Café Ludwig

Can you make a “Work or Art” from this?

2013-05-16T17:23:00.001-04:00

My readers have chuckled and smiled at my many playful manipulations of some of my photos.

Recently I have done over a dozen attempts at turning a photo into a “Work of Art”. None made me happy. So I decided to challenge my friends and readers to try their hand.

This is a post-processing challenge, not a way to show off you photography skills. You can’t use a photo of your own, but need to use the one provided.

The steps are simple:

Join the Google+ Event that I set up for this challenge.
Download the photo from the link provided there.
Manipulate it to your hearts content.
Share it with others as part of the Google+ Event.

Rules:

This is my photo and you may play with it and share your creation with the event group.
You many not use the photo in any other way unless you obtain specific permission from me (I may ask for compensation ).

So here, at last is the original photo:

Just to get your creative juices flowing, here are four of my attempts:

You are welcome to use any tool, crop and flip, convert to monochrome, or any processing. Whatever you think will result in a “Work of Art” that you would be proud of.

Here is the link to the Google+ Event for this challenge.

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How about a photowalk?

2013-05-04T13:10:00.001-04:00

On Saturday, June 29, 2013 photo enthusiasts all over the world will get together in photowalks to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of Google+. At least two such walks will take place in the Atlanta area. Photographers of all skills can participate, exchange ideas, and see the city their own way.

My plan is for the Buckhead photowalk, so I looked through my archives for photos from that part of Atlanta. Buckhead offers views of tall buildings that are wider than a wide-angle lens can capture. There are street vistas, and quiet areas, modern buildings and interesting sculptures. Here are a few photos from my collection.

If you are interested in sharing an afternoon with other photo enthusiasts in a pleasant easy-going, stroll around Buckhead, click on the photo with the big “2” on it.

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Tomorrow!

2013-04-06T20:14:00.001-04:00

Spring is here! Tomorrow we shine!

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Long Shadows

2013-02-09T17:42:00.001-05:00

From a winter afternoon stroll at the farm.

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A few vignettes from a stroll at UGA

2013-02-03T15:44:00.001-05:00

“Vignette” has the meaning of a small image that provides an impressionistic glimpse of a scene or subject. Nowadays we use the term to mean a fade to dark border on a picture. Here I use both meanings quite literally. Enjoy some glimpses of the University of Georgia campus from an afternoon stroll. We set out to go to lunch, I snapped a few photos along the way. This was not a photo walk, I just used my smartphone. The photos were post-processed in Photo Gallery, PaintShop Pro and Picasa. Picasa supplied all the vignetting.

Picasa reconstructs the walk and the photo stops, and yes, you can tell where we took our meal – always a good place to eat.

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Geese in the Kitchen

2013-01-20T21:28:00.001-05:00

On cold, rainy days taking pictures can be outright unpleasant. That does not mean that you can’t have fun with photography. I recently joined a Google+ community that is “dedicated to learning the art of Black and White photography through weekly assignments, discussion, and critique”. It has been enjoyable and sometimes challenging.

A recent assignment was to shoot some photos of textures and patterns, followed with the task of combining a texture with a photo. I looked a my texture collection and then some recent photos of Canada geese came to mind. The weather was miserable when I set out to photograph the geese. It had rained, the water of the pond was murkier than usual. Then it started to rain again. I kept shooting until my camera was so wet I started to worry. The photos were no masterpieces. A little prank came to mind.

One of my texture pictures was of a restaurant floor. I tiled about eight images of this together into a large one. In PaintShop Pro I manipulated the image so the tiles would appear to be seen from an angle. One of the geese photos was superposed in a layer. I duplicated this layer and selected the geese, making the rest of the image transparent. Then I adjusted the transparency of the middle layer.

Of course it was not quite this simple as I did not get the tiles image right the first few times.

I had to include more tiles and make the edges match, then “tilt” the image so it would be similar as the plane of the pond water. It took me a lot longer than it would an expert, but I am sure that I had more fun.

Once the stack of images looked right I collapsed it into a single image, made the final corrections and added my signature. Now here is my masterpiece:

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Color is where you find it

2013-01-18T20:32:00.001-05:00

Color is where you find it

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It was a dark and foggy night …

2012-12-29T14:46:00.001-05:00

It was a dark and foggy night … visibility was a few yards, not many lights besides the streetlight to reveal any detail. Yes, my friends, this is a mystery story. But fear not, I will not bore you with dull and dreary prose, my flair is photography.

Even on the camera monitor this looked pretty dull and dreary. No photo masterpiece potential here. Maybe the “art department” can make something with these frames. Always a chuckle there.

So I decided to use flash. Now, mind you, I fully expected the result to be closer to a view of a photo gray card than a useful picture, but what I got surprised me. Let me show you. I enhanced the contrast so you can see better the object of my astonishment.

Are these ghosts, small-scale turbulences in the fog, condensation on the lens, ghosts, GHOSTS?

Have you ever photographed fog with on-camera flash? This is the way to bring out ghosts where there are none!

OK, have you figured it out yet? Inspect more closely. Note that the “ghosts” are made up of various sized uniform circles. Circles! Bokey circles, out-of-focus, blurred images of points of light. Yes, the fog consists of tiny drops of water. It was thick, as I told you. There were enough of these small drops floating in front of the camera to act as tiny bright specks, illuminated by the flash.

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Creativity on Demand – Scheduled Periodic Posts

2012-12-26T21:47:00.001-05:00

With the year coming to an end so is also my trek with “The Weekly Photo” and my “POW” posts (“Photo Of Week” and “Picture Of Week” on my other channels). It was an interesting attempt at coming up with an image every week. There were interruptions, but for the most part I am pleased with my efforts.

Before turning the leaf to a new venture, here the last of “The Weekly Photo” series.

Christmas Tree – The Weekly Photo

The idea of a scheduled post, be it daily, weekly, or some other interval, is to encourage keeping your camera with you and being alert for photo opportunities. For me that worked quite well, especially after I added a smartphone to my tool kit. The photo here, as so many in this collection, were spontaneous discoveries and photographed with my Nokia phone.

Being creative on demand is a much more stressful challenge. Maybe I will try it again sometime, but for 2013 I have a different project in mind with “aperiodic” posts. Sometimes individual photos, but also “essays”. To keep my enthusiasm active, I have given it a name: “Gallery EXP”. Yes, it will be an EXPeriment, but also an EXPloration, and hopefully also EXPansion of vision and skill. You will be able to see my EXPosition over on Silver Canvas. To get the gallery started I have included some favorite images. Where it will go – nobody knows.

I want to thank all who have commented on my posts, either by comment, email, or in person. Your kind words are very much appreciated.

Now let’s look forward: Happy New Year!

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We won’t let go!

2012-12-09T12:33:00.001-05:00

We won’t let go!

We did let go.

One of the glories of living in Georgia is raking leaves until March.

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The Weekly Photo

2012-12-05T20:49:00.001-05:00

My friends and loyal readers know how much I delight in playing with photos. “Café Art” is my term for my manipulated creations. This week in my “POW” posts – there is one for photos, and one for “art” – the two selections form an interesting combination. The photo selection looks more like my usual café art, while the manipulated photo seems almost realistic.

Together with “The Weekly Photo”, this project is almost concluded. I set out to post a “Picture of the Week” and a “Photo of the Week” almost a year ago. Some weeks were missed due to circumstances, but it was a lot of fun. Like most of my endeavors, there were multiple objectives. Few viewers discovered the POW pages behind the posts, and even fewer stumbled into the albums. These will be more accessible when my sites get “freshened up” in the new year.

Yes, of course, clicking on the images starts you on a trek. Enjoy the trips!

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Cottonwood in Winter Frost

2012-11-26T20:49:00.001-05:00

Once again a treasure from Stephen Blecher. He writes:

Hello Everybody, here is a picture that was scanned from an old negative. It was impossible to make a good print directly with an enlarger, because the the density range of the negative didn't match the print paper, so the set of negatives remained untouched. I recently came across them, and with the miracle of Photoshop I could make interesting prints. This picture was taken near Chatfield in late November, under unusual conditions. It was very cold and fog was rising from Chatfield reservoir, as a result hoarfrost formed on everything, producing a uniform coating. You can see it's not snow. Since fog was still present, the visibility was limited and the sky had no color. The overall effect is quite somber, but it certainly gives the impression of a cold winter day. (The jpeg doesn't reproduce the sky accurately).

To see a collection of photos by Stephen Blecher click the photo.

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The Weekly Photo – Just Sitting Around

2012-11-26T15:07:00.001-05:00

Not much happing after Thanksgiving and Black Friday since just about everybody is doing their part for Cyber Monday. Alright, so just two out of five are doing their shopping online, but all are enjoying the glorious sunshine.

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Playing with Photos

2012-11-17T19:43:00.001-05:00

For many years I have been a doodler. My dictionary defines doodle as “to scribble or draw aimlessly…”. Of course, I take issue with “aimlessly”, it has always been “just letting ideas flow”. These days I like to use a photo as a basis and see what “flows” when using tools like “Artistic Effects” in Word and other Microsoft Office apps as well as photo editing and painting programs. So it isn’t doodling anymore – I am creating Café Art!

Here I will let you, dear reader, peek into the making of a recent opus. It starts with this photo of a young dear. It is my “Photo of the Week” – click on it to go to the post page at Gallery Ludwig.

This time I did not have a specific result in mind. I tried my usual favorites, especially the plaster painting effect that PaintShop Pro calls “Artistic Effect .. Topography”.

A number of variations later, I liked this:

The I followed another tack.

I played with many effects, made color and cropping changes and finally settled on this color pencil sketch for this week’s “Picture of the Week”. You can see it larger on the post page at Silver Canvas.

Do you like my choice? Do you prefer another one? Please let me know, I appreciate learning what others like.

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Fall day at the Farm

2012-11-11T13:37:00.001-05:00

The farm in this case is McDaniel Farm Park in Duluth, Georgia – always a delightful place for an afternoon stroll.

Fall Day

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Fall Colors - 4

2012-10-28T12:47:00.001-04:00

At last some of the fall colors we have all been waiting for. The weather this year has not cooperated and most of the leaves have fallen before they had a chance to show their glory.

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Cloudy Competition

2012-10-17T12:18:00.001-04:00

Don’t judge a book by its cover

… So goes the phrase, but when it comes to the importance of the first impression, hardly anything beats the cover of a book. When scrolling through a shopping website or glancing at the shelves in a bookstore, a shopper rarely spends more than a split second on any one book – and the cover is all there is to see.

The cover has just a fraction of a second to send the message “I am what you are looking for!” Even before the viewer reads the title or any other text, the look, the design, has to capture the attention and present the right message.

In any book project the cover design is an important task. And so, months ago, sifting through catchphrases and watchwords, the words photo, digital, cloud, pixel bubbled up as cover background features for my book Digital Pictures Basics – 2012. The subtitle already contained organize, improve, and share, and a collection of screenshots for the primary graphics had already been picked.

The background fills most of the initial view, it covers the greatest area, and so it has the most important role – it has to get the prospective buyer to even read the title and look at the graphics. It must do so by visually conveying the massage of what the book is all about, subliminally, in a split second. It was not long before pixelated digital cloud photo got the nod.

Searching my pictures for the tag clouds brought up hundreds of photos. Some were eliminated easily, others were tough choices, finally eleven made the final cut. So let’s bring on the candidates.

Then came the hard part, picking the winner. Some were judged “too thin”, some “too dramatic”, “too busy”, “too Rubenesque”. One great candidate lost because it was too reminiscent of the SkyDrive logo; this book was about more than just sharing in the cloud, and in no way sponsored by Microsoft. Some others just didn’t look strong after being pixelated.

Well, enough suspense, one made it into print:

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Fall Colors - 3

2012-10-13T18:00:00.001-04:00

We are getting closer!

Everywhere here in the South the preparations are underway. Straw bales, pumpkins, flowers, all are showing up. Can colorful leaves be far behind?

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Fall Colors - 2

2012-10-07T13:04:00.001-04:00

Some of my readers were surprised to see automobiles in my post “Fall Colors”. Hopefully not disappointed, however. Now to continue to push my luck:

You must admit, the colors of fall are there.

Any day now our trees will get the message that the days are getting shorted and the air more crisp. Then we will see the expected fall colors here in the South.

Some notes about this blog:

Technical difficulties and other commitments caused me to suspend my “Weekly Photo” series some weeks back. Not sure how to pick this up again. Maybe some readers will share their thoughts.

There have been a number of gushingly worded comments on my posts that cleverly try to include a link to some commercial venture or non-existing site. Sorry, folks. This blog does not serve as a means of getting links. If you have comments on the topic of my posts, you are most welcome. Flattery will not get you a link here.

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Fall Colors

2012-09-20T20:12:00.001-04:00

Fall is the time for rich colors. Stephen Blecher pushes the season to a splashy start with his photos from a hotrod show in Lakewood, Colorado on Labor Day.

See more of his photos by clicking on the one here. It sends you to his SkyDrive album. Enjoy these delightful photos while we wait for the trees to catch up.

You can also visit the galleries of our other guest artists by clicking the Gallery – Visiting Artists link.

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The Weekly Photo (Week 35) Tiger at the Helm

2012-08-28T12:34:00.001-04:00

Tiger at the Helm

We were walking through the mall when we came upon a children's play area. Sunlight was streaming through a skylight like a searchlight beam on one of the rides. The photo illustrates the limited range in brightness levels that can be accommodated in a photo. To us the mall was brightly illuminated with the tiger in the boat just being in sunlight.

In the photo even the ceiling lights are just grey areas, while the tiger and the boat look bright.

The investigative types among my readers might be able to derive the time of day from the angle of the shadows. I will spare you the effort: the photo was taken about 3:30 in the afternoon. I left the geotag on the photo to demonstrate how the different services can make use of this.

Here is how it looks in SkyDrive (only my own, location is not shared), Picasa, and Bing Maps as reached from “Map it” in Photo Gallery.

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The Weekly Photo (Week 34) West Side Market

2012-08-23T17:08:00.001-04:00

West Side Market

Celebrating 100 years of service, the West Side Market in Cleveland, Ohio is both a historic site and a delightful shopping experience. With just under 30,000 square feet (less than 2800 m²), this market is modest in size compared to today’s giant supermarkets, many of which are twice this size. It is different, however, in that some one hundred independent vendors offer a wide array of produce, meats, baked goods, and more.

I took a few shots with my Nokia Lumia 900 phone. There was another test in the back of my mind, but a colleague brought up combining photos, so I quickly loaded them into Photosynth. You can see the result by clicking the image here on the right.

With a little bit of looking around, you can see the location (just scroll down) and you can find other views of this amazing place.

If you cannot shop there in person, you can visit the West Side Market site (click on name or the logo). Be sure to also see some of the historic photos on that site.

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The Weekly Photo (Week 33) Summer Blossoms

2012-08-22T21:13:00.001-04:00

Summer Blossoms

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The Weekly Photo (Week 32) Fall Flowers

2012-08-12T17:48:00.001-04:00

Fall Flowers - Photo Gallery Auto Collage

Microsoft updated Photo Gallery – formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery. Besides the name change, the most notable new feature is “Auto Collage”.

Some four years ago Microsoft Research introduced AutoCollage, an amazing and unusual collage builder. Face detection and automatic identification of interesting parts of photos, and smooth blending and arranging of the component pictures, made creating collages easy and fun. This technology has now been brought into Photo Gallery.

Sadly, the tool in Photo Gallery takes no instructions from the user at all. The results are pleasant enough, but there is no chance to tweak or adjust the resulting collage. A minimum of seven pictures are required to make an “Auto Collage”.

I had a collage made in Picasa last Fall, so I used the same photos for an Auto Collage. Here, first the new Photo Gallery creation.

For comparison here is my Picasa collage. Picasa offers full control over placement, orientation, frames, size, and background, however, the components have “hard” edges. The results are quite different. Enjoy.

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The Weekly Photo (Week 31) Café Curtains

2012-07-28T21:43:00.001-04:00

My quest to master my smartphone camera continues. The Nokia Lumia 900 provides an amazing camera. Yet the differences from gear that I am used to are many. No viewfinder for one. Having to hold the camera at arms length makes aiming rather awkward for me. Without manual focus I have to rely on the little brain in the camera to decide what to focus on. I still can’t figure out what it sees, but I am making progress.

The camera can focus to about four inches, I have yet to prove that to myself. The shutter will happily operate at exposure times much to long to hand-hold successfully. That I have amply demonstrated.

Here is a photo, “snap” as my British friend would say, from today, taken under difficult light. The setting sun was just to the right of the edge of the photo. The camera did alright.

The statistics

Aperture: f/2.2 – As with all cell phone cameras, all photos are taken at the full aperture.
The shutter speed was 1/720 second. Continuous variable shutter time sets the exposure.
The geographic location coordinates are about 80 feet from the actual location of the photo.

Most photo locations are right on, some are missed, like this one – maybe I did not allow the phone to acquire the GPS satellites. Not something I had to worry about with my “old-fashioned” photo gear.

The learning curve still looms steeply ahead.

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