Walking to Flinders Street Station after work I took the long route down along the Yarra and found this beautiful sunset. I had been sitting in my tenth floor office watching the light change since 4pm and I knew that, with that sky, it was time to shut the laptop, remove the camera and take a long leisurely
Looking up at the sky I was an almost solitary figure amongst the asphalt-staring and homeward bound.
Walking home this evening across the quad at the intersection of William and Collins I looked back to find the ANZ building lit up with the setting sun. Darn good thing I carry my LX3 in my bag everywhere I go.
I was a bit bummed at not being able to go on a photowalk with two of my photographer friends this morning. We are in the process of packing up the house and moving again and there is so much to get done in three weeks.
I thought I’d reprocess a picture I’d taken on a previous photowalk as a bit of fun in learning the ins and outs of Photoshop CS5. This photo was taken up North near Heathcote. The road ran in long arching loops between the hills and nearly every turn involved scenes like this one. I reckon I’d like to own a piece of land up there along that road sometime in the future, for no other reason than I could sit and take pictures during that last golden hour before the setting of the sun.
It was also on this trip, shooting beside an accomplished photographer, where I realised just how differently two people can see the same scene. Rob and I were shooting side by side for a lot of the time and afterwards, when we’d pooled our photos together, we saw two very different interpretations of the subject matter.
Once we’re settled again I plan on hitting the road on the weekends with the aim of choosing a directions and following the light until it runs out.
I’ve just downloaded the trial of Photoshop CS5 and like many photographers I’ve thrown one of my photographs at the new content aware fill and healing brush tool. I purposely did not spend time learning how to use the tool as I wanted to see how user-friendly it really was and I must say I am pretty impressed.
So here is the original photo, complete with an ugly parking lot destroying the peaceful aesthetic quality of the photo.
So with the lasso tool I selected the cars and the base of the tree and simple pressed delete. I was immediately presented with a new set of fill options.
And what do you know …
I took care of the little light post on the stairs with the new content aware healing brush. This is not a final edit, there is still a lot of work to do on the tree however it certainly demonstrates just how far you can come in five minutes.
Although I have a love-hate relationship with Adobe but I must say that the new tools available to photographers in CS5 are nothing short of revolutionary. If you haven’t downloaded the trial yet then what are you waiting for?
My wife called it macabre. Maybe some would interpret it that way but it’s also part of my creative process and a small first step in an alternative realities set I have kicking around in my head.
I’d like to get away from standard photography for a bit, take a walk through the creative space and try something different. Maybe I’ve been watching too much Doctor Who and the Weeping Angels have pushed me over the edge but I will just have to carry on enduring the raised eyebrow and the worried furrowed brow and see what comes of it.
I have been poking through my archive this Anzac weekend and came across this photo taken in 2007 on a walking safari in the Kruger National Park. These elephant had just gone down to a watering hole to drink and were on their way back into the bush. It was a difficult shot into the setting sun however I liked the character the lens flare gave the shot. We were carefully downwind from the herd and it was stunning to hear and see these giants of the park against the absolute quiet of the evening.
A rural decay photo of a set of sheds Rob and I stumbled across on our Heathcote photo drive. Couldn’t have asked for better lighting or a better subject. The shed itself looks like it wouldn’t stand against a modest breeze.
This is what happens when 9 year olds watch Jurassic Park. The dinosaur enclosure came complete with a Halo action figure and an army colonel watching the dinosaur feeding safe within a transparent enclosure. I don’t think the Toy Story dinosaur would have liked this very much.
Brilliant imagination.
My response to yet another round of ‘Macs suck’ from the Windows developers in the office today.
So here is a quick and dirty tip for Aperture users wondering how to selectively brush away saturation. Select the saturation quick brush. It will brush saturation in by default so clicking on the little cog at the top right of the adjustment brick will allow you to selectively desaturate parts of your image.
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