Slacking

So I've been slacking on my updates. Life's been crazy and though the shutter's still going off, the lightroom's getting backed up. No longer! There will be more final products soon :)

Portraits

All of these pictures were taken candidly. As Diane Arbus said, "Instead of arranging it, I arrange myself."

This portrait I took from the passenger seat with Steven in the driver's seat zoomed in really close. I didn't crop it, but I frame it crooked. The only other edit I made was to make the background greyscale.

For this portrait I was sitting below Steven and he was standing with the lights behind him. I converted this picture to greyscale and boosted the colors to create a slight tint, then framed it.

This picture was cropped out of a full body image. My intent was to focus on the shadows around the face and poise of the hand. I burned some of the shadows and midtones before framing.

~beth

Abandoned America

I just discovered an amazing photography project. Check it out! http://www.abandonedamerica.us/

~beth

Photostory: Just a Little Island

Note: All images were scaled and switched to 313ppi

Zakimi Castle Ruins: color balanced, canvas filter, dodge/burn

Maeda 1: burned all midtones and shadows, dodged midtones in spots, added watermark, framed*

Maeda 2: selected border of 0.2" with feathering, used paint bucket to fill with wood pattern

Wanderer: burned shadows and midtones, used lasso to turn person into own layer than desaturated, reordered layers, added watermark, framed*

Maeda 3: dodged and burned, watermark, framed*

Fisherman: burned midtones and shadows in water, made fishing pole own layer to burn it, added watermark and framed*

All other images were burned, had a watermark added, and were framed.

*Framing was done by increasing the canvas size, centering the image, filling new layer using paint tool, and moving new layer to background.

All photographs were edited, however I wanted to stay away from major alterations in order to preserve the true feel of the island. My original story board included images from multiple places around the world, however I didn't like the way it flowed. Because of that, I decided to stick with own place.

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved

~beth

Week 10

This first image I used the cloning, airbrush, and healing tools. I used the cloning and healing tools to eliminate the red eye. I then used all three to turn the background to solid black. After all of that, I used the text tool to add a copyright directly in the image in the lower right. After adding the text where and how I wanted it, I merged the layers into one.

The second image I used the airbrush tool to match the color of the grass and fill in the overexposed area. After I had filled it in with the airbrush, I went over spots with the clone tool to make it more realistic. I followed the same process as with the first one to add the copyright in the lower right hand corner.

For both of these images I purposely matched the copyright color to a color from the image and made it small. This was to disrupt the image the smallest amount possible while still embedding a fairly permanent copyright onto the image.

~beth

Dodge/Burn and Filters with GIMP

I had a hard time getting the dodge/burn to work properly. Whenever I was using it, no matter what settings I used or colors I had set as FG/BG, it still turned the burned area grey and then black. This was frustrating to me as in the darkroom, instead of the lightroom, burning just brings out the true colors/shades and details of the image. Burning in the darkroom seems to just put in color and not bring out the highlights that got overexposed. In the end I decided to choose a a black and white image to use. After burning the corner I wound up using the cloning tool and then the healing tool to blend it all in. I think I actually prefer the original to the new one.

For the filters I played around with a few different ones before I settled on these. This first image I also used the cloning and healing tools to put detail back into an overexposed section. The first picture is the oilize filter and the second is the newsprint.

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved

~beth

Lighting and Contrast with GIMP

This week went much more smoothly. For some reason last week every time I clicked a tool it simply wouldn't actually give me that tool. Not sure why, but the last few times I've used GIMP it's worked as it's supposed to, though I haven't changed anything. I realized after the fact that I should have been writing down each thing I did though as now I can't remember step by step what I did.

For this first image I cropped it and then desaturated the entire image. I then adjusted the levels, set the black point, and balanced the hues. After that I used the clone tool to erase the croc. I thought about getting rid of the "green eye" that Toby (the dog) has going on, but in the end I decided I liked the glow. I chose to make these changes in order to bring the focus onto Steven and Toby and best emphasize the effect of the glass table on the right.                                                            

The second image I made the shoe into it's own layer. Next I desaturated the background layer. I then anchored the shoe and used the clone tool to fix the edges where it meets the steps. After that I adjusted the hues until voila. Not sure which of these I actually like more. Mostly I chose this one because it fit what I wanted to play with.

~beth

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved

GIMP

As I just posted in the discussion board, GIMP is making me lose my hair. Here's the one image that I got to work when I first downloaded it. However, I can't get anything to do anything now other than resize or crop. I did this one by selecting the foreground and then desaturating the background.

~beth

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved

Humans vs Nature

Landscape photography records the outside world. Sometimes landscapes are only of the natural environment, other times they reflect human interaction with Earth.

When I'm walking outside it's as though my eyes turn into lenses. Instead of seeing everything around me at once, I look at things in chunks that move, expanding and contracting, imagining color and light changes, until I see something that I want to never forget or want to share with others. The last few months I've been experimenting with manipulating where and to what degree color occurs in the finished product in my portraits. I decided this week to apply what I've been discovering to landscapes as well. Though we were asked to post five, I have a horrible time narrowing sets down. Here is as far as I could cut it down this week.

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved

'Round the Bend

Haunting

Death Before Spring

Winter Winds

And for a taste of the tropics.....

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved

~beth

War For Peace with Technology

I am back in the states now and I am working frantically on landscapes. At the moment though, every time I open a photo my entire system freezes and then crashes. Does anyone who has a Mac been experiencing this problem since the system update a few days ago? If so, if you've found a solution I'd love to hear it!

~beth

Natural Framing

Framing a photograph doesn't always mean preparing it to hang on a wall. Rather, one can frame within the image itself. This can be done with elements of the focal point, physical barriers within the image, color, or using the fore, middle, and backgrounds. Here is a 3 minute slideshow of examples of framing. I apologize for the graininess. I put it in the highest resolution and it still was fuzzy. I may remake it using a different program.

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved.

~beth

Rules Schmules

Maybe it's because of my personality to challenge all norms in order to find my own place in this chaotic world. Maybe it's because I just don't have the best visual differentiation abilities (ask my partner who likes to tease me about it all the time) and so I seem to see things a little differently than most. Maybe it's because of what my psychologist calls ADHD and I loving refer to as monkey mind, which keeps me from focusing on anything for more than 30 seconds at most. No matter what the reason, I don't think about rules of composition now and never have. Camera in hand, I give myself over to my mind's eye to capture things as I see them. I simply shoot and shoot and shoot, rarely even checking the images as I go. At the end of the day, it's all one big surprise.


Some of my favorite quotes on this matter are by Ansel Adams, who is a photographer I have learned many lessons from. Though I didn't know his position on composition until years after revering his work, it was a pleasant discovery to find that one of my heros thought as I do.

"The so-called rules of photographic composition are, in my opinion, invalid, irrelevant and immaterial."

"A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.” 

My other favorite quote is by Edward Weston. "Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk."

To me, a photograph is about visualization. A few posts back I shared a link to rare footage of Ansel Adams discussing his own visualization techniques. I encourage you to check it out! Here is an interview conducted by BBC in 1983 with Adams. Enjoy!

~beth

Colorizing My Life

When I first started to take photography seriously I only shot in Black and White film and that was the entire composition of my galleries. As I have branched into the digital age, I have also branched into the world of color. It was a slow process with much internal struggling, yet I am glad I accepted the challenge. I find that my portfolios are now much more balanced. Also, with color comes a entirely different emotional imagery that simply cannot be captured the same way in greyscale.


This week I explored my portfolios in search of various color combinations. I scoured for analogous photographs (ones in which the colors occur next to one another on the color wheel), complimentary color schemes (colors are opposite each other the color wheel), and representations of monochromatic pictures (all colors are different hues, or shades, of the same color). Though I set out to find two examples of each category, I simply could not eliminate ones once I got to these selections.


Unfamiliar with the color wheel? Take a looksie!

Courtesy Of

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved.
Analogous Color


'Dam Reflections'. Original 4000 x 3000, Posted as 640 x 480. RGB colorspace, focal length 5, F-Stop 3.3, Exposure 1/125.
Taken in Morrisville, VT July 12, 2010 at sunset.

Original 3000 x 4000, Posted as 640 x 480. RGB colorspace, focal length 25, F-Stop 5.2, Exposure 1/500. Taken at the American Village pier in Chatan Town, Okinawa, Japan on Feburary 5, 2011.

Original 3264 x 2448, Posted as 640 x 480. RGB colorspace, focal length 5, F-Stop 2.8, Exposure 1/1250. Taken at Cape Maeda, Okinawa, Japan on January 20, 2011.

Original 3264 x 2448, Posted as 640 x 480. RGB colorspace, focal length 62.492, F-Stop 5, Exposure 1/80. Taken February 12, 2011 at Neo Park in Nago, Okinawa, Japan.

Complimentary

'Curiosity'. Original 3264 x 2448, posted 640 x 480. RGB colorspace, focal length 16.957, F-Stop 4, Exposure 1/1000. Taken June 2, 2010.

Original 4000 x 3000, posted 640 x 480. RGB colorspace, focal length 13.7, F-Stop 4.5, Exposure 1/125. Taken February 12, 2011 at Neo Park in Nago, Okinawa, Japan.

Original 4000 x 3000, posted 640 x 480. RGB colorspace, focal length 8.2, F-Stop 3.5, exposure 1/200. Taken at Neo Park in Nago, Okinawa, Japan on February 12, 2011.

Original 2448 x 3264, posted 480 x 640. RGB colorspace, focal length 60.276, F-Stop 5, Exposure 1/400. Taken February 25, 2010 in Morrisville, VT.

Monochromatic

'Morning Ripples'. Original 4000 x 3000, posted 640 x 480. RGB colorspace, focal length 25, F-Stop 5.2, Exposure 1/160. Taken August 28, 2010 at Crystal Lake in Barton, VT.

'Peek-a-Boo!' Original 2448 x 3264, posted 480 x 640. RGB colorspace, focal length 21.674, F-Stop 4.5, Exposure 1/160. Taken January 20, 2011 at Cape Maeda, Okinawa, Japan.

All Images ©Elisabeth Grace Wilhjelm. All Rights reserved.

~beth