Project 52 by Geoff F

[Geoff F]

Here is the original, Mal.

I realised that I would want to finish with a 4 x 5 ratio crop so allowed sufficient space when composing the shot.



The evaluative metering worked well because there was sufficient sky. This angle meant shooting at 90 degrees to the light, or at least where the sun would have been! But I wanted to get the man at work.

In this particular case, I was shooting partially as an archive photo so I particularly wanted some recognisable elements in the background.

And I was wondering if it might work in B&W without strong contrast. Being a dull day I think it just about comes off.



It has rained all night and all day today. In fact, I've even canceled my usual Sunday afternoon couple of pints at the pub because I didn't fancy walking a mile in rain plus a cold easterly wind.

[Letrow]

I think the B&W works better Geoff. It is a dull day and at least with the B&W your attention is drawn a bit more towards the structures in the photo.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

The black and white definitely works well - especially so because of the sharp focus of everything in the capture. The negative space in the sky coupled with the brightness really leads you to focus on the structures with your eye travelling out to the rest of the detail in the photo from there.

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the encouragement. I really ought to spend more time with B&W. But I'm retired now, so time is always in short supply.

Not yet sure what to post for week 19. It has been another mostly gloomy week here.

[Geoff F]

April 30 - But it could have been February. Dull with showers and a strong SE wind.
So during a slight break in the weather I went to the harbour entrance. This shot is looking south. There is a small red channel marker buoy in this version. I did another edit without it. I'm not really sure which is best.



And looking east, with a container ship in the far distance.



1/640, F11, Iso 200. 7D with 24-105 lens. On reflection, I could have gone slightly faster with the shutter because a few parts of the breakers are still slightly blurred. And because I was worried about them being over exposed I used a little bit of negative exposure compensation (-2/3) but in reality, this wasn't necessary and I had to increase the exposure during Raw conversion by around 0.8.

I tend to think that photographing clean surf on nice sunny days with a good blue sea and sky is a lot easier than attempting to capture the gloom of a typical English seascape with multiple shades of grey!

[Geoff F]

I was walking to a bug hunt location and as I passed through a herd of cows I spotted this. All the others are quietly sitting, but this one just had to stand on the hedge.

Perhaps it just wanted a better view!



7D with 24-105 lens; 1/320 F11 Iso 200.

Took a few shots at different angles and made several different edits and crops before deciding that this looked the best.

Black and white cows are always difficult so I exposed for the white then did two Raw conversions with different exposure settings and merged them.

[Letrow]

I was walking to a bug hunt location and as I passed through a herd of cows I spotted this. All the others are quietly sitting, but this one just had to stand on the hedge.

Perhaps it just wanted a better view!



7D with 24-105 lens; 1/320 F11 Iso 200.

Took a few shots at different angles and made several different edits and crops before deciding that this looked the best.

Black and white cows are always difficult so I exposed for the white then did two Raw conversions with different exposure settings and merged them.

Nice one Geoff. I can see there was a special reason for that cow to be there. She seems to be advertising your project with that 52 number on her cheek.

[Geoff F]

I have looked at this scene a few times but couldn't find a suitable angle. Eventually, I scrambled down onto the foreshore where there was just one possible position, give or take a couple of feet - and muddy feet now!



The only angle meant the bridge was in shadow while the distant foliage was in sunshine. 1/1000, F5.6 Iso 400.

On reflection, I would have liked a faster shutter speed to 'freeze' the water a bit better. I did try a shot at Iso 800 but overall I preferred this image.

Edited with a couple of Curves adjustment layers and a duplicate image layer set to soft light at 50% and selectively applied.

Sometime, I will return to this site for another think.

[johnbharle]

I have looked at this scene a few times but couldn't find a suitable angle. Eventually, I scrambled down onto the foreshore where there was just one possible position, give or take a couple of feet - and muddy feet now!



What a wonderful bridge. Guess some rubber boots might be in order for the next trip!

The only angle meant the bridge was in shadow while the distant foliage was in sunshine. 1/1000, F5.6 Iso 400.

On reflection, I would have liked a faster shutter speed to 'freeze' the water a bit better. I did try a shot at Iso 800 but overall I preferred this image.

Edited with a couple of Curves adjustment layers and a duplicate image layer set to soft light at 50% and selectively applied.

Sometime, I will return to this site for another think.

What a wonderful bridge. Guess some rubber boots might be in order for the next trip!

[johnbharle]

...
Black and white cows are always difficult so I exposed for the white then did two Raw conversions with different exposure settings and merged them.

Did you convert to TIF? Merged them in Photoshop? That's something I haven't tried yet, so I'd be interested in the process. TIA.
john

[Geoff F]

Very basically, John, this is a mock HDR trick which can help when there is too much subject movement for multiple shots.

Do two Raw conversions with different exposures (yes I use Tiff) then arrange to have one as a layer. Add a mask (hide all in this case) then edit the mask to just let the desired areas show through.

Editing masks takes a little bit of practice but isn't really difficult. At least not with basic stuff like this. The most difficult bit, for me, is remembering whether I should be using a 'white' or 'black' brush.

Too often, I'm painting away with my soft edged low opacity brush to gradually build up the effect, but nothing is happening because I'm using the wrong 'colour' of brush. 'White' to remove parts of a hide all mask but a 'black' brush to work on a reveal all mask.

Incidentally, CS5 has a nice option for creating two different Raw conversions. Produce your first Raw edit then transfer it to the main workspace as a Smart Object. Right click that layer and choose to create a new image by copy. Double click the new layer thumbnail and you automatically return to the Raw editor for the second edit.

Click OK when the second edit is adjusted and that updates the main workspace layer as the second Raw conversion.

Otherwise you need to manually copy and paste one edit onto the other as a layer in the main workspace.

ps. Once you get familiar with this method you will wonder how you previously managed without it.

[Letrow]

I have looked at this scene a few times but couldn't find a suitable angle. Eventually, I scrambled down onto the foreshore where there was just one possible position, give or take a couple of feet - and muddy feet now!



The only angle meant the bridge was in shadow while the distant foliage was in sunshine. 1/1000, F5.6 Iso 400.

On reflection, I would have liked a faster shutter speed to 'freeze' the water a bit better. I did try a shot at Iso 800 but overall I preferred this image.

Edited with a couple of Curves adjustment layers and a duplicate image layer set to soft light at 50% and selectively applied.

Sometime, I will return to this site for another think.

Somehow I keep thinking B&W might work as well for this photo. There are some nice textures in this photo with that moss and stone.

It is one of the things I always love about countrysides, the buildings (and bridges) are really old and show it.

[Geoff F]

Actually, Peter, I was wondering about a B&W alternative myself. Maybe try it soon, but a lot of bugs to edit and identify; thanks to a couple of sunny days at last.

[Geoff F]

During a rare totally windless morning. One of the tiny shallow inlets going off Aveton Gifford estuary. But that probably won't mean very much to anyone else.



7D with 24-105 L lens. 1/500, F11, Iso 200. I wanted to keep a fairly fast shutter speed to capture the water dripping from their beaks.

They are looking a little grubby on their necks and around the waterline as a result of feeding in the water which had a bit of muddy scum on the surface.

I liked this odd reflection shot.



They 'stopped the traffic' while 'crossing the road' prior to entering the inlet.



ps. There was only one swan in the correct position for this camera angle; so I duplicated that one and placed it where, in an ideal world, the other one should have been.

[Letrow]

I love the swans Geoff, especially your first with the image reflecting their heads.
As it happens my project 52 for this week features swans as well...

[Dave Humphries]

As it happens my project 52 for this week features swans as well...

Oh dear, so does mine
OK, checked it out (phew) - I can offer something different

Hi Geoff,

I get a slight feeling of Loch Ness monster about the neck reflections in the second one

I hadn't spotted the duplication of the swan in #3, which leaves me feeling I'm not paying enough attention
Well done

Cheers,

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the comments.

With those first two shots I was a little bit under exposed. As usual, I was frightened of over exposure because I was on Evaluative Metering and didn't have any time for test shots or switching to spot metering. So I gave it -1/3 when going the other way would have been better.

I had to add one stop of extra exposure during the Raw conversion.

Some later shots, after a little 'thinking time' had a better exposure but not so good poses.

With the overall creek scene, the swans were too widely separated for a good composition so I waited until one was at a good angle for the boats.

Then simply selected roughly around the swan and a bit of wake, feathered the selection, copied and pasted at a different position. Resized slightly smaller.

Merged around the pasted bird with the Healing Brush.

Then changed the angle of the neck on the copy so the two swans didn't look identical.

Incidentally, some previous images were also saved, with a suitable title. But when I tried to re open this shot for a print I found that the image had disappeared; and after all that editing work.

Eventually found that I hadn't given this image a new title so it was filed under Img and the photo number. Just another lapse in joined up thinking.

For this week, I did have a few alternatives to decide between. Strange that there were a group of swan photos then; but coincidence is strange.

I may post the others under a different name.

[Teton Chuck]

Geoff, you captured a great pose in the first image. I believe the purpose of swans is to give photographers something special to photograph. It looks as if you didn't quite capture the texture of the white feathers on the back and side. I have found that tough to do with swans. Enjoyable photos.
chuck

[FrankMi]

Well Geoff, in the last image I had to really start comparing swans to see that they were duplicates so the cloning process went very well!

IF you are going to make compositional changes, there are some additional things to think about. The colour of the water following the swans is a ruddy brown and doesn't seem to match the rest of the scene.

Compositionally, the eye is drawn to bright, large, and red objects so the boats and large dock are pulling the eye off the swans in several directions as they compete with the swans as potential subjects.

Hope this helps!

[Geoff F]

In my experience, Chuck, any pure white bird needs slightly overcast conditions in order to fully capture feather detail. Bright sunshine never seems to work as well.

I did underexpose, possibly too much, but, on that particular day, I don't think I would have captured much more in the way of detail whatever I had done.

The red marks in the water, Frank, are the reflection from a freshly ploughed field. It was covering quite a wide area in various intensity.

I did reduce the width of the wake so it wouldn't look exactly like the other swan.

My first thoughts here were to crop a lot tighter and just have those boats on the right side plus one swan, but that looked a little cramped so I decided to leave the distant craft and attempt to tie it all together by adding the second swan.

I was attempting to create something where the viewer would 'wander around' the scene and keep noticing extra items. For instance, how the road becomes submerged at high water.