Posts Tagged ocean
Eye of the Beholder
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography, Random Thoughts on June 29, 2009
Click to Enlarge
Photography, and art in general, is incredibly subjective. I recently entered an open show at the Sacramento Fine Arts Center. My single entry was accepted, but the juror for this show rejected more pieces than he accepted. One of my local peers had a photograph rejected that took first place in another show on the same weekend. It is impossible to cater to the likes and dislikes of everyone who sees your images. While there is no denying that it is a great feeling when someone expresses admiration for one of your pieces or, better still, purchases one but really it is important to please yourself first.
I shoot landscapes and nature because I enjoy it. Since I’m not on assignment, it lifts any pressure to please someone else. Being free to create images the way that you see fit empowers you to find your own vision. All of us, as photographers, are influenced by other’s work. It is the act of shaping those influences into your own creative expression that lets your images sing.
A Night at the Aquarium
Posted by Doug Otto in Random Thoughts, Travel on December 17, 2008
We’ve been members of the Monterey Bay Aquarium for a number of years. The coast is a great escape from the heat in the summer and the grey foggy skies that plague Sacramento’s winters.
Every December, they hold their Holidays in Store event. If you’re a member of the aquarium and haven’t been to this event you’re missing out. The evening starts in the Portola Restaurant with a fixed menu featuring local ingredients. After a relaxing dinner you’re free to walk the aquarium.
In front of many of the exhibits there are tables staffed by local wineries. Five dollars gets you an engraved wine glass that you carry with you from winery to winery for unlimited tasting. (It’s at this point that I’ll recommend that you get a hotel within walking distance.) In addition to local wineries they have crafts and handmade items, available for sale, from local artisans.
The best part is that you have much better access to the aquarium than you would on any given weekend. There aren’t nearly the number of people that you normally have to deal with which makes for a really enjoyable evening. I’ve never been to the aquarium without a camera in my hand but I’ll have to admit that having to put my wine glass down to shoot does limit the number of pictures that I take while I’m there.
Cheers
Taming the Gold-N-Blue
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on December 12, 2008
As of today, I’ve had my Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue polarizer for exactly a week. Several of this week’s posts were taken with my new toy. Because it is a polarizer, it’s difficult to recreate the effect in Photoshop (at least for someone with my post-processing skills). The first time you look through it, and give it a spin, you’ll notice that it’s wildly different than any other polarizer that you may have used. The first thing that you notice, after you download your images, is that nothing looks like it did in your viewfinder.
This filter has its roots in film. Before Photoshop was a standard component in the photographic workflow, filters were the primary tool to manipulate the color in your image. With film there was no notion of white balance (WB), although we still used it; we just called it something different. To compensate for each temperature of light we used a different type of film; tungsten being just one example. Really, we were setting WB in hardware. Today we set it in software.
I always leave my camera set to automatic WB, because I often adjust that setting manually. In this shot, the version on the right is what Adobe Lightroom shows me when I import the image. Getting the image to what I remembered seeing in the viewfinder required some radical adjustment.
Getting to the version on the left required moving the color temperature slider to, a very cool, 2850 and dropping the tint slider to -55. Those are adjustments that I’d never dream of making, in most cases, but they’re required to offset the reddish hue that his filter imparts. Your actual settings will vary depending on your light and conditions but don’t be afraid of big adjustments. It’s probably possible to set a custom white balance, in camera, to get you to a closer starting point but you’ll still likely want to adjust it manually in processing.
Bottom line – If you get to play with one of these don’t panic when you see your images. Stop, relax and cool down; everything will be fine.
A word of caution:
The effects of this filter can impart very strong reactions from people. To many “landscape purists” it’s unnatural or cheating. On the other hand many people really enjoy how it renders the image. Just like using saturation, vibrance, blending or any other technique to increase your image’s visual impact, this is just a tool. Landscape photography should be about your own personal artistic representation of a scene, not someone else’s notion of the the craft should be.
Shoot, experiment and have fun.
Cheers
- Binary Emulsion on FacebookVisit my gallery to see more of my images.Binary Emulsion Gallery
Get Filter Calc for your iPhone or Touch.
Back up your computer, before you wish you had. I use it and you can try it free for 15 days.
