Impressive Roof – CCC “Best of Event” August 2012

This image was taken in Lyon Airport in France in 2009. I was visiting a cousin of mine from Australia who was working and living in Grenoble in France for a short spell.

I took about 30 odd photos of this roof from different angles, portrait format, landscape format etc. What really impressed me about this roof was the symmetry that could be achieved from all of the different angles. Also the shapes and patterns it formed. I was a bit worried that shooting up towards it all the time and the bright sky coming through I would not achieve the effect that I saw through the lens. It is amazing that all the 30 odd images that I have, I could use if I wished all of them as they all have a place in their own right with the exposure being OK, the shapes and the patterns also creating impact. To get the symmetry and the balance I have cropped in on the image to get the impact that I wanted to portray.

It was taken with the Nikon D700, which is a full frame camera with the 24-70, 2.8 lens at the focal length of 24 mm. Hand held, ISO 560, 1/15 sec. at F.11 on Aperture Priority. I chose to convert to Monochrome, which I do think has the stronger impact, albeit as taken it was quite monochromatic looking.

It has done well for me in National and International Salons and in an Architectural category has achieved a couple of COMs.

Evelyn Gibson 6* (FPSSA, EPSSA, AFIAP, ARPS)

A RIDE THRU THE GLOWING LIGHT

With my children being big into mountain biking, I end up at many of the mountain bike races throughout the country. This was taken in 2010 in Cullinan and I decided to take a walk through the woods to try and capture something different and with not too many people around. The mud and the water obviously caught my eye as a great potential for some action. Unfortunately the light was coming from the back of the cyclists, which is not ideal as it would have been preferable to have the light coming from the front. I could not resist the action, as I said of the mud and the water and decided to go for the image with back lighting. A few weeks ago while I was going through many images to find something new for the Salons both here and overseas, I decided that this had potential to do something with. I love playing around in photoshop and trying new things and I kept bearing in mind that I could not enter it into a sports category but could enter it into Pictorial. I tweaked the levels here and there, pushed up the saturation a bit, then I duplicated the layer. I then blurred the layer to get a soft feel about it but brought back in the cyclist to be sharp in the image. His face was also a bit dark so I dodged his face to bring more light onto it. After flattening the image, it still did not have impact so I then went through many filters to see what I could do to have some stronger impact. CS6 has a new feature of Colour Look up Adjustment Layer with many filters and I played around with some of them, plus adjusting sliders along the way. I eventually got the image as seen. A huge learning when doing things like this is to jot down exactly what you did or save the master as a psd file.

The original image was taken with the D3S – 70-200 lens at 70 mm focal length, 1/320 sec on F.7, ISO 500, hand held on Aperture Priority.

This image has done well in Salons here, getting COMs and also overseas to the extent now that I cannot use it anymore for Salon entries as I am over my limit of usage.

For me another lesson was go back and look at some of your old images, try new things with them, experiment and you can be lucky – what was it Gary Player said the more you practice the luckier you get.

Evelyn Gibson 6* (FPSSA, EPSSA, AFIAP, ARPS)

Dieretuin Uitstappie –Tirzah van der Merwe

Ons sal Maandag by die klubaand die wenners aanwys van die foto’s van ons dieretuin uistappie. Ons is baie nuuskierig om te sien wie gewen het.  Daar was 5 afdelings waarin fotos ingedien moes word nl: The eye, movement, self portrait, patterns, reflections.

Op die dag het ons ‘n entoesiastiese besoeker gehad wat self haar merk gemaak het in die kompetisie en ons het haar fotos ook ingeskryf.  Hier onder is die 5 foto’s wat Tirzah van der Merwe die dag geneem het en ingeskryf het.  Sy is 9 jaar oud en het die dag ‘n Canon SX-200 kamera gebruik.

Ek dink Tirzah kan baie trots wees op hierdie foto’s wat sy “raakgesien” het om in die 5 afdelings te pas.  DIt is egter duidelik dat sy ‘n onregverdige voordeel in die selfportret afdeling gehad het as ek kyk na die ander klublede wat die dag bygewoon het.

Groete

Bernard

August Theme – Explained

Maryka has again given us some valuable direction for the theme this month and prepared this information page.  I trust the samples and explanation below will assist you to take this challenge for our next club competition.

Picture of a Parking Area

Looking for some Architecture

I was driving around late one Sunday afternoon trying to find some interesting architecture to photograph. I could not find anything and after sunset gave up on my search. On my way home, I stopped for take-away coffee and for some reason I decided to drive through the underground parking garage at Lifestyle Center. I immediately saw the opportunity to take some photos. Armed with my camera, tripod and remote release I walked around in the garage looking for some interesting angles.

Scared and Lonely

Walking around alone in the garage and nobody around me made me feel uncomfortable and a bit scared and I wanted to take a photo that would express how I felt at that moment. My first attempt was a low and wide angle view with a drain cover in the left hand corner. The shot did not work for me as there was some distracting background and also did not give that "lonely" feeling.

Leading Lines

I eventually decided on taking position between two sets of different colour pillars. The pillars formed a leading line to the parking exit which I found interesting. I setup as low as possible on my tripod and took a first test shot. The final re-positioning was to centre the black line in the frame.

Looking for a Subject

Although the photo was already strong, I still wanted a subject that would stand out and basically portray the feeling of "lonely"...almost "left behind". The only subject I could find was a trolley. I positioned it roughly on the top left thirds position and took the photo. Although the setup and photo worked for me, I still wanted to capture a photo with some more contrast and almost "creepy" kind of look.

Remote Flash

I decided to place a remote flash on the ground, right behind the first blue pillar on the left hand side. The idea was to throw some flashlight onto the trolley which would allow me to play around with various settings to darken the garage and only highlight the trolley. The concept worked perfectly and I immediately realized that a combination of highlighting the trolley and various settings to correctly expose the natural light in the garage would be perfect.

Taking the big step - HDR

This was the perfect opportunity to try some HDR. I kept the same setup (tripod, low angle, flash behind pillar and remote release) and took several series each consisting of three shots at different shutter speeds. The final series that worked for me was this one,

6 seconds @ f22, ISO 100, 24-70 mm lens at 70mm

13 seconds @ f22, ISO 100, 24-70 mm lens at 70mm

25 seconds @ f22, ISO 100, 24-70 mm lens at 70mm

In all three cases, the remote flash behind the pillar was fired. The flash was set on manual 1/32 power and zoom 50mm. If you look closely at the final image later, you will notice the red handle of the trolley is almost over exposed.

Processing - Photomatix

I downloaded the photos and selected the above series which was imported directly into Photomatix Pro 4.2.
In Photomatix I played around with all the various default pre-sets and decided to apply the "Painterly 4" effect. It gave me the contrast and "creepy" feeling I was looking for.
The only adjustments I made in Photomatix was,

• Adjust the strength = 80
• Colour Saturation = 90
• Detail Contrast = 10
• Black Point = 1.196%

The final image was saved and imported into Light Room 4.1.

Processing LightRoom 4.1

The HDR image was looking good but had some terrible highlights which were caused by lights in the garage. The best way to get rid of this was to apply an almost panoramic crop to the image which further enhanced the leading lines of the photo. I then adjusted the final exposure of the image and cleaned a few spots, especially the wall left of the exit.

Equipment used

Canon 5DII, Canon 24-70 f2.8 lens, 580exII flash, tripod, remote release and Hahnel remote trigger for flash.

Software used

Photomatix Pro 4.2, Lightroom 4.1

Final Images

Two images stood out for me but the first one was my favourite and decided to submit it for the 9th July 2012 club evening. The result was a COM.

Final Image - COM

Another attempt and my original idea

Food for Thought

HDR is just another tool that we as photographers have. When applied to the right photo and in moderation it can give you something totally different. If you ask me what will I do different next time....take somebody with you, it is really creepy being alone in a parking garage!!

Francois Kotze

PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT FOR SALE

All in excellent condition, used very little. Lenses with front and rear caps and  clear filters put on in shop when bought. No scratchmarks or dents. Original receipts available  and in original boxes. Bought at ODP Pretoria and some from ORMS, Cape Town.

Reason for selling, old age (mine) and lost of interest.

1	Camera body: Canon EOS 50D with body cap	R 6500-00
	Sandisk & Leaxar Compactflash Memory cards: 16GB (1), 8GB(1), 4GB (4) to go with EOS 50D, also all cables, software etc
2	Lens: Canon zoom 24-105L IS with Canon Hood	R 9000-00
3	Lens Canon zoom 20-35L with Canon Hood	R 4000-00
4	Lens: Canon zoom 70-300 IS 11	R 4000-00
5	Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8 11 with rubber hood	R 500-00
6	Lens: Canon 100mm Macro 2.8 with Canon Hood	R 4000-00
7	Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8 with Canon Hood	R 3000-00
8	Electronic flash: Canon Speedlite 580 EX 11 with Gary Fong attachment and Canon Off-Camera Shoe Cord OC	R 4500-00
9	Tripod: Manfrotto 190XPROB	R 1600-00
10	Tripod Head: Manfrotto 804RC2	R 800-00
11	Camera Bag: Thinktank Retro 20 (Grey color) shoulderbag	R 1200-00
12	Camera: Canon Powershot G12	R 4000-00
	Two SD cards & software etc. with G12 camera
13	Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Software in original box	R 500-00

Contact Onus Malherbe: 071 385 1562 and 012 332 1644. onus.malherbe@gmail.com

Dieretuinuitstappie (Tong in die kies)

Ek was donkiejare laas by die dieretuin, dus was dit met groot opgewondenheid dat ek Saterdagoggend by die groepie van 13 aangesluit het voor die ingang van Pretoria se dieretuin. So uit die perd se bek (Maryka) het ons, ons opdragte vir die oggend ontvang, om ‘n oog, ‘n selfportret, ‘n refleksie, beweging en patrone af te neem.

Met die aap uit die mou het ons die tog aangepak. Daar was ‘n slang in die gras wat die tyd aanbetref, want dit het gevlieg!  Daar is soveel fotogeleenthede, mense, diere, geboue, natuurelemente, wel, enigiets, noem dit, dis daar.  Ons het rondgeloop soos ‘n hoender wat nes soek, elkeen in sy eie rigting in, en met sekere tussenposes weer soos voëls van eenderse vere bymekaar gekoek om oor koeitjies en kalfies in die fotografiewêreld te gesels.

‘n Ou kan nogal die aapstuipe kry as die diere nie wil saamwerk en so staan sodat jy ‘n behoorlike foto kan neem nie, maar dit rol soos water op ‘n eend se rug van die diertjies af, hulle gaan maar aan met dit wat hulle besig hou.

Net ‘n hanetreetjie van die ingang af is die flaminke pragtig geklee in hulle pienk vere.  Dan die luiperd wat op en af geloop het met net ‘n dik glas tussen ons, geen kat om sonder handskoene aan te pak nie!

Dit was groot pret om te sien hoe die selfportrette geneem is.  Een het daar op ‘n eensame bankie gaan sit soos ‘n wafferse ou omie, ‘n ander het oor die pad gehardloop om by die waterval te gaan staan, terwyl die sekondes vinnig aftik, ‘n ander een het skelmpies op ‘n bankie wat op die brug staan, gaan sit en sommerso uit die hand ‘n vinnige foto geneem.

Wel so tussen renosters, olifante, kameelperde, leeus, katte, plaasdiere, voëls en wat nog kan ‘n ou nie glo dat die oggend se vinnig gevlieg het nie.  Ek het geen kat se kans om ‘n COM met enige van my foto’s te wen nie, maar ek sien dit as nog ‘n bietjie ervaring in die bank.

Esta de Jager