Contest Entry

Malcom and the train - Somewhere in eastern Idaho; 5/25/11, 8:24:15 PM; f/5.6; 1/40; Nikon D5000

This picture was taken on the way home from Bannack, MT.  Malcom decided he’d been in the car for long enough that day so we stopped to let him stretch his legs a bit.  There were some train tracks right by the car so he grabbed his toy train and went for it.  I had to lay on my side to get my camera right down by the tracks, then zoomed in and used the smallest aperture I could to blur the background.  In post production I added a little saturation and contrast.  I cropped a few pixels to fit it to a 4×6 picture.

I wish I could say I had a good reason for picking the contest I did, but it was mostly because I was just rushing to get one done.  The photographics society was having a contest and the theme was endurance. I figured this was the most endurance based picture I had.  I learned a lot about the differences between a photographer’s eye and the average person.  I wasn’t really that impressed with this picture.  I felt like the composition was a little weird, like Malcom was leaning a bit too much.  The picture was oversaturated, and the bokeh really wasn’t that great.  For an average student passing, they probably just saw a kid playing with a train on a train track and thought it was cute.  I guess the moral of the story is that while a photographer’s eye is vital, I guess you have to keep in mind who you’re taking pictures for.

Contest date June 14th 2011

http://byuiphotographics.blogspot.com/p/contest-intructions.html

Poster

Tautphaus Park Lion - 24x36; 6/11/11, 2:45:39 PM; Aperture Priority; f/5.6; 1/400; Nikon D5000

I had just bought a new 55-300mm lens, then drove to the zoo to try it out.  I must say I am extremely impressed with it.  In this picture I am zoomed all the way in to 300mm and the picture is still crazy sharp.  I think I was resting my hand on something, but no tripod was used.  I tried to focus right on his eye, but it’s to dark to really make out anyway.  I didn’t really think much about the picture until I was looking back through them.  Most of the pictures I ended up liking were of my son, but there had been quite a few pictures of him for previous projects.  I decided to try this one but didn’t realize how much I liked it until I printed it.  The printer at the Rexburg Wal-Mart seemed to put a bit more black in it which I liked more on thte 8×10, but it still turned out nice on the 24×36 printed at the IF Wal-Mart.  It was a bit over exposed which took some of the detail out.  I was able to bring a bit back by dropping the exposure a bit and upping the clarity and contrast.  I brought out the color of the lion a bit more by using the targeted adjustment tool in saturation mode.  It mostly just raised the oranges and yellows.

Fine Art Template

Lady Bug - Rexburg, ID; 5/6/11, 1:17:33 PM; f/5.6; 1/125; Nikon D5000

Gator - Idaho Falls, ID; 6/11/11, 1:53:27 PM; f/5.6; 1/250; Nikon D5000

For this assignment I created five boxes on one layer.  I then inserted a picture and used the five boxes as a clipping mask. I was able to then go back and add the other picture in it’s place.  This acted as a template so I didn’t need to recreate it, just add a new picture.

Night and Light

Blurred Lights - Rexburg, ID; 6/9/11, 10:50:31 PM; f5.6; 4'; D5000

Blurred Lights 2 – Rexburg, ID; 6/7/11, 10:07:34 PM; f/22; 30′; D5000

Light Sketching - Sand Dunes outside Rexburg, ID; 6/12/2011, 12:16:45 AM; f/1.8; 30'; D5000

Camera Motion - Alley Catz, Rexburg, ID; 6/12/2011, 12:48:10 AM; f/22; 20'; D5000

Camera Motion 2 - Alley Catz, Rexburg, ID; 6/12/2011, 12:52:37 AM; f/4.5; 20'; D5000

Light Painting - Rexburg, ID; 6/11/11, 10:17:46 PM; f/6.3; 30'; D5000

The first two pictures were the same teechnique.  My brother’s longboard has LED headlights so I used a slow shutter speed to capture them.  We used an off camera flash and fired it manually just as the rider got where we wanted them.  In the first picture I had to use a content aware fill to remove a window that was shining through his head.  In the second  I raised the sats, vibrance and exposure a bit. In the third I set a 30 second shutter then just drew the outlines with a flashlight pointed back at the camera.  The fourth was a slow shutter speed where I started zoomed out, zoomed in quickly then let it sit there for a while so the image that showed up the most was where the zoom stopped.  The next was a street light where I just moved my camera and covered my lens with my hand to make the smiley face. In the last picture I found a fire hydrant out in the boonies where it was pitch dark.  I put the camera on a slow shutter them slowly painted light in with a flashlight to expose the fire hydrant.

 

Scanography

This is a little taste of what I like to call “Man Art.”  Man art comes from walking into the media lab, finding out it closes early on Saturdays, grabbing whatever’s in your backpack and scanning it.  The first image is what I’m trying to pass off as my one scan image.  The next is my collage, and the rest are individual images I scanned to create the collage.  I imported all of the images into photoshop and duplicated and rotated them to make my finished man art.

Bannack Best

Malcom in the Window - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 11:56:04 AM; f/5.6; 1/160; Nikon D5000

Saloon - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 1:07:48 PM; f/5.6; 1/100; Nikon D5000

Scales - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:21:11 PM; f/4; 1/8; Nikon D5000

Candles and Salt Shaker - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:27:22 PM; f/5.6; 1/10; Nikon D5000

Ghost Shot in the Mill - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 4:23:09 PM; f/22; 4; Nikon D5000

Insulator in the Window - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 4:29:33 PM; f/5.6; 1/800; Nikon D5000

Malcom driving the Truck - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 5:38:31 PM; f/5.6; 1/320; Nikon D5000

Malcom driving the Truck2 - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 5:38:44 PM; f/5.6; 1/320; Nikon D5000

Malcom driving the Truck3 - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 5:40:34 PM; f/5.6; 1/320; Nikon D5000

Malcom Fixing Truck - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 5:41:32 PM; f/5.6; 1/320; Nikon D5000

Malcom Driving Train - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 5:41:32 PM; f/5.6; 1/40; Nikon D5000

Landscape - Bannack, MT; 5/28/11, 11:03:36 PM; f/5.6; 1/15, 1/50, 0.4 (HDR); Nikon D5000

The first picture of Malcom was in pretty bad shape when I first took it.  I almost deleted it when I was first looking at them.  I had focused on his face, but it was too close to the window.  The window was completely blown out and you could barely see his face.  I used Camera Raw to bring back some of the blown out window and lighten up his face and the rest of the room.  His face turned out a little grainy, but I still love the picture.  The next was taken in the saloon.  She was standing right next to the window which made for some amazing light.  The next two were taken with the lowest aperture possible to blur the backgrounds.  I the side light on the salt shaker coming in from the window.  The next (Ghost Shot) was taken in the mill.  It’s the only place that was dark enough to get a really good one without blowing everything else out.  I set the shutter delay to 5 seconds and a 4 second shutter speed.  I jumped in front of the camera then jumped out of the way after 2-3 seconds.  In the next one I again set my aperture as wide as I could and focused on the insulator.  I love the Bokeh I got in the background where it was so far away.  The next few are of my son Malcom.  It was dusk and the light was great.  I wish I would have used a reflector to get a little more definition of his facial features, but the chances of him holding still long enough were pretty slim.  For the next two I used the the Action in Photoshop to make the photos Sepia and Black and White.  The Black and white one was kind of cheating since it wasn’t actually in Bannack, but I figured it was fair game since I got it on the way home.  The last was an HDR standing just outside town.  I used bracketing to get a picture under and over exposed by 2, then combined them in Dynamic Photo.

 

Bannack – High Dynamic Range

House on the hill - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 12:13:29 PM; f/25; 1/125; Nikon D5000

House on the hill - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 12:13:30 PM; f/25; 1/400; Nikon D5000

House on the hill - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 12:13:29 PM; f/25; 1/25; Nikon D5000

HDR

 

Bottle in the window - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:52:42 PM; f/5.6; 1/640; Nikon D5000

Bottle in the window - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:52:42 PM; f/5.6; 1/2500; Nikon D5000

Bottle in the window - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:52:42 PM; f/5.6; 1/160; Nikon D5000

HDR

 

Mill Vat - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 4:18:14 PM; f/4.0; 1/8; Nikon D5000

Mill Vat - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 4:18:15 PM; f/4.0; .4; Nikon D5000

HDR

 

View from the hill - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 4:49:45 PM; f/25.0; 1/100; Nikon D5000

View from the hill - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 4:49:45 PM; f/25.0; 1/400; Nikon D5000

View from the hill - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 4:49:45 PM; f/25.0; 1/25; Nikon D5000

HDR

 

Truck - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 5:39:36 PM; f/5.6; 1/160; Nikon D5000

HDR

 

So it turns out HDR is about the raddest thing ever.  If photography techniques were food, HDR would be bacon.  For each of the above pictures (other than the truck) I set bracketing to 2, set the shutter to continuous and just held the shutter release.  I then took the three exposures of each picture into Dynamic Photo.  In each picture I set the dramatic light and dramatic light radius fairly high with surface smoothness low then messed a little with the saturation.  It was amazing how not only does this make the picture much more colorful, it also took a lot of time out of editing for me.  Being colorblind makes it crazy hard for me to mess with the saturation etc. in camera raw, so it usually takes me forever.  In Dynamic Photo I could usually finish all of my editing on each picture in less than a minute.  On the truck I only had one show, but I was still able to get some amazing color out of Dynamic Photo.  In Camera Raw I have a hard time bringing the right colors out in the right place without having funky hues everywhere else.  In Dynamic Photo I was able to get much better color in under a minute.  The only edit I had to do was go back in the landscape and take a branch out of the top left using a content aware fill.

Bannack – Landscape QEA

QEA Landscape Shot - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:08:21 PM; f/22; 1/200

QEA Landscape Shot - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:08:24 PM; f/22; 1/160

QEA Landscape Shot - Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:08:29 PM; f/22; 1/125

I had my camera in aperture priority to make sure I got as much as possible in focus, then experimented with different exposures.  For the first shot I metered at the sky.  The clouds have a much better definition, but the foreground is way too dark.  For the second I metered on the horizon, which had almost the same result.  For the last I metered on the ground in front of me.  The ground looks better, but the sky is blown out.  It’s a lot easier in Camera Raw to bring back darks than something blown out, so the first two pictures would have been far easier to fix.

Bannack – Macro Abstract

Textured Macro

 

Nasty Cement, Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 4:35:01 PM; f/5.6; 1/640

Old School House Can of... something, Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 3:00:01 PM; f/5.6; 1/6

I got up close to get a picture of a can sitting in the schoolhouse.  I had a texture shot of some nasty cement up behind the mill.  I applied the picture of the texture over the can, then dropped the opacity of the texture.  I then used a mask to remove it from everywhere but the can.  I also removed some of the texture over the white inside of the can as it showed up a lot stronger.  I think it gives the can a slightly older, nastier look.

Bannack – Reverse Shallow Depth

Shallow Depth Plow, Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 11:50:53 AM; f/5.6; 1/250; Nikon D5000

Shallow Depth Plow, Bannack, MT; 5/25/11, 11:51:25 AM; f/5.6; 1/320; Nikon D5000

I used aperture priority and set it to 5.6.  It seems like my lens gives me more bokeh if I zoom in and use a smaller aperture instead of zoomed all the way out and using a slightly larger one.  For the first picture I focused on the bold right in the bottom left of the picture.  In the second I focused on the bolt on the crest of the plow.  I liked the lighting in this picture too, where it was still pretty strong but slightly diffused by clouds.