A Quick Last Posting on the Theme of “Picture in the Style of a Painter”

Yep, the flare is deliberate as I wanted to emphasize the photographic nature of the project. Not that I am exactly expecting anyone to mistake this for a painting but still, being emphatic doesn’t do any harm. I’m not happy with top right – I’ve tried dodging and burning and also cropping but none of them work. For the record, this was shot in Raw, then mucked about with in NX2 – some blur blended via overlay; a bit of a colour tint added, some burning to the hands, a bit of dodging lower right.

Thanks to J for offering to help me out with this – print on its way.

Oh, and I should say, of course, that this is modelled on Vermeer’s “The Letter” – I did put that in the title and subtitle of the picture but I am obviously still getting used to WordPress.

Challenge 4 — Canada/UK

I had a problem when considering what to throw Patrick’s way for a challenge this time. Usually, one idea comes to mind quite clearly and I have no difficulty settling on it. For challenge #4 I’ve had a number of ideas, any one of which would probably work. I’ll likely keep most of them in case the well runs dry later.

This time out, the challenge is to come up with three pictures that illustrate the theme “Canada in the UK / the UK in Canada.” Patrick will naturally do the first part and I’ll do the second. The condition is, however, that  neither of us can simply shoot three pictures of the same subject. Since the two of us live in capital cities there are some obvious targets, but we’ll want to portray them creatively rather than simply document them. Where desired and/or necessary, the images can be suggestive or symbolic, rather than literal.

So, how’s that, Patrick — does it work for you?

Picture in the style of a painter – A.J. Casson

I’m not happy about this image at all, but I’m well overdue for my response to this challenge, so here goes…

I took this on a recent business trip to Canada’s west coast where I had the opportunity to make a flying visit (literally and figuratively) to Whitehorse, Yukon. On the way there and the way back, I was able to visit Vancouver a little. I took this picture in Stanley Park, a beautiful oasis of green in the mondo condo that is now Vancouver. A former boss was good enough to drive me around and show me the sights, so I jumped out of her car at every picture-making opportunity. All in all, a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Much of Canada’s Pacific coast is breathtakingly beautiful and very different from what I’m used to seeing in my daily life (this is a very big country). A lot of the scenes I saw reminded me of paintings by the Group of Seven, and this shot particularly reminded me of a darkened version of a work by A.J. Casson, a member of the Group.

I’ll need to think of what challenge to launch Patrick’s way. I’ve got a couple of ideas and will make a decision shortly.

Picture in the Style of a Painter – Mondrian 2

So I sharpened this, boosted the colour as much as I could, and did a little curves work on it – do you reckon it still meets the criteria Alan? Not ’shopped too much?

BTW, this is about the fifth picture I’ve put up on 5000k today – unlike some of the others, this one might stay.

Picture in the Style of a Painter – Mondrian 1

After much delay and many attempts to get WordPress to do what I want, hopefully you are now able to see my first attempt at the third of Alan and my challenges:

Challenge 3

So, Alan has agreed to our next challenge, namely to take a photograph in the style of a famous painter (preferably one we like). To add to the stretch, we are to minimise our use of Photoshop or other image-editing software and do as much as we can in-camera. Watch out for results over the next week or two…

Triptych — Called on the mat

And I should be called on the mat, considering how long it’s taken me to get my series of three macro abstracts up here on the blog.  The pace of work recently hasn’t left room for creative time or juices, so my response to this challenge has been very slow in coming. (Made all the worse by the fact that this challenge was my idea and Patrick has had his stuff up for some time.). Fortunately, he seems to be a patient guy and has cut me some slack.

All that said, I decided to go with something close to home and really liked the play of light on these placemats in our back room. Bright sunlight has been in short supply recently and there are strong hints that winter is on the way in the Ottawa Valley. Best to go with warmth, sidelighting and texture when they are close at hand.

Once I saw the three images side by side (simple as they are), I thought they might have a bit more impact if they were presented as a triptych. Being a pragmatic and energy-conscious person (self-justifying code for “lazy”), I decided to look for some freeware to do the job for me. Enter DipStych, a handy little program that allows you to line up multiple images vertically or horizontally, add borders, and change around the order of the images to your own liking. I liked the results and the price was right. I expect I’ll use it again at some point.

So, that’s me for this challenge. I just hope Patrick is still talking to me.

Patrick: Tryptich Three

This last one I deliberately softened as I believe it is an older “furnishing” and as such not as precisely calibrated and clinical, although still a thing of beauty: softening, as I’m calling it, was achieved by lowering the “Clarity” setting on the RAW file in ACR (as we oh so Adobe-literate geeks call Adobe Camera Raw – or so I am told) prior to converting to a JPEG.

Patrick: Tryptich Two

Patrick: Tryptich One

Well, here they are, my Tryptich in response to The Iceman’s 1st challenge. Not sure they are abstract enough or “macro” enough, if that makes sense. Anyway, the theme behind them is an idea I had that I would try and get across a sense of what it might be like in the British Museum for someone who has never been there. Thus, these were all taken there and represent not the choice of exhibits, but how the museum wants to represent itself through its furnishings and the materials of its construction.