Melissa Anderson: June 2011

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Contest Entry

To create the look of this picture, I took it into photoshop. There I turned it into a smart object. Since I really wanted to accent the bird, I decreased the blues. Then I turned it into a smart object. After that I tried different filters. I liked how the colored pencil one looked.

This was my entry for the Photographic Society contest "Endurance." I captured this photo after the apple blossom festival. As I was walking away, my roommate pointed out this crow perched on the very tip of this tree about 20-30ft in the air. It was just so cool. So I laid on the ground and made sure that my roommate kept a lookout for cars (as I was in a parking lot at the time). It kept looking around, but I loved when it looked into the distance. The image just said endurance to me... that's all.

The only "link" that I could find was last updated in November 2009. Not relevant?

Submitted image: 6.14.11

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Big Format Picture

1. Techno-Town (24x36)

2. 6.3.11 @ 8.45PM Rexburg, Idaho
3. Canon Powershot SX120IS, Aperture Priority, f/4.3, Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec

4. Adjustment layer > Filter: Cutout (@ 7,1,2) > Poster Edges (2,1,6) > reduced opacity and fill on the left chimney and middle building to about 75% > sharpened these parts to define bricks and other details > Size of image and then crop

5. After sorting through the huge stack of images that I have taken this semester, I kept coming back to this one. I realize that it is a little out of the norm, but I loved this picture and felt that it would be something that I would not mind in my abode. I like that it is a little more stylized than most, but I like it.

As for my photographic technique... I was strolling around Rexburg on my way back into town when in the distance, I saw something that was not quite what I thought of Rexburg as. So I pulled out my camera and quickly made sure that I was on decent settings and then I zoomed... quite a bit (55.9mm). I tried to capture the essence of what I saw. I figured that while the picture itself did not really cause any heads to turn, this could be a picture that I could make into something.

When I took it into Photoshop, I saw it in my mind's eye. I kind of knew what I wanted, but I was willing to try some different stuff. I wanted to make it look more like paint, but with the cutout filter by itself, it lost tons of the detail that I appreciated about the original picture. However, I knew what I was looking for, so I went back to the poster edges and gave it back just that bit of detail that I wanted. Some still looked a little more interesting than I had anticipated, so I reduced the opacity there, and now you see the image before you that I created.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Lights

Blurred Lights

Hovering | 6.13.11 @ 1.46am | Rexburg | f/2.8 | Shutter Speed: 5secs | Canon Powershot SX120IS | ISO 200

I had some major difficulties understanding this concept. So I did a lot of practicing. This fellow was supposed to be ON the couch, but I kind of like it.

Lounger | 6.13.11 @ 1.47am | Rexburg | f/2.8 | Shutter Speed: 5 secs | Canon Powershot sx120IS | ISO 200

I finally got it right after many failed attempts. I moved the couch away from the wall a little, then standing behind the couch, I made sure to aim AT the camera... but never too long. I rather like this fellow. :)

For this picture, I moved without thinking that I was in the picture, so it had a weird look to it with two distinct(ish) front of my faces. So I carefully removed one, which left this picture... I nearly burned myself a couple of times that evening, but it was totally worth it.

In Photoshop, I put a gradient map with the color being a deep maroon which you will see on the edges of the image. To create it in the first place, I waved a match out and caught it on film.

Camera Motion

Dancing Lights | 6.12.11 @10.54 | Rexburg | f/8 | Shutter Speed: 5.0 secs | Canon Powershot SX120IS | ISO 200

I loved making the colors and lights dance. It was just so much fun. I tried working with the moon at first, but I had a hard time figuring out what to do with it, except make it bounce.

To get this shot, I set up my camera. Then I worked the flashlight while the camera worked its magic... I had a hard time getting the right emphases. I am going to be working on this form of photography for a while. I lingered to long on one thing in a lot of what I was trying to capture which made it pretty yucky. This was the best I came out with... and it makes me want to work at it with a fevered dedication.

There was some interesting background-age, so I put it on a black background and kept some of the reflection...

Edit: Fine Art Template

I was walking with the Kimball in mind, but I saw these gorgeous clouds behind the Taylor building. Thankfully, I had my camera, so I started taking pictures. When I saw this one, I was curious to see what I could do with it in my shiny new HDR program. I took it in and boosted the contrast majorly. Then I took any blue out of the sky to make the clouds seem that much more ominous. As far as putting it into the Fine Art Template, I had a few good chuckles with this, but I finally went with basically exactly how the book says to do it. I went with a black background because I think that it sets off my image beautifully.

Can I begin by telling you how much I LOVE this image? I was strolling around Rexburg looking for things to take pictures of when I caught sight of this in the distance. It was so amazingly awesome that I took a picture, although I was not sure if I liked how the picture came out initially. But then I saw it with filters in mind... one smart object conversion and then cut out and poster edges filters later, I had an image that I considered drooling over. I had to create another template to capture more of the length of the image... but that was fine with me. I loved it so very much... Then I dropped it into my newly made template and smiled a whole lot.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Edit: Border Effects

Burned Border

Okay, how can you resist miniature fences that look like fairies use them to enter their gardens? Apparently, not me! I might try another effect later on for this picture, but I decided to try the burned edge. The first time, I did not think that it was dark enough, so I repeated the process to get the above the above image you see.

Brushed-on Effect

I first turned this into a smart object. Then I tried all the filters. I finally settled on the paint one. It just seemed to work. Then I used the instructions in the book to create this BEAUTIFUL brushed-on effect that you see before you! It did drive me a little berserk that if I made a mistake, most of the time, I had to erase the whole thing and try again. Bleck. I like the end result though.

Flexible Brushed-on Effect

As you can see, I did the brushed-on effect earlier. It drove me nuts to not be able to edit it. I erased all of my progress about a bajillion times to try and get what I had wanted, so this time, I decided to try this more flexible brushing. I followed the rules in the book carefully, but I wanted a little something something for this picture. What did I do? I went to Layer-style on the white layer and created my own little gradient (for an overlay), added a smidge of noise, and then smiled a whole bunch. :)

Stone | 6.4.11 @ 12.54 | Rexburg | f/3.5 | Shutter Speed: 1/1250

Scanography

One Scan

March of the Buttons | 6.5.11 @ 3.34 | Rexburg | Scanner: Canon MP495 series

I love this picture. Probably one of the main reasons is that it took many different tries to get it looking exactly how I wanted it to. I laid them on the screen and then draped a black over-sized hoodie over the screen and hit scan.

The Cheater | 6.5.11 @3.33pm | Rexburg | Scanner: Canon MP495 series

These are just nifty cards, and I liked the concept of working with these as my scanography. Once again, I used an enormous black hoodie to cover my screen. It was a lot easier to keep the cards still opposed to the buttons. :)

What Do You See? | 6.15 | Rexburg | Scanner: Canon MP495 series

Okay... if you look closely, there are actually two images here. What happened was, I was doodling on Parchment Paper after making some cookies. I built two pieces to my female comic book character. This was the result. They layer on each other to show different perspectives.

Collage