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.

1 – Portraits of People We’ve Never Pictured Before

Not quite getting the posting methods here yet but anyway, here we are, my P of a P I’ve NPB. Taken at the National Film Theatre on the South Bank in London. Interestingly, to the human eye, Emma was standing against a pure white light that for some reason has come up partially yellow on the D700 sensor (other pictures in the sequence are closer to how I saw the light but I kind of liked this one).

Thanks to Emma for her patience and her time – we spent a couple of hours shooting away and she was very compliant and fun to be with. There are some other shots that I think worked OK (many, many discards of course) and I’ll post some of these on Flickr.

Now that I’ve done a couple of sessions (a colleague at work came out to the British Museum with me at lunchtime the other day – results on Flickr and possibly one or two on here in due course), I’ve got a bit better at approaching people, although I wouldn’t say I’ve improved much in technique yet. A different set of rules apply to people pictures, not the least of which is speed – lord knows how many pictures had to be discarded because of poor reactions and failure to check settings in the rush to get the shot. Less haste, more speed in future I think.

Right, now, on with Alan’s challenge – 3 macro abstracts. Mmm, I wonder…

1 – Portraits of People We’ve Never Pictured Before

I found this challenge quite… uh… challenging. I’ve been out of town on business quite a bit and busier than usual, so finding time was difficult.

I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to take this portrait of Ruth, the 91-year-old mother of one of our neighbours. Ruth graciously agreed to sit for me with very little notice and was a perfect subject. I owe her a debt of thanks.

Although I’m pleased with this shot overall, there are things that I would do differently next time. I’d like to be more conscious with the play of light and the background of the shot. I took care of the busy background with a bit of Gaussian blur in processing, but I am unable to do much with the burned out highlights on Ruth’s hand. If I were to pursue portrait photography seriously, I can see that I would want to have handy a diffusing screen (to reduce the strong afternoon light through the window); a reflector (to bounce a little more light into the subject’s face; and possibly a portable backdrop (although the blurred spinning wheel in the background is not out of place in this shot). If possible, I’d also like to give subjects more advance notice, so they could prepare themselves.

All told, though, this was a good challenge and it’s given me food for thought.

For challenge 2, I’m proposing that Patrick and I shoot and post a series of three abstract images shot with a macro lens.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing the portrait Patrick shot and discussing what we’ve learned. Over to you, Patrick!

In vane

No portrait shots yet for this week’s challenge and I’ll be travelling on business for most of the week. Never mind — a number of coworkers will be along for the ride and I’ll probably be able to convince (coerce? blackmail?) one or more of them into making their mugs available. In the meantime, I’m hoping that this shot of a weather vane atop the Glasgow School of Art will keep the challenge police at bay.

Alan.

The ice man cometh…

I know it’s a bit dramatic for an introduction, but we did have frost overnight. I’m the Canadian half of 5000k and, like Patrick, I’m looking forward to getting my teeth in. The two of us met up on Flickr (I think I commented on one of his shots from Kew Gardens) and have swapped brief thoughts online since then. I’m hoping this little venture helps improve our photographic vision and skills.

Patrick’s portrait challenge will be a good one for me because, although I’ve often thought of taking more people pictures and would like to get better at it, I rarely do. Now I have to. I’ve approached a neighbour about being my subject and while he agreed, he did so with a long, unconvincing “yesssss…” I’ll find out today what that meant in practical terms.

Alan.

Not a portrait, I know, but hey, while we wait for Alan…

Who knew flowers could be so frightening?

Taken today at Kew whilst sheltering from the rain. I was aware when shooting that I wanted to emphasise the disturbing, fleshy, unsettling nature of these anthurium and liked their setting against the concrete. They’ll have to do until I find a willing sitter for my portrait – still searching. One of the neighbours has had a baby but I think that would be cheating.