Project 52 - Kristianna-Marie (Kris V)

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Originally Posted by Kris V

Experimenting - I planned on taking a photo of the same mushroom, every 24 hrs to follow the deterioration for about 5 0r 6 days.
Day 3 found the mushroom gone.....:mad:
I'm trying to find a new one:D

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LOL! I know exactly how you feel! I love to experiment and learn new things but some days all I learn is what doesn't work!

It is great to see that you are out there learning, Kris! :D

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Originally Posted by Geoff F

Mushrooms can be surprisingly difficult to photograph well.

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Absolutely. They just don't co-operate. They stick around for a couple of days and then ---whoosh -- they're off. Unreliable!

But for the couple of days it did make itself available, I think you produced a couple of really good images. I like the really clean lines on the first one and then the texture on the second one as it writhes in its death throes! And there's some sort of symbolism in the ant being on it - just waiting to finish it off.

What I'm not so sure about with the second one is the edge disappearing out of the bottom of the frame. I was wondering why you chose to do that?

Way out of my comfort zone:
I usually don't take pictures of cars, tractors, bikes etc...
However, every week when we go to our country home, we're passing this abandoned property with the tractor sitting in front - and my husband decided he wanted pictures of it. (I didn't ask why)
So, here is my project for this week:

http://i44.tinypic.com/286wzd0.jpg

Just for fun, I messed around with (fake) infrared

http://i41.tinypic.com/90q0cn.jpg

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Originally Posted by Kris V

I usually don't take pictures of cars, tractors, bikes etc...

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EVERYONE has got to have one good tractor photo in their portfolio before they die. It's like the need to have at least one good star trails and one good 'road-disappearing-into-the-distance' shot.

And this is the second International Harvester tractor we've had posted within a 72 hours. Things are starting to get exciting!! Ken gave us this one on Sunday.

I think for the B & W to work there would need to be a bit more work on really differentiating the tones so that we got the tractor really standing out from the background. At the moment it sort of blends into the background, I think.

But the potential .....! The potential is enormous.

Great to see.

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Originally Posted by Donald

EVERYONE has got to have one good tractor photo in their portfolio before they die. It's like the need to have at least one good star trails and one good 'road-disappearing-into-the-distance' shot.

And this is the second International Harvester tractor we've had posted within a 72 hours. Things are starting to get exciting!! Ken gave us this one on Sunday.

I think for the B & W to work there would need to be a bit more work on really differentiating the tones so that we got the tractor really standing out from the background. At the moment it sort of blends into the background, I think.

But the potential .....! The potential is enormous.

Great to see.

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I thought (and still do) that it's just a piece of junk - but then again: What do I know of tractors?:(
I did step in an ants nest trying to get as close as possible. :mad:
The property is surrounded with barbed wire.
For practice sake, Donald, I'm going to work on the B/W edition.

Well, composition wise I think it looks pretty good. Perhaps try applying a different colour filter - a red or a green one to create the contrast as I believe red and green on the gray scale meter are pretty close to each other.

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Originally Posted by Goldcoastgolfer

Well, composition wise I think it looks pretty good. Perhaps try applying a different colour filter - a red or a green one to create the contrast as I believe red and green on the gray scale meter are pretty close to each other.

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Using the colour filters didn't do a lot to improve the contrast. So I started from scratch with the raw file, brought it into SilverFX and twiddled with blending modes. I also cropped differently - I rarely use 1x1 aspect ratio, but it seemed to work here.
Anyway: good or bad, here it is:
http://i43.tinypic.com/14t9a9i.jpg

I couldn't resist - after it stopped raining this morning, this rose just looked so perfect - I had to try it.
I tabled my original P52 till next week!:)
http://i39.tinypic.com/35kl893.jpg

A beautiful capture Kris - I don't really have anything more to say than that :)

Thanks Mal!

Very well done, Kris. Rich believable colors, nice detail, great composition. There's not much I can think of to suggest for improvements. In my view, you've achieved your perfection in this one. ;)

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Originally Posted by FrankMi

Very well done, Kris. Rich believable colors, nice detail, great composition. There's not much I can think of to suggest for improvements. In my view, you've achieved your perfection in this one. ;)

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Thanks Frank - I'm pretty happy with this one!:D I'm planning to print it - see how that turns out.

Lovely rose Kris, lovely colour, nice detail with the water drops enhancing the image, well done, should make a nice print :)

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Originally Posted by Wendy Stanford

Lovely rose Kris, lovely colour, nice detail with the water drops enhancing the image, well done, should make a nice print :)

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Thanks Wendy!

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Originally Posted by Kris V

I took this picture - spur of the moment. Grabbed the camera and clicked.
I'm too impulsive for my own good - I could probably have done a lot better if I had paid attention to the settings:(
FWIW: Here is my first one - cropped and WB adjusted in LR - cloned out a bright spot on the right in CS5, Increased the red luminance just a little.

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I certainly like the red tones. Looks like a selective colorization effort. But I like it.
john

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Originally Posted by johnbharle

I certainly like the red tones. Looks like a selective colorization effort. But I like it.
john

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Hi John,
No selective colouring (That has been overdone too many times, and I don't really like it)- It was late fall and overcast - the background came out almost monochrome and I did like the contrast.
Thanks for looking and commenting.

I'm on a fungus kick....
Adjustments done in LR4, opened in CS6 Beta, Filter: Nik SilverFX with 3 control points to selectively adjust brightness.
Blend mode: Luminosity @ 45 %

http://i43.tinypic.com/muww0l.jpg

I love a nice sharp image with interesting texture and this is no exception! I also love the reflection of the sky in the bark. You usually don't see that. The blue complements the browns nicely.

An image like this will always have something that someone notices. For me, Kris, it's the bright green leaf in the lower right hand corner. Some of the other bright leaves may benefit from toning down a bit as well.

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Originally Posted by FrankMi

An image like this will always have something that someone notices. For me, Kris, it's the bright green leaf in the lower right hand corner. Some of the other bright leaves may benefit from toning down a bit as well.

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4 Eyes see more than 2.:)
Thanks for pointing that out, Frank!

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Originally Posted by Kris V

I'm on a fungus kick....
Adjustments done in LR4, opened in CS6 Beta, Filter: Nik SilverFX with 3 control points to selectively adjust brightness.
Blend mode: Luminosity @ 45 %

http://i43.tinypic.com/muww0l.jpg

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You say you used silver efex, but it's in color (or at least some color). So what exactly did you do in Silver Efex? Or did you maybe mean Color Efex?:) Either way, it's a very cool pic!