Dandelion Clock

Decided to try something different. The photo was exported from Lightroom without any changes made, then processed in GIMP image editor. First I ran the 'old photo' script, then painted on some scratches and whatnot using Prowlers grunge brushes. I picked different brushes, and clicked around the image, changing the brush and the opacity all the time until I ended up with something I liked. That's about it!

Some links to photography stuff

Because this seems to be What One Does On A Friday.

I read an obsessive amount of blog posts. I have, at last count, 236 RSS subscriptions, and I read about 30 or 40 posts a day. Here is some cool stuff I've found over the past couple of weeks. A lot of it is through secondary sources, but I don't really care:

A review of PicLens. I've tried it out, it's incredibly cool. It is a really nice graphical way of viewing pictures on a web page. You should probably download it. Try it out on a couple of Flickr explore pages once you have.

A story about Pascal Dangin, the 'Master Retoucher'. Be warned: it's very long, but very good.

A story about a miniatures photographer.

A video tutorial to make a contact trigger for a flash, with McGuiver-esque levels of primitive equipment (except for the BB gun) This allows you to do precise, high-speed photography. I really want to make one!

A Camera hack for Canon point and shoot cameras, giving them Raw capabilities amongst other things.

A good way to find nice colour combinations for Lightroom web galleries, or anything else which can have a colour combination.

Lastly, a couple more of my photos of the rapeseed field from last Monday:





Have a nice weekend!

Strobist stuff

I just want to share a few things I have picked up from the wonderful Strobist blog. Mainly in the hope that they'll sink in to my head a bit better if I explain them to a third party - even if it is just the ether of the internets.

Strobist is a website dedicated to teaching people how to use off-camera lighting to make better pictures. I won't attempt to explain it fully, the website does it much better than I ever could - which is understandable, considering everything I've learned comes from there... Seriously, if you have any interest in off-camera lighting, go there and start reading. Even if you don't have an interest, you probably will after reading a couple of posts.

Anyway, one cool technique that I have been messing about with is using off-camera flash outdoors in broad daylight to supplement the sun. Why do this? Well, there are several reasons: to get rid of harsh shadows being the main one. I, however, wanted to use off-camera lighting in the bright light to make my photos 'pop' a little more, and also give some more interesting textures and shadow to my main subject. These first two pictures, while not exactly prize-winning material, have a pleasing '3d' type effect as a result of lighting them with an off-camera flash which has a home-made softbox attached, and at the same time underexposing the background to allow the main subject to stand out. Hopefully seeing the pictures will explain things a bit better:



Using off-camera lighting outdoors also allows me to keep detail in the sky and on my subject at the same time. Without it in this next picture, the sky would probably have been pure white, if I wanted the flowers to be properly exposed:





Lastly, meet my new model, Buddha. Unlike my usual models (friends and family), Buddha doesn't complain if I ask him to to be constantly photographed for twenty minutes. In fact, he spent the entire photo-shoot in a state of transcendental happiness, which did wonders for my self-esteem. Using off-camera light here also allowed Buddha to pop out from the background - I know it's a bit of a dull photo, but it's a cool technique.



Anyway, I know I haven't explained the how at all, but hopefully I've made a bit of a case for why. To summarise: Off-camera lighting is cool, go read Strobist.

Newsflash

We have entered into a strategic partnership going forward with LimerickBlogger.org, in an attempt to create a synergy with our overlapping demographics.

Well, OK, I asked them to put a link to my blog on their blog...

I've been reading The Limerick Blogger for quite a long time now, and it has the dubious honour of being my most-read subscription in Google Reader - according to the statistics I've read 108 posts over the last 30 days, which is 95% of everything that was posted on the site... It's a great mix of news and features, and there are some excellent photographers posting there too. I highly recommend it! The Limerick Blogger can be found here.

Have some pictures - click on the one below for a slideshow of a few more.

Backlog of photos, actually being able to go places, weather that isn't rain... Ah, it looks like Summer is finally here! And for the first time, I can drive. Just about...

Driving is funny. I have a feeling that me, and probably most others, are not actually naturally equipped with the skills necessary to operate such an incredibly complicated and dangerous machine. I really don't think that our designers, whoever they were, quite expected us to invent and run such things on a casual, day to day basis. Maybe the occasional superhero, but not everyday people like me. I often knock things, or drop trays. I can barely tie my shoelaces if I get up too early in the morning. I can't play snooker, and while I like car racing in computer games, I spend an irregular amount of time upside-down in a ditch. Hand-eye coordination is something that other people have.

Yet, here I am, hurtling down a road which was probably designed for a horse and cart and an old farmer with a bit of wheat in his mouth strolling alongside it. A road with barely enough room for two cars to pass. And what is giving me this super-human ability? It can only be fear. I spend most of the time with my hands clenched to the steering-wheel, knowing that the slightest movement at the wrong time could end in my propulsion out the windscreen at a speed that the Human Bullet would be envious of. So I don't swerve. And I continue.

So is that it? Are we all driving around in what amounts to (literally) a white-knuckle ride for a couple of hours a day, perhaps just to go to the shop and pick up a litre of milk? Maybe it has receded into the subconscious, but nothing really changes. The slightest mistake can result in catastrophe, whether we've been driving for months or years. Maybe I'll stick to bumper cars and computer games. But I was never really good at them either....

Anyway, after that, I feel I shouldn't talk much about my photos. I drove (myself!) to Kilkenny yesterday. The weather was lovely. I feel I know my camera now. Not the buttons and dials, I've known them for some time. Rather the end result: what will come out dull, what looks great now but will amount to little more than a speck lost in a sea of complication in the final photo. How depth-of-field will enhance or ruin my photos. So that's good, I suppose. Here's to a Summer of Photos.

Click on the picture below for a slideshow of some more, there's only about 10 or so...

Quick note about this picture. When I uploaded it to the computer last night I had a quick play around with the settings in Lightroom. When I took a look at it again today, I thought "geez, what was I thinking? Nobody will believe that was real, it's completely over saturated" So I clicked 'reset'. And nothing changed, it really was this ridiculous.

Just Chillin'

Because sometime, spiders need to kick back too.

Lantern

Nothing spectacular, but I must say I like the cool blue light.