Day 275 – Photo Exhibtion

Yesterday, I spent the day at a photo exhibition, I enjoyed three seminars aimed at photographers and got to look at and handle a huge variety of presentation material – it was really informative day – there was lots of information that I took away with me and lots of friendly photographers to talk too.

Day 244 – Textures

Something I have never tried is adding a texture overlay to an image. I have seen photographers that have done this, but I have never tried and of those photographers suggested that I take a look at these “adding textures“, and Kim’s still life classes for some ideas and guidance on where to begin.

I decided for me the best place to start would be creating my own collection of textures – so I headed of with my camera around the house and garden to collect an initial range of textures, because if I plan to combine images later this month…I would like to use my own images and my own textures.

A selection of textures with my macro lens

A selection of textures with my macro lens

So above is a selection of 48 different textures from around my home – most of them natural, but some are man made.

Day 209 – Mary Poppins

Today I thought I would have a go at a simple composite image – so today I am going to be Mary Poppins, the children’s nanny who can fly over London just by raising her umbrella in the sky. I am sadly not off to London, but instead I am going to have a go at flying in my own back garden.

My set up today includes:

• A tripod
• 17-70mm lens – set on a wide angle
• a remote camera release
• Me and my umbrella!

ISO100, F8, 1/250 sec

ISO100, F8, 1/250 sec

I took the two Raw Images into LightRoom first and made some alterations. I increased the clairty, edited the exposure, and added some definition to the sky so it had some colour. I cropped them slightly and then I took the images over to Photoshop where I tidied up the messy lawn slightly, added a fake shadow, a bit of bluring, some dodge and burn after I had  joined the images together… so I can be Mary Poppins for the day …what do you think?

Composite Image with edits in Lightroom and Photoshop

Day 134 – Chasing the Dark – Part 2 (Stars)

Following on from yesterday’s post on chasing the dark  … I tried my first star trail which involved stacking images together.  Once again I was stuck at home so I had to take the images in the garden and I was really aware of the ambient light from windows and street lights, but you have got to try it to understand it… and to decide whether I want to try and experiment in different locations.

Equipment for tonight included:

• Camera on tripod – bulb mode
• Torch to focus on the fore ground for just a short period
• Shutter release cable which was programed to take 1 30 sec exposure, rest for 1 sec and then take another repeatedly.

My first photo looked like this:

17-250mm lens, at 18mm, ISO200, F3.5, 30 sec exposure

This is my garden at night … there were lots of stars though. I then went on and took 12 more photos and merged them together to create a star trail.  I thought before this would be complicated and beyond my skills but Andrew from Long Exposure.co.uk told us about a program he uses called Star Stax, which you can add the jpg’s do and it does the hard work for you.

I therefore took my raw images, processed them into jpgs and downloaded the program, installed it and had a go.

12 images processed in Star Stax

I then selected a different spot in my garden, I wanted a darker foreground and had another attempt. This time cause I was at home, I set up the tripod, popped indoors and had some cheese on toast and a cup of tea whilst my camera did the hard work. It took 91 images … and I merged them together and got this:

Star Trail – 91 images over my garden

I so want to try this again. I have ideas for locations I would like to try and I know that I need to wrap on warm and take a flask or two. Andrew told us that to get the circle effect of a star trail we had to but Polaris in the centre of our nights sky…  but I was limited by the location and surrounding buildings … it is also great to have something to aim for next time.

I am so glad that Andrew was invited along to my camera club, that I attended his presentation and that I took away the information he presented and gave it a try, and I am now looking forward to seeking out darker skies so I can try again.

Future Challenges

If I am stuck for ideas in future Emma Davies has posted some ideas for a 30 day challenge – there is a whole list of different photos to try and take and it is a place to start it I am looking for inspiration or am suck for an idea … there are all sorts of ideas of subjects to try – so I am going to save the page for inspiration as I attempt to complete my own personal challenge.

Emma’s 30 day challenge can be found here: emmadaviesphotography.com/make30photos/