Light Painting

I like to try new techniques with my photography.  For a long time I had been wanting to try light painting and star trails.   Last night, the moonrise was going to be in the early morning hours, the stars were out, so we drove over to Lake Granger. I was hoping to find an interesting tree with a clear area around so I could get star trails.  

I found my tree and set up my camera.  As I started "painting" the tree with my flashlight, I noted the windy conditions and how the branches with leaves were moving too and fro.  I figured that was probably a sign that this was not going to work well, but since I was experimenting anyway I kept going.  Since I was using long exposures, I didn't take that many shots.  I was using an older, much used Canon 5D and the noise level and "hot" pixels were excessive in my longest exposures.  I went ahead and bumped the ISO to 1600.  With some noise removal, this was the best of the lot.  

While this is not the image I had visualized, I find that I like it.  The wind action through the leaves creates almost a watercolor look.  

Perhaps I'll go back again soon and try again.

Images of Mystery and Wonder

When I started experimenting with in camera motion blur photography, I was amazed at the things the camera sensor would reveal. A forest of redwood trees became an impressionistic work of art. Other times light flowed when I zoomed the lens during the exposure.

But sometimes, the combination of the natural landscape and the motion create "characters or creatures."

When we learned that we are heading for the Montreal's WorldCon, Anticipation, I went back to my images to find the ones that have created some fantasy creatures.

You may want to click on these images to get the larger view to get a better view of the "faces."

This one required only a little dodging and burning in three places to bring out the "face" of this critter. I think he needs a name - any suggestions?



I'm naming this one "Primal Scream."



This one required more post processing, but I was amazed at how many eyes I "found" as I worked the image. The title: "Eyes."

Hidden

When I take my Photographer's Canvas images, using in camera motion blur, I never know what I'm going to get. Occasionally, I get some almost mysterious effects - totally unplanned, and definitely not photoshopped. The only adjustments to these images was the conversion from RAW which adjusts contrast, color balance, and saturation and the removal of sensor dust spots and blobs. I can promise you that these were taken of the aspen forests in Colorado. But just like sometimes our imagination sees images and shapes in the clouds, sometimes these abstracts give our imagination new input. These two images have given my imagination a glimpse of more than just trees.




So, I'm curious . . .





What do you see? I would love your comments!

Colorado's Winter Aspens

One thing a photographer is taught to do is to visualize the photos they want to take before they go on location. For my winter trip, I had several ideas visualized. One of them was a forest of aspen trunks nestled into deep snow. I never really found the scene I was looking for for that winter aspen image. But I did find and photograph aspens in snow. My versions of winter aspens are a little different:









I did find this grove of young aspens and I was intrigued by the patterns of the tree trunks with their shadow lines criss-crossing the photo.



But I think I like this version of the same scene better:

Creative Photography

While I love to try to take beautiful, natural photos, I have been playing with some creative techniques.

This first photo is actually a multiple exposure. With Nikon cameras you can do this "in camera." With Canon, I took a series of about 10 photos, moving the camera up just a tiny bit for each shot. Then in photoshop, I add each one as a layer reducing the opacity to about 10%. I also added a solid color layer to provide a base.I played with the colors from yellows to greens to see what best brought out the colors in the photo. I could probably have done the same thing by making the bottom layer 100%.



The next photo is done with a technique where you set you shutter speed and take photos as you are moving along the road. Yes, you must have someone else driving!!!! We have not figured out the exact "perfect" speed and I use a range of shutter speeds. I end up with a lot of shots that need to go straight to the rubbish bin. But . . . I end up with some that I really like. We've been in a lot of forests this trip, so you can expect to see more of these artistic shots over the next week or so.

This one was taken in Michigan. The only thing I did to this was an adjustment to the color balance to bring out the fall colors better.



I suspect that some of you will love these. I'm sure there will be some who won't like them. But each one is unique and I've had a lot of fun playing with this technique and seeing what comes out.

Manistique River

Northland Outfitters in Germfask is one of our favorite places to stay in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We've been there twice before in our RV. This year we didn't bring the RV so we stayed in one of the camper cabins. The view of the Manistique River is just gorgeous. We had a nice cloudy day, so I pulled out camera and tripod.

I was shooting with my standard lens, the 28-105mm Canon L lens. When I looked at the shots that night, I was not too happy. This was just not a good representation of what I was seeing with my eyes.



So I began to play with it . . .

The first step . . . cropping it down.



I've been playing with some programs from Topaz labs - Topaz Adjust and Topaz Vivacity. For this one I used the Simplify portion of Topaz Adjust and used the sharpen with iterations in Topaz Vivacity to create this finished piece:



Using what I learned from the crop of the photo, I went out the next day with my 100-400mm Canon lens to get the photo I wanted at full resolution: