Project 50 - Week 4 - Abrupt Change

Project 50 - Week 4
Concept - Flying High Sunny Day

Due to circumstances beyond our control (epic accident on highway causing major delay getting back home), I was unable to take the remaining pictures of the Berkeley Kite Festival today.  As such, I don't feel I have enough suitable photos to make a project, so on to Alternate Project #1, Sunny Day!  This is a collection of shots of a remarkably happy sunflower hanging our at my mother's house. 

Not quite kites, I know, but I still think quite a few of these shots came out well.  I tried to get some fish-eye shots (note: When using a fish-eye, be careful of your fingers!) as well, but the lens is totally manual and I have still not quite mastered it! 

Enjoy! 

(photos will also be posted to anttree.org site within a day or two). 

Project 50 - Week 4 - Concept

Project 50 - Week 4
Concept - Flying High


This weeks project was put "on-hold" until Saturday, because I wasn't exactly sure of my plans.  My main project, which now seems to be coming out okay, was to take pictures of the Berkeley Kite Festival. Of course, one of the main factors to that was weather - we here in CA have been having a strange summer (fog, really cold, and even some rain!).  Today was, happily, a really nice day so that worked out perfectly.  I did have some back-up projects in case the weather wasn't going to cooperate, but now I can use those another time!  The project won't be completed until Sunday evening, so I'll be editing photos right up to the line! 

Secondly, we are in the middle of a move!  We are leaving our happy little apartment and actually moving into a real house.  Artistically, there are some great benefits to this move, including: We will have a dedicated art/crafts room (which means more craft projects here) and I'll have a dedicated photo studio!

Thank you all for sticking in there and I hope you enjoy this weeks photos!

Project 50 - Week 3 - Leeloo, Fremen Baby

Project 50 - Week 3
Subject: Leeloo, Fremen Baby


It was a close call, but I finished this weeks project!  A bit of a early-week cold and an upcoming move certainly occupied a lot of my time, but in the end I completed the project!  For my week 3 project, I wanted to use some portrait photographs that I recently took of our friend's baby's first birthday party.  I tried to use a few different techniques in these photos, both during the shoot and post-production to give them an interesting look. 


All-in-all, for my first attempt at any sort of portrait shooting, I'm very pleased with the outcome.  Two of the post-production techniques I used for some of the photos include: duo-toning (with a "Warm Gray" filter effect) and tri-toning (as a sepia effect).  Two of the photos I left unaltered, because of how well they show off the blue of her eyes. 


In regards to her amazing blue eyes, the name of this project "Leeloo, Fremen Baby" is a tweak on a "geek joke"; Fremen are the group of characters from the Dune book series (by Frank Herbert) who live on the planet Arrakis and due to their constant consumption of "Spice", all of their eye's have turned "blue-in-blue".  Leeloo clearly has a lot of Spice with her Cheerios.

Enjoy!

Note: a larger version of these photos will be viewable on the www.anttree.org website within the next few days. 

Project 50 - Week 3 - Concept

Project 50 - Week 3
Concept

For this weeks project, I've decided to work on some of my portraiture skills.  I am going to try and make a portfolio of 8-12 shots of some baby pictures I recently took.  The trick in this project is two-fold, the first part (which is already complete) was trying to take a more "portrait"-level photograph (compared to just a "snap-shot") and the second part is managing the post-production aspects.

While taking the pictures I was more concerned with the person and trying to isolate them from the background and add a nice bokeh (the soft blurring of the background/foreground in a photo to isolate your subject).  I also used an off-camera flash to try and generate a more natural look and feel.  While taking the shots I constantly had to remind myself; "aim for the eyes!" because no matter how good you think a portrait may look, if the eyes are blurry its going to be rejected. 

For the post-production components, I'm looking a few items: retouching, softening skin tones, color balancing, creating both artistic-looking mono- and duo-toned shots, and formatting the final shots into a complete portfolio (all images standard size, title bar, signature line and layout).

Hope you enjoy the ride!

Project 50 - Week 2 - Rooftop Panoramic

Project 50 - Week 2
Subject: Rooftop Panoramic


Although the weather wasn't quite as supportive as I like, I did complete this weeks project - my Rooftop Panoramic!  This panoramic is comprised of 13 photographs, and shows the view from our apartment's roof.  I tried to be consistent in taking the photographs (focal length, aperture, and shutter speed), as to make the photos all have the same look and feel before combining them.  One odd effect, that I did not expect, was the "curved" aspect of the center part of the shot.  I believe this effect occurred because I was walking along the edges of the roof taking pictures so the shots were not taken from the same "plane" as each other (unlike the first two tests, where I did not really move while taking the photos). Either way, I think the effect is quite interesting, a sort of "mock-fisheye-lens" look.

The overall size of this photo, if printed, would be 8" x 38" (over 3' long!).  I might look into seeing how much it would cost to get a print this large, perhaps on canvas (so I wouldn't have to cut a mat-board or try and find a frame for it!).  I hope you all like it, as before it is a bit of a large picture so to see the large version, click on the small thumbnail picture below and then once it loads click on it again to expand it to the larger size.

Enjoy!

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Project 50 - Week 2 - Update #3

Project 50 - Update #3

I received some positive feedback on the panoramic I did yesterday, so I'm going to go ahead start work on my final version of this project.  Some folks mentioned how small the photo was - that was more of a problem of me uploading the incorrect file - the full-size photos are quite large, but I've gone ahead and posted the full-sized versions of both the Test 1 and Test 2 pictures on the AntTree.org site.  Please remember, most web-browsers will re-size the photo to fit on your screen and you'll need to click on it to expand it to full-size.

Test Project 1 (Highway 80 composite) (10.1MB)

Test Project 2 (San Francisco Skyline composite) (14.6MB)

Back to work!

Enjoy!

Project 50 - Week 2 - Update #2

Project 50 - Week 2
Update #2

Here is my second attempt at making a panoramic shot of San Francisco.  I know its a bit blurry and pixilation is a bit high, but I think the overall look is pretty good.  As with yesterday's photos, these were more telephoto (around 220mm) than wide-angle.  The amusing part, at least for me, is that the bird (pretty much dead-center of the image) is the clearest part of the photo!

Now, this is a pretty large picture (printed, it would be approximately 34" by 7") and if you click on it to see it "full screen", you might need to scroll a bit left and right.  In total, this panorama is compiled from 7 photos.

Enjoy!

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