[Calina]

September 16, 2006 at 8:41 pm

It does, a little. I don’t know if that’s the way the contrast worked or what. This is the original shot:

So seriously, not two pictures.

[Calina]

September 8, 2006 at 12:40 pm

Mark,

I’ve mixed feelings about this for a number of reasons. The shot as given is a little flat (God I hate that word).

The horizon is slightly off kilter (waits for the HP to come and get me). So fix that then:

crop the image top and bottom so that it becomes almost panoramic in dimensions. You’ll probably need to perform surgery right and left after the rotation too.

You could up the contrast a little in the colour version and see if that gives it any life. I’d also adjust the curves or the levels (I’d have to see which one is better before deciding) and then convert to black and white. As the conversion stands, it’s a little overly grey, in my opinion. My tendency is to do the contrast before the conversion; I don’t know how other people feel about that.

I do actually like the shot, but if I had taken it, the above is pretty much what I would do with it. Mind you, I don’t always have 100% success with the black and white conversaion so I have a lot of sympathy with you

[Calina]

September 8, 2006 at 9:35 am

Hi.

I like this (but then I like reflections).

I’m not able to do it right now, but what I would try to do with this is a) up the contrast a little b) convert to black and white. If you still wind up with a lot of white sky (per the workshopped version), I would then crop a little of it off.

Obviously, without doing it, I’m not entirely sure what it would look like, but that’s where I would be starting anyway.

[Calina]

September 2, 2006 at 8:43 pm

Terribly unfair, Andy, down to two photographs. It’s very hard.

Some notes. The top one was taken with an Olympus OM10 in December 2003, and printed by my local Fuji shop. The scanned version doesn’t really do the original print any justice, but it is currently (and still) my favourite photograph which I have taken.

The second shot was taken in Kerry. I haven’t done so much landscape photography this summer because I’ve been busy photographing kitesurfers instead and I don’t think they qualify as landscape, really. It was taken with a 350D and is totally unprocessed at the moment, because I didn’t at the time know a lot about digital enhancements. Other than intensifying the blue of the sky a little, I’m not altogether sure what I’d do with it. Technically, it might be the best landscape I’ve taken with the 350D although I’m pretty sure that I have better from the OM10 that just have never been scanned.

[Calina]

September 2, 2006 at 8:24 pm

if I may make so bold…

I like this shot, but I’d be with Andy on the contrast, and to be honest (hope it’s not my screen), it looks just a slight bit over exposed which doesn’t really add to the effect. If you do get an opportunity to go back there, it might be interesting to shoot from a slightly lower angle (I realise that with the sea, this is not always really an option), rather than looking down upon the channel somewhat. Is this possible at that location?

[Calina]

August 31, 2006 at 9:03 pm

But the lifeboat is pointing the wrong way Thorsten. It’d be an adrenalin rush.

[Calina]

August 31, 2006 at 10:00 am

amcinroy wrote:

Looks like the earths natural curvature to me.

That boat’s in trouble.

Andy

bit of a problem there since it’s the lifeboat.

Valentia, I like the idea. I might have tilted it a little more, but I think you’re into the realm of taste there.

[Calina]

August 30, 2006 at 7:49 am

Folks, thanks for the comments.

Rob, I take your point about the buoy. If I were going to do that, I would probably crop all around because I like the proportions to this shot.

Roberto, I’ll do a little experimentation per your recommendation although I remain to be convinced that it’s the way to go. The light is already a little special in my view.

I’ll post it when I get a chance.

[Calina]

August 28, 2006 at 2:52 pm

ciaran wrote:

I heard a great phrase the other day… “Falling in love with PhotoShop is sort of like falling in love with Pamela Anderson–in the end nothing seems real.”

Great quote. I must file it away.

I’d venture to say however that it is still possible to take a great picture without being a Photoshop expert, but being a Photoshop expert enables you to make a good photograph great, in some cases. I prefer to get the camera to do as much of the work as possible myself though.

[Calina]

August 22, 2006 at 11:13 am

Hi – it’s nice to see a few watersports photographers around the place.

davenewt – I like your smilie…

[Calina]

August 21, 2006 at 10:17 am

Thanks a million folks. You get a nice welcome here. :-)

[Calina]

August 20, 2006 at 8:11 pm

I’m tossing up between a waterproof casing and a 500mm zoom. I take mainly kitesurfing photographs though and to some extent, I can probably get away with working from the beach for quite a lot longer depending on the 500mm. I wade into the water to a depth of two to three feet depending on how cold it is.

If I were going to do more surf photography, I’d be angling for a full waterproof casing. A lot of the angles I’d like to work with in the water make that mandatory, really – once I go past waist height water then, that’s it, and what I want to do would take me very close to the face of the wave.

By the way – in case you’re interested, in this months Kitesurf magazine there’s an article by one of their sports photographers on what he considers to be the tools o the trade. Interestingly, he (Alex Jowett) mentioned that if he was going into the water, he wouldn’t take a digital camera with him, only film. He’s drowned a couple of cameras. I don’t know if the magazine is still available (it was the Jul/Aug edition). PM me if you’re interested in a look but can’t find it.

[Calina]

August 20, 2006 at 7:12 pm

My two cents worth.

I recently switched from colour film to digital. My default position is to get the camera to do as much work as possible – this results in fewer botched photographs when you’re paying to get film developed. I can’t quite lose that mindset.

That being said, I recently started looking at various Photoshop techniques, and did a course on it. Someone, somewhere, once made the point that by and large, there wasn’t a huge difference in principle between a lot of those digital manipulation techniques and some of the development techniques done by some of the early greats of photography, eg Ansel Adams. Much of what he did lay in how he printed from the negative. In other words, he used the manipulation techniques available to him. That’s one argument against the new purist “as little processing as possible” point of view. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you. On the other hand, messing around with a computer is a bit easier than working on your shots in a darkroom. We have this feeling that art should be sort of hard, and frankly, where photography is concerned, computers make it sort of easy.

By and large, I’ve done some experimentation on a couple of photographs, but not a huge amount. My default is still to get as much of the work done at the camera level rather than processing pictures afterwards. But I appreciate the freedom to switch from colour to black and white, to crop, to work on contrasts and curves. Oh and to fix underexposed photographs but I do feel guilty about that last one. Underexposure is a photographer mess up.

I’ve mixed feelings about it, to be honest. Interestingly enough, someone told me one of my photographs looked as though it had been built in Photoshop during the week. As it happens, the picture had had some underexposure fixed in Photoshop, and I think I autocontrasted it as well. But that was all. I’m wondering if it’s a good thing if someone assumes that a photograph you took was created in Photoshop rather than a representation of something which actually was real. Somehow, I have my doubts.

Anyway, I’ve a couple of tricks that I use for various reasons, but after that, the photograph is less a photograph and usually a graphic. Not sure I’d call it an illustration but that’s probably because my mindset is unless a pencil or pen was involved, then it’s not an illustration either. But that’s just my prejudice.