Photograph Your Artwork - Digitally!

Here's a recent drawing, photographed with an iPhone upside down and "tweaked" to improve clarity and contrast.

Ellsworth... and Becoming

A tree is such a noble growing thing, reaching toward the sky and going on and on in the fluctuations and extremities of environment. Socrates said that humans should not settle for being, but to achieve full potential should think of themselves as becoming. Carol Dweck recently "Discovered" this fact to base her book "Mindset" upon, and it does offer up some great possibilities!

Fall

When the days grow shorter we all get a sense of pulling more into ourselves and preparing to change the way we do things as well as the things we do. Replacing the process of cutting the grass with shoveling snow and the bike rides with snowshoe treks through the forest are only a small part of how we adapt to the seasons here in Maine. I think the nicest part of the change of seasons is that it is a process not an event, that the seasons slowly transform from one into the next and we can see the subtle changes in many ways each day. I truly love living in Maine! Here are some photos from this afternoon which I went out to get based on the concept of "fall" and how it might be expressed in the natural world around me. Because of the "time shift" it seems to be a lot later than it really is.

Sandy Surf

A ride around Schoodic resulted in some good photos, but I messed up the focus and ruined a bunch of good shots. Here's what I have left!

Reflections?

The nature of nature.
What it means?
Deeper thinking.
Quality of light on surfaces of all kinds.
How was this made?
Do you ever feel like you're drowning (figuratively)?
Trees are good.
Double exposure plug-in for the Hipstamatic app, that's how!
Write to me about the content, the swirling and simultaneous stillness.

Light Painting

The simplicity of the extended shutter is capable of producing so much in the way of creative ideas and possibilities that it seems never ending. We took a period last Friday and hung out in the theater to do some light painting, but the theater was so dark we discovered that we had some problems around focus and length of shutter opening. Plunging ahead, there were some interesting photos that resulted from our experiments, but the smooth line and the inherent possibilities with color (we used a black light on the striped shirt that Clara wore) became a focus of the time we had together.

I also set up a camera for some additional work in the classroom this morning and spent some effort to make the light more three dimensional in appearance as it got closer and farther away from the camera lens. Here are a few of what I consider the more interesting ones.

Jackson Portraits

Ahh.. rough and rougher. There's just something about the manipulated photo that I find more sensitive and meaningful than just a straight shot, but I would have appreciated a bit more "clarity" with these because the subject is my grandson. While the brighter one of the two seems more "grungy", I think the pose and the point of view offer a kind of "uplifting" image. The other one, darker and more somber, has somewhat of a lonely feeling to it, with the plain background, the striped trousers and the single soda bottle as a toy.

More Camera Effects

Here are a couple that are simple long exposure pre-fire and/or post-fire with the flash used to help solidify the subject. This technique creates really interesting "paths" and blends of color and shape, for an otherworldly appearance of the backgrounds and areas around "flashed" subjects.

Special Effects for Your Photos

The simplest way of producing a special effect is one that I already gave all of you with the last video I sent, double exposure. Now, double exposure works best when you can find a way to "blend" two photos like you can do so easily in PhotoShop (we will look at that later this week), but simply cutting an d pasting one layer on top of another and altering the opacity of the top layer can do some interesting things to an image as well. 

As you all know, I've upgraded my "Hipstamatic" iPhone app to include the new multi-exposure button, and here are a few photos taken with that "Mobile Photography" camera app.

Here is another image I created using the free software application called "Gimp", and if you have a personal computer, you might want to try it with a download from the web. It's for iMac or PC.

...and finally, here's a video I made for you about using "Acorn" filters to manipulate your images. I would like to have you work with these for a couple of days, add to your portfolio of work, and post to your blog your favorite two. Describe, analyze (elements & principles - I'll email you a sheet to help with your writing) and interpret (meaning, feeling?, attitude!) your pieces and why you chose them to post. Don't forget to post your portrait. The video for acorn is below.

The Edge of Water

This week's Photography problem is to photograph water, and this weekend turned out to be a perfect time for the assignment as there is water, water everywhere! Yesterday was occupied with cleaning the house in the morning and taking most of the afternoon to do some artwork in my studio and catch up on some extraneous email and research for class assignments.

I did get outside in the rain for a bit around one o'clock as I figured the light might be brightest at that time. Well, needless to say, the light wasn't bright at any time today and we've had lights on in the house all day! SO, here are a couple of pictures I got while I was out. The reflections in the diffused light are pretty good, but sometimes, if you are given that the photographer knows how to compose a shot, it is the subject that is the most important aspect. Here I have found humor (irony?), beauty in the flow of water, and the feeling of a "rainy day". I've posted the photos in that order.

3D Again... Group Shot

Our school celebrates the concept of diversity so well that I think we sometimes forget that there are, in fact, groups of learners in our school that feel at times they are on the outside looking in. They really aren't unless they want to be.

I went into Dan's room this morning to investigate the newly formed "Geek Club" with the idea of creating a "group shot", which was this weeks assignment for Digital Photo (Q1). I was amazed (but not really surprised - they are, after all, self described "geeks") at the enthusiasm from the group around creating a piece of photographic art in the traditions of "old school" stereoscopic imagery, you know, right lens blue and left lens red. Once I explained what I was up to they were all enthusiastic performers/actors who "struck a pose" for a photo and then were able to "freeze" their action while I shifted the camera slightly to the right and captured a second shot. The irony of the moment was not at all lost on them. What a great group to work with! 3D glasses are needed to observe the desired effect!

A previous post from last year http://mdihsdigphoto.blogspot.com/2012/05/3d-imagery.html showed this "process" with a group of my digital photographers.

Pushing Up Daisies!

The last blog post of this school year is simply shots of daisies by the large loam pile in our field. I made the connection, as I was setting up these photos to post, to conversations with Dan Granholm this week and his pride in his daughter "Daisy" and her exploits as a soccer player. I totally get that he wants to spend more time with his family, and in hindsight I... well, it's always 20-20 isn't it?

So I guess this is a sort of dedication to the "Music Guy", and how much I will miss working with him. Sorry about the "pushing up daisies" title thing!

Another Floral Group

Here are blossoms from a bouquet at my house... I used some adjustments in iPhoto, any guesses as to what and how? Let's see what you can come up with just from looking at the finished piece. Please comment below and check out the other flowers shots at  http://chartliej.blogspot.com/  Thanks!

Floral Shots - Blossoms...

This spring got all the blossom "stuff" out early as we had a March heat wave, but lately the blooms have been in full flow everywhere. I'm going to post some shots I got the other day of general "groups" or wider scale blossoms, looking at POV, composition and soft light. These were all taken with a medium (40 - 50 mm) lens and tend to work with pattern of blossoms and/or leaves. As I get photos of plant life, I've discovered more and more an appreciation of the various leaf structures and how they work as backgrounds in certain compositions, but a "thickness" of blossoms can create their own backgrounds, echoing the focal points as well!

Landscape in Trenton

This was taken early morning, with a low sun at the Trenton Golf Course. I had a couple of "straight up" shots and then noticed the tree so I used it to frame the shot. The grass at the bottom was another afterthought, and this particular shot ended up being the fourth or fifth generation of what I was seeing. Looking and working for a good image almost always pays off, and I think it did for me in this one as well. I like the clouds, the bark on the tree as a rough contrast to other textures in the scene, and the way the grass creates another very close aspect.

3_D Imagery

You will need some glasses for this one... red on the left cyan on the right, but the effect of the 3D blending for this is really cool, and very easy to do in PhotoShop. See me and I'll show you or give you a link!

Dandilions at Seed

So here are a couple of things as reminders to all of you young photographers. First, be selective with your focus, and decide what exactly your subject is going to be and pinpoint your focus. It never helps to be "in between" and especially careless when it comes to finding your focal point. Below are two examples, the same shot with two different focal points. Which one do you like the best and why? Does it have to do with composition?

Second, don't forget to use a vertical format from time to time. Often the subject itself dictates whether a vertical or horizontal format will work the best for a particular shot, but ultimately the photographer and their vision makes that final compositional decision. It doesn't hurt to shoot in both formats so that you can compare and make a sound judgement based on artistic principle.

Lighting - Make it Work for You!

Let's try to do something special with lighting this week... it doesn't matter whether it is artificial or natural, but I do find that natural almost always works the best. Now that the sun is out, maybe those early morning or evening lighting situations can work for you. Although I am asking you to concentrate on lighting, don't forget at all the importance of subject, and make sure you shoot some photos that "live" and have some sort of content or emotion. Let's not try to go for the "gimmick", but instead look and think seriously about how you might use lighting in a way you never have or at least in a way you have not used for a while. Here's a link for you all... http://digital-photography-school.com/naturallight

Here's a couple I took tonight just before dark with a 200 mm lens and the low sun as my light source. Neither of these has been adjusted from the original shot, but I wish I had gotten the bottom one a bit more focused... I ran out of battery (dumb move) and it was my last photo of the day.

MLTI at MDIHS...

We were fortunate to have Ann Marie Quirion Hutton and David Patterson join us yesterday for some professional development for students with the use of "Acorn", the image manipulation software and iMovie as one of several tools for "Digital Storytelling". Our photography students learned new techniques for adjusting digital images and for using images with narration and background sound and music to tell and emphasize the parts of a story.

These photos were tough as lighting was down for the screen projector, so they required some "tweaking"... the top one is David leading some Acorn instruction and the bottom one is Ann Marie dialoging with the class about the power of movement and using the Ken Burns effect in iMovie.

The Edge of Water

My goal yesterday evening as the sun began to approach the horizon was to find something down in front of the house that would show "The Edge of Water", this week's assignment for my digital photo class. The day had been gorgeous, I had cut the grass around our home for the first time this year, but I knew there was some water pouring into the bay from the small intermittent stream that cuts across our field. I've narrowed my choices and have picked out my favorite, but would like to show with the photos I post, the process of finding that "best" photo as you are looking and moving in various directions. I'm also posting (above) a shot of the light source for all three of these photos, the low sun in the western sky.

Which of these do you think works the best? Is there one that "stands out" or "grabs" you? Please comment below and indicate the "why" of your opinion!