and...watched the photo appear on the screen.
Way cool.
I added some star specks and the little moon. Original is below.

This is a dam on the Mississippi River taken from a wayside.

Meanwhile I thought I needed a do over of some rose petals and rings. That didn't turn out so well so I went to plan B.

I did another ring instead and it looks like I'll have to redo this one also.

I blew the whites but I'm getting closer to what I want. I'll have to get another batch of flowers with roses in them. But, not until after Valentine's Day. They will be too expensive right now.

Well I decided to move on and try some other things.

Here I am doing the thinking pose while I toss around some ideas in my head.

I grab some items together. A vintage ruler, an old pitcher that I picked up from a flea market, a white rug, a ruler with advertising on it from the 1930's, and some flowers that were past their due date.

Fred would be very happy I think. Fred Flatow that is. I think that was his calling card in the 30's. On the flip side is a handy little ruler. Pretty neat right?

Finally I get something I am happy with. For fun I tossed the Lego Man into the coffee in the cup, along with a flower.
And I liked it better than any other shot I'd taken today.

And thus was born the Lego Man in the coffee.

I finished off the photo 'shoot' with two last items.

I wanted to go out and shoot the cropland and the icy sculptures in the moon light but alas.
The clouds have moved in.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully I get out to do some more night photography soon.

Photos developed in ON1RAW2017.

I should what with my Hist-o-gram?

Histograms.
They are supposed to help a person take a better photo.

I never used them until the other day when doing an assignment for a group I belong to on Google+.

I knew what it was, I knew it was a graph 'thingy' that showed up in the camera if I hit certain buttons, and I know it shows up in Photoshop when I do editing.

So the other day I did a little experimenting on my own.

I shot with my Olympus Digital E-420 camera, it is light enough to use a wimpy light tripod with.  I'm not weighed down by it much and since it is one of my oldest cameras, I take it when things can get rough hiking.

However it sees snow as blue!

Here is one shot I took for the Histogram shot.

Well obviously the colors are way off.
I put it into my trail version of PaintShopPro X6 Ultimate and decided to check the histogram.


The top one is the histogram as PSP reads it.  There is a lot of info missing on the right which means this is underexposed.
Yes I bet it was, it was getting dark and the ISO was set at 100 for this shot.

Not only that, I was dealing with a flash flood from snow melt, so I wasn't taking the time to twiddle with the camera.

I know, bad me right?

But could I save this shot of the ice wall?

Above I tried to stretch out the histogram, but dang it, the color was so off that it wouldn't work well.

Back to PSP.

First I used AfterShotPro to develop the RAW shot over again, this time paying attention to the WHITE of the snow.

I was able to stretch the histogram to the right and get the nice white color I needed instead of the blue.

Not a perfect histogram according to some digital photographers, but this was going to have to do as the wall may well be gone on my next trip down.

This turned out so much better than I hoped.  The texture of the ice wall along with the streaks of brown from the clay and minerals came out quite nicely.


The snow is white, the shot was saved!
I can add it to my project about the creek!

This thanks to learning a bit more about the histogram.

I also found the histogram quite useful with this shot.  The original is in color but I converted to black and white.  
The white of the water was not showing white, it was coming up dingy grey until I worked on the histogram.

That said, I also liked the dark forboding color version of this shot.  
Histogram be danged and all that.

You see there is a 'lot' of info missing on the right side.  I say, oh well, I really like this shot.

So I'll do some more experimenting with the Hist-o-gram shortly, but there are many occasions that a photographer doesn't have time to set, reset, change EV values and then re-check the histogram while doing a shot in nature.

Well, maybe they do and I am just lazy.

But these shots were taken as quickly as possible during a mini flash flood, so I was 'capturing' the moment so to speak.

And if you want more reading on Histograms, try this article from Digital Photography school.