My Infrared Fun with old files

Step one. Try an IR filter.
I did that for years and had good but frustrating results with it.

I also never quite understood what a channel swap or channel mixer was used for ... or how to use it.
I ended up with a nasty pink mess or a pretty nice black and white conversion.

This was a very long exposure with a 720nm filter attached to my Olympus camera lens. I do love how this turned out. Most of my other IR shots were flops.

I kept trying though. I wanted to have those cool odd colors that I'd seen before. I read tutorials and thought I had 'it'. No. I wasn't really very close.
Sometimes I was rewarded with this...

My only option was to ditch it and hope for something better.

Yet I wasn't going to give up.
 I switched the white balance to Fluorescent. And got purply pinky stuff.

But at least after some effort I could get this...

And my only choice was to convert it to black and white.
Again, not quite what I wanted.

I wanted false colors, odd colors. Colors that were different.

So I went back to the drawing board and started to learn about Channel Mixers and swapping blue and red. About how the green effects things. I began to dabble in adjusting the hues of colors.
No rhythm or reason for it. Just experimenting.

I picked up an old file that I considered a flop from 2017.

Well that was odd enough, but turned out a bit better in black and white than the odd colors. But I sort of liked the odd colors. This was a 3 step process. Going from Auto Color>Channel Mixer>Saturation and Hue adjustments. The color shot could have been a bit more normal, I suppose, but I was into seeing how far I could push the odd colors.

So I thought I'd try another one or two from 2017.
I won't show you the red shot but...

I like this edit a lot. In fact it would be one I'd keep.

But I can't leave well enough alone of course.

A bit of color swapping here, but I wasn't happy with it.
So...

Well why not? False colors!
What if I could see the world through different light wavelengths?

And then of course I had to convert it to Black and White because not everyone can handle liking false colors and seeing the world in colors that are not supposed to be.

With my little converted pocket Canon I am having a lot of fun.

Enough so I may eventually convert my Olympus to a full spectrum camera for Infrared work.

It may be wild or it may be tame.
It depends on my artistic type mood.

Gardens, Bugs, Kids

10 days ago the vegetable garden spot looked like this:

In the upper right corner of the photo, you can see the garden as it normally looks each spring. There are some mules in the photo and they were still moving between pastures #2 and #3. #2 is a winter lot, #3 is a wooded lot.

This is just after I spread the dirt in front of the porch and put grass seed down along with some hay chaff. The pots are my version of weird and funky.

Next? This is yesterday afternoon.

The mules have moved to the meadow out back [pasture #5], the cattle that remain are in the woods doing some brush cleaning.

Rich took nearly a week to complete the tilling but I am happy.  He struggled with it and could only do a little at a time. But I am over the moon happy. This is the first time I haven't had to do it by hand in a few years.

Doesn't it look nice?

On May 20th, my neighbor kids came down to visit and chat. This was when I was getting ready to seed the dirt in front of the porch. They loved my bucket of collected seeds from last year. I invited them to plant them and tromp them into the dirt.

Yesterday the seeded area looked like this:

I have Zinnias, marigolds, green beans and probably a few other flowers mixed in. I thought of transplanting the green beans, but I may let them stay just for fun.
I will thin and transplant some of the other flowers.
The odd looking bucket has oregano in it. The spool table holds a collection of strange roots and some painted deer skulls that the kids added bling to.

I'll get photos of those later.

Things are starting to shape up and look pretty!
The garden is going to be a delight to work in this year.

I'll have lettuce, tomatoes, green beans, sweet corn, turnips, carrots, and peas. There will be some red sweet peppers too, just for the added colors.

Of course against Rich's wishes, there will be sunflowers, zinnias, four o'clocks, and anything else I care to plop in the dirt. I see the malva has self seeded in the garden next to the rain gauge. One plant is by the house also.

Rich isn't quite sure as to why I insist on having flowers in the vegetable garden. But why not?

I have to find a spot to plant some squash. I think I'll put them up in the holding pen that isn't being used right now.

Back in 2014 I shared the garden space with some other neighbors. We had a very crowded garden. Their methods for growing were very different than mine, however we did have a great harvest.

Last but not least.
Bugs.
Allie loves bugs and she always finds the most interesting ones.
She brings me May Beetles to see, and then she came down with a stick bug.

It looks like today is going to be mostly dedicated to planting the garden.

Still Life B&W

So I enjoyed my recent experiment with still life and am looking forward to week two.
But the day was gloomy and with chores done, I decided to stay in the house and do a little editing on those shots from last week that I didn't use.

I thought, maybe these would look much better in black and white.

For the 'table' I used a wicker chair.  I took an old pillow case that had a design on it and tossed in the dried up flower, the putty knife and some crinkled wall paper.  I couldn't find my large paint brush so I used a very small one.
After all, I will be repainting after the house remodel.

I overlayed a photo of rose wall paper and used some 'grunge' brushes in CS 2.  I also used a nifty little filter called AAAFotoFrame, which I can't seem to find anywhere on the internet.

Here is the wicker chair with a whiteboard as backing.  The same pieces are in this shot.  I again used a texture from Mercurycode at deviantart.  I used Overlay to blend it and then took out what I didn't need.

I took some more shots today and will start lesson #2 this week. I had to take advantage of having no one else around while I messed with objects and textures.

This was fun and a great inside distraction when the weather is not so great outside.
Even an old chair can be used to arrange still life.

Today though I had Morris's help, he kept nudging things with his nose and getting in my way.
I finally took the hint and took him for a nice little hike.

Processing IR with Topaz Adjust 5

[f7.1, ISO 100, 10" exposure]

I went for a walk yesterday and the fall colors were beginning their blaze of glory.
I started up my driveway and looked at the trees and the sunlight.
I wondered exactly what would happen if I used the Hoya Infrared R72 filter I'd gotten.

I processed the shot in Corel AfterShotPro and it really didn't look very impressive, it looked flat.  I could have edited the Histogram and gotten a bit more depth, but I thought I'd try Topaz Adjust 5.

That ended up being a bit more like it.  White foliage [which was actually yellow] and nice contrasts to the tree trunks and shadows.

I used some of the presets in the Toned portion of the plugin and played around with the sliders.

I was using an old camera and actually not following all the 'rules' out there on the 'how to' sites for using an IR filter.

I had to deal with a longer exposure to bring out the light and dark in the heavy canopied forest so there was some movement in the ferns and leaves in this shot.

[f5.6, ISO 100, 13"]

I used the 'pink' toned filter for this one and had to adjust the details.  I just felt it looked prettier with the fallen leaves a bit soft.

[f7.1, ISO 100, 4"]

With this driveway shot I went for the sunlit highlights.  Where the sun shined and reflected, the color was nearly white.

[f7.1, ISO 100, 5"]

I wanted a 'cool' effect for this shot.  Finally, I had white leaves and the sunlight coming across the tops of the trees in the distance.  The sunflowers in the garden with their drooping heads were bright white.  
The blobs in the distance are mules feeding.  
I don't think this is a fantastically composed shot, but I do like how it came out.

And my favorite of today on my trip to a county park was the following.

[f10, ISO 100, 10"]

I don't even mind the sun flare on the lens in this shot.

However this was spectacular in color and deserved to be shown off as such.