Sepia No More

Interesting article on the NY Times web site:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27wwln-medium-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The part I found especially interesting was about the user who posted Henri Cartier-Bresson on Flickr and got hammered. Not because it was a blatant rip off but because it didn't follow the style that is commonly seen on Flickr

“When everything is blurred you cannot convey the motion of the bicyclist,” one commenter carped. “Why is the staircase so ‘soft’? Camera shake?” wrote another. “Gray, blurry, small, odd crop,” someone concluded. That seemed to be the final word.

Grunge and garbage

This shoot started before I thought up the idea but the one shot that really spurred the idea was a picture of the inside of a trash bin. Strange place to look for the muse however that is where I found it. My post processing involved a lot of clarify and a lot of cross-processing filter. I think it really works for these types of image.

Every picture tells a story

"Every picture tells a story" is the next challenge on DP Challenge. I like the idea and I am not sure if I'll have to stage something or try to shoot something spontaneously. Most people's pictures are a record of an event so in that sense it should be easy to shoot for. Looking at the challenge details it might be hard to get a really good image:

Weave a tale of intrigue, romance, sadness, or any theme you like with your image. Be sure to tell the story using the Details field for some great post-challenge reading.

My brain will be working on this one though...

The film is getting developed

I took my roll of film from the Holga to London Drugs today. The problem with 120 film is that its more expensive to get developed and they need to send it away. Prints aren't cheap either (98 cents a piece) so a roll of 12 would cost 12 X 0.98 + $7 for processing. I did however come up with a way (hopefully) of dealing with this by getting processing only and then transfer to CD. Not sure what the costs are for the CD but I am pretty sure there's going to be at least two duds in the bunch.
Its also going to take at least 12 business days to get it done so that's disappointing however it will be that much sweeter when I finally do get to see the results.

Heavy Equipment

I went out for a quick shoot this morning. Renae and I went to Michael's at Beacon Hill and saw the heavy equipment right near the Spy Hill dump. I went back out today and took a few shots from the Audi dealership.

Post processing was clarify and time machine (cross-processing).

aperture: f/13
shutter speed: 1/1000 s
iso: 200

The Good Old Hockey Game

For DP Challenge, the advanced editing challenge for this week is "Games". Instantly this sort of image came to mind. Yes that is me geared up. I was thinking more of that feeling of loss after a game 7 (like Calgary recently underwent) but as I shot it lost that sense of melancholy.

Editing on this was nuts (at least more editing than I typically do)

1. Duplicated layer (X 2)


2. On layer marked "Clarify" Channel mixer (100% red)


3. Clarify (20) Cloned out artifacts created by this


4. Other layer mixed as "hard light" (100% opacity)Set opacity for clarify to 43Flattened


5. Cropped


6. USM


7. Export to JPG

I guess it turned out pretty well all things considered. I wish my gloves were the Oilers colors so that they would match. I also wish I turned the blade of my stick so that it was more visible. I also wish I could control where the shadow from the visor fell. In some shots it looked like a really nasty scar.

Here is another take from the shoot. In this one I didn't remove the artifacts from the clarify:

Lunchtime Walk

At DP Challenge, one of the current challenges is "Sepia". Of course Sepia is simply a form of monochromatic imagery so I went out today with black and white shooting in mind. I haven't used my Rodenstock r25 (i.e. red) filter lately so I thought I would give that a try.

The shot above is the original. The shot below is a quick edit done in Picasa.

• Filtered Black and white with red
• Auto adjust contrast
• Warmify

Transition...to film???

Yesterday I went out and purchased a Holga medium format toy camera. The thing is made entirely of plastic including the lens. With it I purchased a roll of Ilford ASA 100 black and white film and so far I've taken 10 shots which leaves 2 shots on the roll.

http://holgamods.com/what/what.html

Its really quite a different way of thinking when you shoot with film especially with this camera. Being film naturally you don't get the instant feedback that you get with digital. There's no metering system on this camera so exposure is entirely guess work. Actually that's not really a concern because you can't change shutter speed, working with film you're locked into the speed it has and the aperture only has two settings: f/8 and f/11. (Apparently f/11 only works on about 50% of the Holgas unless you fix it.)

Focusing is mostly guesswork and really, you aren't going to expect super sharp shots from this camera anyways. Infinity will pretty much get everything in sharp focus provided the subject is about 30' away from you. One of the shots I did was of the bus stop sign where I grab the bus from Brentwood to home. I am guessing that if I am standing underneath the sign that's a little bit less than 30'. In the digital world (heck even with a decent point and shoot film camera) it will actually focus for you. With the Holga you have to figure out your focus. Scratch that one up to experience I guess.

An interesting point to note. My red filter with the step up ring fits nicely over the lens of the Holga. I'm quite curious how it affected the shots since the whole point of a red filter is primarily for black and white photography.