Images that have done well over the season 3rd May

Hi Folks,

Photo images that have done well in competitions over the season

Tuesday 3^rd May

On Tuesday night it was an evening where members could talk about their winning photographs and enlighten us all on how they were achieved. I managed to locate some of the photographs which helps when trying to describe photographs I apologise for others that are missing

Cathy Chantler’s Photograph of two Swans

“In Perfect Harmony” was the title of a piece of work Cathy had got ready for her daily Blip entry having seen an idea on YouTube to get her started.

Cathy selected a photograph of a flock of swans which she thought might be appropriate for the picture she had in mind. However, this needed cropping to centralise two swans together in the picture.

After keeping a copy of the newly cropped version, Cathy worked on a second copy in Light room, which involved using a tint option and then the use of radial blur (used about three times) before moving on to the twirls option, twirling the image to the right and then to the left creating a patterned background.

A second copy of the cropped photograph of the swans was layered in allowing Cathy to create the swan’s heads into the centre of the newly created patterned background.

The Picture got a 20 in the Rose bowl

Chris Andrew’s had three photographs to talk about

Photograph of a Broken Phone

Chris felt a little disappointed after producing a picture of a broken phone which was so cleverly done it fooled the judge into thinking that a picture of him on the phone holding a hatchet had been layered in.

Chris went on to explain he had managed to produce the picture from a series of household disasters, the first being his wife dropping her phone and cracking it. Fortunately for the creation of the photograph the phone was still working and Chris managed to send a photograph to his wife’s phone of himself holding the hatchet. To add effect to the scene he added a few pieces of glass collected from his patio door after a stone flew up from his lawnmower and went straight through his patio window.

Apart from an excellent photograph it was great story to tell on the night lol

Photograph of a windmill

Chris showed us the original picture of a windmill scene and under / over exposed it into 3-5 different photographs and using Photomatix Software he blended them together to give a more dramatic HDR effect, which allows the user to select from various created scenes from the natural look to more artistic view of a picture

Photograph of a Church ruin

Chris bought a copy of the book “Guide to new ruins of Great Britain” and he decided to visit a church which was the closest to home. The photograph he took was in raw and after cropping out some weeds and cloning out an annoying object on the roof, he placed the photograph into Silver NIK software to create a b&w version as a layer to bring out a stronger feature in the sky. He pointed out one church wall was leaning (caused by lens distortion). From software Chris managed to straighten the wall and whilst making the adjustment he used a grid to keep an eye on any other movement in other parts of the photograph.

 

Allan Thomson’s two photographs

The rescue boat

Alan explained he happened to be in Cornwall and managed to get a good shot of a rescue boat going out. The boat was riding over crashing white waves looking really stormy.  Allan used the waves spray to great effect really making them stand out with the use of luminosity, dark and light sharpening. Allan said that water will take a lot of sharpening but using the sharpening process will have side effects elsewhere in the photograph and he did end up getting a halo effect around one of the boat crew but fortunately that was spotted on close inspection and was put right.

The Stag

Allen show us the effects of using luminosity and sharpening on his Stag and the effects it had just using the light enhancement along the stag’s antlers and sharpening the eyes.

 

Steve Beckett’s two photographs

The bird on a telegraph wire

This was entered in the broken competition and Steve said he wanted to make the picture look organic and as if it had been taken by an old camera. The background played a big part in this photograph and Steve decided on a vignette around it to give a more organic look to the lonely bird.

 

The demise of the red phone box

This was photograph of a red phone box and two people walking passed using their smart phones and was an entry in the Modern Life competition. Steve said first of all he stood in the telephone box taking pictures of people walking passed through the window bars but I’m sure he was really thinking outside the box lol.

Once outside Steve set up his camera to have a large depth of field and waited for people to walk passed the box. He was lucky enough to capture two people passing from both directions. Steve said he is happier using the viewfinder to take pictures but he said, in this instance, he had his camera a waist high and was shooting 3 frames a second.

Luke Callaghan’s two Photographs

The boy on the stairs

This was a photograph Luke did well in and he told us that it was taken at a wedding and like all boys at weddings interest wanes and he took this unexpected picture of a boy on the stairs. First of all Luke cropped out distractions in the photograph. From there Luke converted it to b&w and adjusted the contrast. Using Photoshop he selected a ray of light to come in from the top right, lighting up the boy. Then he used another ray of light just further to the right to enhance the picture.

 

Small talk

Here Luke took a picture of two small boys sitting in high chairs appearing to be in conversation with one another. Again Luke effectively used the ray of light to shine on one of the boys face.

Julia Cleaver’s photographs

Three girls on an LP cover

Julia used this photograph for her LP cover but was actually a picture taken from a beauty salon shoot. However, some better lighting was required and Julia made use of a silver umbrella to get the right effect

 

Tower bridge speed and movement

Julia explained the actual reason for being at Tower Bridge was for the poppy commemorative week and whilst at the event, she captured people crossing the road using a long exposure for the speed competition and if I understood correctly a shorter exposure was also layered into the picture for the effect.

 

The Girl in the white dress

Julia often has ideas on how she would like to see a completed photograph and on this particular day Julia was after a volunteer to actually stand in a pond wearing a white dress. One lady offered to do it lol. Julia also had a photograph of wooded scene and layered the two together and with an added texture and fog effect, it made a really good picture.

 

Girl with an angelic face

Julia said that the Goat Centre has a small studio which can be hired by the hour and took a picture of a girl that had been requested by the girl’s mother. The girl was back lit from behind and with a soft light at the front. Then after cropping the image to show the girl’s face, her mother was delighted with the photograph

So some interesting ways and uses of Photoshop given in the evening’s session

 

Derek