My Camera World

Are All Photographs Works of Art?

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:49:00 +0000

The images in this article are from the Ottawa 2009 Lumiere festival which I will be describing in the next article, as I will have too many images to show, I will therefore focus in this article on the some of people who help make this festival such a joyous event.

On first reflection I was going to say “yes”. It seemed easy to state with how I thought about art. Art being that ‘thing’ when something unique is created by any person. You will note that in the title there is no adjective describing whether the work of art is either good or bad. Value is different as those who would prescribe a monetary amount in order to preserve the artefact define this.

It seemed to apply to photography since it requires a person to make a conscious decision to capture a moment in time from a unique perspective. The person may not know it at the time of taking the image that they were even creating a piece of art. But I believe that even then there was some creative process that urged or guided the person to decide that the image now composed in the viewfinder is the ‘one’. The original intention, either as a memory aid or used with others to help tell a story or convey emotions about a specific place and time, is not important.

Some of you might debate there should be more than just the snapping of a photo to create works of art. I don’t think that’s the case. I know my own biases creep in from time to time and I think that there needs to be an artist, a person driven to create, to show the world a new way of looking.

We call cave paintings works of art and I think that at the time these were meant more as sign posts to show events of locations for food. But these people did create a unique way of looking at the life that unfolded from their daily lives. I wonder what the others thought when gazing at these paintings, as there were so few around. I think almost mystical.

When I started to think about some photographs that had no human intervention, I wondered whether this type of image would also be applicable. In our society there are many forms of surveillance and these, as a unique image or sequence (movie), are not in my opinion, works of art. It doesn’t mean that some person later may not go through a large database of images and from that set create a perspective that is somehow unique.

I think even photographers who, without looking at their viewfinders and walk through a market and snap images from their hips, as still creating works of art. Now some may be poorly framed, wrong focus and ill-defined subjects. But somehow a person is trying to capture fleeting events and in that process creates works of art. The process can become part of the how the work of art is defined.

It will be up to others to really define a value. You can set a price, but the real value is defined by individuals who collectively determine its worth.

So even if you decide to set up a camera at a spot to take images randomly or on intervals while you are not around, I still think these are works of art. Will I buy one? I don’t know but you never know, as one image might just impress enough that I feel a need to have it.

So in summary, I now think that not all photographs are works of art. There are times when the capture of the image is for the most part only being captured mechanically and the human touch, however light, is just not present. Now if a person were to sift through all the pile of images and select some for the telling of a story, then at that point those images would form a part of works of art.

Niels Henriksen

Capturing the Splendor of Fall Colours

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:53:00 +0000

The winners of the Free Print contest are Amuary and Paul and please contact me for details about selecting your print. I sure wish I could give everyone an image but cost prohibits this. I may try in the future to do this again

I would also like to thank all those who participated and provided comments to help me understand about people’s desire to display printed photographic artwork.

The Colours of Fall

In the northern hemisphere and especially those with an abundance of deciduous trees, fall is a spectacular season of colours. To the eyes it’s like an explosion of bright sunlit yellows, oranges and reds that almost seems to overwhelm the senses. As photographers, the desire is strong to capturing these fleeting moments with your camera.

But upon reviewing the captured images they never seem to quite capture what our impressions where. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t capture good images it’s just that the camera records statically the scene, while your eyes actually paint a memory in your brain.

We tend to think that our eyes take in the whole scene before us, but in actual fact it has a narrow angle of view for colour and detail. It very quickly moves about a scene creating an impression of the whole. It is this, if you will, many snapshots of specific elements with each having it’s own vibrancy and focus points that lets you take in the wonder of the whole. It creates a memory that is more vibrant and dynamic.

In a previous article, I wrote about “ What I Saw, My Camera Captured and What My Mind Thought it Saw” ” that provide another example.

For the most part, this fall foliage is akin to splashes of colour on a canvas. It still needs design elements to tie it all together. A classic scene, which is hard to get in my area, is a panorama of overlying rolling hills with maybe just a touch of water, either a lakefront of even better a meandering river. Even mountains will aid this scene. They help by providing lines for the eye to move about the scene and thereby keeping the viewers interest.

In my on case I don’t have these so I find it is better to isolate the few splashes of colour and tie it together with other interesting elements.
In the above image I used the Photoshop Smart-object feature by layering different versions of the same image in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). Two of these were just to create individual masks for the red and yellow tree. This was achieved by increasing the luminance for the specific colour and reducing for all the rest. This made it easy to find a good mask and with a little curves adjustment and some clean up. I then created a version for each colour that enhanced that colour for its best attributes (red and yellow) and used the masks to make them stand out. Another was used to darken and reduce saturation for the other foliage and a final version for the blue in the water. The reason to use the smart-object feature is like in paintings, a singular colour looks different when combined with other colours. I need to fine-tune the colours to better match the others when composition is complete.

The above scene can easily fool the eyes. Because the duck is low to the water and there are imperfections in the water stillness. You might at first glance think that the horizon line is between the 2 duck images. In fact the horizon line is at the very top edge of the image.

The image below gives a better view of the types of foliage encountered near Ottawa. Lots of evergreens interspersed with colourful deciduous trees. Occasionally, especially near fields, there are pockets of only deciduous trees brightly coloured but it is hard to find grand vistas of fall colours. These pockets, while quite brilliant, mostly don’t have any other elements that will get the viewer to spend time on a scene.

The above image is a simple everyday type image, but there are many elements that keep your gaze moving and thereby spending more time and hopefully enjoying it more. As photographers, that is what we try to achieve with our photographs, viewers spending time on the image.

Below with graphic overlays I have highlighted those elements that aid.
The man’s red toque, red speed sign and red marker buoy from a triangle that aids the vision in moving around the scene and ultimately leads you down the river.

The red circle is a final destination, almost a resting point for the viewer’s gaze. The man in the boat is the strongest contrast and becomes the initial focal point. Its closeness to the red circle helps to draw you in. The Speed sign and the red marker buoy also provide leading lines to the red circle. The green arrows provide diagonal and horizontal lines that re-enforce the moment to central area.

Niels Henriksen

Are the Photographic Print Dead?

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:30:00 +0000

The free print contest is still open for the month of September. Please leave a comment with the words ‘free print’ included in your comment. I have included some sample images to give an idea of the range of images available.

The title may be a little tongue-in-cheek, as I know there are still a few places where they are in demand and in some ways this topic seems to go against my desire to give away prints.

The reason I ask this is that I wanted to thank my regular readers of ‘My Camera World’ blog, for consistently dropping by to read my articles and view my images, by giving away 2 professional produced prints as a contest. The threshold was when I first reached the 1,000-subscriber mark.

I was completely bewildered when there were very few regular readers that wanted to take a chance at receiving a print for free.

This goes against my other world (not online) where I do sell a few prints at Art fairs and galleries. 11”x14” prints normally sell from $120-$160. I have even had a few sales on the web-based art sites. I have a set of 10 greeting cards printed on 5x7 stock that are in reasonable demand. I know of 2 people who framed some of these cards as the image goes edge to edge.

So far, if I am correct, most of these sales have been to non-photographers.

So I wonder about the following thoughts I have about my readers:

Do photographers not like to hang prints by other photographers?
Are prints only wanted from big name photographers?
Do photographers not have extra room to hang an image?
Do my blog readers not like to enter contests?
Is the cost of framing an image prohibitive?
Do photographers not like to collect other photographer’s prints?
Do blog readers not trust free give-aways?

I know many of my readers are photographers and most, if not all, I believe would also like to sell their prints.

I would really like to hear your thoughts, as this is something I just don’t understand and with this discussion we could all help each other better understand the photo print market.

I display and collect other photographer’s photos. Its just plain fun to see the work produced by them. Maybe my kids or grandchildren will benefit the appreciation of value with these photographers.

To have an 11’’ x 14’’ image printed on Epson Ultrafine art paper costs me $51.00 by the professional printmaker I use. I estimate that shipping will run about $15.00. So, as you can see, I was willing to spend up to $130 out of my own pocket just to say thanks. There was really no other motive.

In the article on Pixsylated blog Sly Arena in an article ‘Digital Photographers, Welcome Back to 1999 ’, it discusses the demise of still photography with the greater emergence of video.

If video does become the new dominate form, and I think there is a tendency to go that way especially now that large screen TVs or should we call them integrated home entertainment systems, there will be a greater reliance on this item as the preferred display medium. Being it rotating photos, slideshows or videos the wall screen will slowly replace paper.

Video has been around for a long time but it is only in the last few years that we have the real freedom to choose content, type and time. Before, it was limited to mainstream TV and home film movie buffs.

As always there will be collectors of the old ways. Even today there are a few who still prepare glass negatives, but this is such a small set of individuals. Almost like a lost language or tribe to be studied by others.

In the meantime I still produce images of photo paper and cotton rag for those who appreciate the printed form and I hope there are more who still do and will even take a chance on one of mine.

Thanks for your interest.

Niels Henriksen

Sun, Earth and Moon Composite

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:16:00 +0000

First I want to mention and support a fellow photographic blogger Damien Franco of ‘Your Photo Tips Blog with the launch recently of his endeavour to open a new sharing forum for photographers called Exposure . Not only is this a great place to learn and share from others but also there will be 8 prizes given away with this launch.

I have become a member and I encourage you to join so we can all learn and enjoy photography from each other.

My Giveaway of 2 Signed Prints

Well it’s now September and as I stated in a previous articles, I will be giving away 2 signed prints of your choice by random selection. All that you have to do is leave a comment in any article published in the month of September that lets me know you want a free print. You do need to mention the word ‘print’ so that I don’t confuse a comment with a spam comment. If you don’t feel comfortable with a public comment then please contact me via email.

I will be collecting the requests during the entire month and at the end of September I will, with the aid of a random number generator, select the 2 winners. These will be shipped for free to anywhere in the world (I hope you are not in an Antarctic station right now) in a tube container.

The images will be your choice and up to a size of approximately 13in x 19in on archival paper. The prints will be signed but un-numbered as they will not be from my limited edition series of which there are only a few now.

You can either view the images I have on various sites and select one or if you wish, I will ask if you have any preferences and select sample images for your review.

Back to Sun, Earth and Moon Composite

In the fields I saw these flowers in several stages of opening to the full flower and one particular set reminded me of the planets with the Sun Earth and its Moon. I decided to take an image of each flower against a black backdrop and combine them as a composite.

I tried to do a similar image with the original flowers in situ but because of their short stature (8 inches high) and their various lengths of growth I was not successful in sufficiently blurring the grass and having all flower tops crisp and in focus. The image below shows these plants as found.

With this tripod setup I did take an image with each flower in focus and then another set progressively blurring the grass below. I thought I might be able to create a semi-real image with sharp flowers and blurred grass but when working on the images I soon realized just how much work it would be to finalize an image. The main problem was trying to blend in the different stalk DOF blurs into a realistic image.

Even the black background version took 2 hours with a Photoshop file of 250Mb and containing 16 layers.

I have a drop cloth that I use while painting and I tried a few with this as the background instead of the black as shown below.

While there is interesting texture I don’t think it was going to work as well in a 3-image composite. As I am accumulating more and more paint on this drop cloth I realize that this will form a very interesting abstract background that I can use for photography.

If you know a professional painter, you may buy him or her a drop cloth to use and wait a few months to collect your new background photographic cloth.

Blog Subscriptions

If you are not already a Blog subscriber but like to know when a new post is available then please subscribe in one of the blog readers or with the convenient method of receiving these articles via email. Just click on one of the subscription modes in the top of the screen and it will take you through the process effortlessly.

Niels Henriksen

Painterly Effect with Photo Enhancement Techniques

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:03:00 +0000

While deciding on an image to work on and achieve something special, I remembered a scene while in Copenhagen this spring. It was early morning and there was this lovely textured stucco wall in the dappled light with bicycles, benches and an old oak tree (at least some majestic type).

In reviewing file archives, I found that I had only taken 4 images in the entrance square to the Frederiksberg castle grounds in Copenhagen. Of the 4, there was only one that caught my eye. I now wish I had spent at least a couple of hours, if not all day, here to watch how the sun changes the light in the courtyard and how reflected light modifies the local colours.

The scene is interesting enough with good texture and detail but I wanted something more atmospheric of this place. The approach I took was to deviate from a photograph look and experiment with more layers made up of pieces of the original image. I wasn’t sure where, exactly, I was going with the outcome but it was fun just to watch as I adjusted the modes of the new layers.

The image below is the version that I like best in trying to achieve a glowing watercolour rendition. A light cream-coloured, watercolor textured paper would even soften some of the lines a bit more.

Click to see 1024 pixel image

In working with Photoshop or other pixel-editing tools you have key choices of color, contrast and edges. The effect I was after was to soften the image and add some glow while for some essential edges, enhance contrast to give extra texture and definition.

Duplicating the base layer, increasing its size by 25 pixels on each edge and then doing a gaussian blur of 5 pixels would achieve the glowing effect (faux Orton effect). The final effect accomplished by setting the blurred adjustment layer was set to overlay mode and add a curves adjustment layer, attached directly, to fine-tune contrast adjustments within the image. Then opacity to taste.

I wanted various ranges of detail texture so, to achieve this I duplicated the base layer 3 times. Each of these 3 layers received a different gaussian amount of 5, 10 and 25. I then ran the Photoshop pencil effect on each of the different blurred images. As you blur more then fine lines start to disappear and others become stronger. This would give me possible overlays or masks from fine to strong detail to hand-tune different parts with detail.

With each of the 3 edge contrast layers I would step through the adjustments from Darken to Hue adjustment and observe the effects. If there was a section that interested me, I would mask it in and move on to the next layer and once again step through the various modes.

In the above photo image I like the pairing on the contrasting analogous colours (the orange wall, red hydrant and violet bike) being complimentary of the green foliage colours and the cool shadows and it’s these contrasts that I tried to magnify in the first enhanced version.

I now realize that there are so many more images from different angles and lighting, but it’s now so far away.

The 6 images below show the experimentations and progress towards the final version.

Do click image for a full size image or 1600 x pixels for the various versions I went through.

The changes affect the green leaves, window detail and detail and colour of shadows on sidewalk. The final image (first in this article) is made using the bottom right image on colour mode to the middle image top row.

Maybe you like one of these better.

Niels Henriksen

Need a Live Model – Use Yourself

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:31:00 +0000

Special Note to Readers:
A thousand plus thanks to all the subscribers and any other reader of this photography blog. The other day Feedburner showed a max count of 1,004 subscribers at least for one day. As I mentioned previously I will be giving away 2 signed prints by random selection. This will happen during the month of September as I am waiting until then to ensure that all readers have a chance incase they are on holidays.

I have never used a live model. Even when our camera club provides sessions with models and studio lighting, I still don’t venture in that direction. I am not sure why but I can only guess that since I don’t do any commercial or for-hire work then there is not a real need for this type of staged event. It’s not that I mind studio work as I have setup flower shots, etc, but these are for artistic value and not stock photography. Maybe if I had an artistic idea that used people then I definitely would pursue it.

This was the case for some staged model shots and not wanting to bother using a friend or hiring someone, I decided to use myself in a setting. I hope its not like the lawyer thing were you have a fool for a client.

The outcome was not to have a great shot of myself but to have a reference image that I could use for oil paint as part of my learning process. I seem to be somewhat ok with landscapes but scenes with people really needs improvement.

The Process

I placed my camera on a tripod and pre-focused on the leading edge of the bottom edge of bench (to match plane of eyes) and then switched off autofocus. I set the aperture at f 10.0 for extra insurance for clear depth of focus and positioned the bench in the field of view for artistic merit.

The camera was then set (interval mode) to automatically take 10 images with duration of 10 sec between each shot. Then walk or run to the bench and pretend to look cool or some other silly pose.

What I learned

For static poses in a city type environment, a set of 10 with 10 sec between shots seems about right as random things do happen around you as the above image shows. Sometimes for the good but most times not that interesting.

If it were a dynamic scene, such as shooting hoops or jumping around, then I might try durations from 0.3 to 1 sec and a sequence of 30-40 images per session. Thank goodness for digital camera since development cost is only click and view.

Towards the end of this play time I noticed that the white pages of the book were reflecting brightly when angled a certain way and I used this to light the shadows of the face as in the first image.

Notice the comparison change in luminosity of red shirt and face by using book reflection in images below.

There is no reason that you could not also use a real reflector mounted on a stand for better light control.

The next few image shows a bunch of out-takes showing me running to bench, other people in scene, adjusting my hat and cars behind and a runner which works better in the second image in this article.

The image below is the early morning view from the bench looking across the Ottawa River. A nice spot even without a camera to just sit and think.

So if you are a novice like me with using live models then this method might work to get you some familiarity with posing, lighting and other techniques. Give it a try and share your experiences with the rest of us.

A few more images from around the bench with and without people.

Niels Henriksen

Morning Ground Fog

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:32:00 +0000

One of my favourite shooting conditions is foggy weather. Winter being especially nice with its white bleakness and it’s ability to isolate and create soulful subjects. An article on Winter Fog – Great Photography Weather

Living in a mixed hardwood and evergreen forest geography and not near the ocean, these infrequent foggy mornings become like a special filter that can remove close by clutter. Clutter being all the other green stuff that is not part of your main focus.

We often use DOF to accomplish this effect, but a natural wide-open lens is even better.

The 3 images shown below are from photographs taken about an hour after sunrise when there was still ground fog from the cool humid night.

The photographs are all taken from a small area of about 100 ft by 100ft in the fields behind my house and I probably only differed about 50 ft between all shots.

In ACR set clarity to 80% to increase contrast in fog contrast. Added new layer from ACR and set luminance and saturation higher for yellow and opposite for green and added a slight contrast curve. Set this new layer to colour burn at 25%. Added curve layer to increase contrast. Then added solid yellow ochre colour and set this to hue to soften the colour effects from the other 2 changes.

By using the coloured layers as overlays in Photoshop and channel mixer adjustments in ACR RAW subtle colour effects can be achieved.

The one thought that came into my mind while writing this article was that, I need to map out and visit other areas when these sparse gifts arrive. Field grass fog is a special type as it hangs a few feet above the tall grasses and then only rises I would guess from 5 to 20 feet in height.

In ACR set clarity to 64, vibrance to 46. Increase sat for orange and reduce for green for more golden glow. Reduce luminance for green to –75 to darken core of evergreens.
I copied the background layer twice. One set to overlay at 25% and the 2nd to multiply at 20%.

Because of the shallow depth of the fog and its wispiness, the sun can more easily penetrate and with the aid of the taller tree tops not in fog create striking rays of sunbeams.

The effects I wanted to achieve were to be able to tone the sunbeams and shadows differently. In Photoshop the blend-if sliders perform this function by being able to set both the knee (start transition) and slope (trail-off in effect of change). The last part is very important as like any masked type effect, sharp transitions create disconnected edges. That is why most masks have the edges slightly blurred to overcome any edge focus softness from the camera.

In the above image I used several layered tones, to warm sunlit areas and cool shadows without the use of masks except for the post, which was easy to isolate. The use Blend-if sliders with a gradient drop-off accomplishes this perfectly. It is best shown in the image below.

All the effects are meant to be subtle. Just to lightly influence our perception of the moment captured by the camera.

It has been now confirmed that July in Ottawa was the wettest in recorded history. Which means it rained all the time but it has almost always been with heavy clouds. Because of this, I have been able to enjoy one of my favourite summer pastimes. This is sitting in a comfortable outdoor chair, reading a book, while listening to the rain gently fall on the awning top.

Niels Henriksen

Canadian Architecture and the Delta Stone Mill

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Whenever I head out of town I always have my camera with me, as you never know when a photo opportunity will present itself even travelling well-worn routes. But I must admit that there are times when travelling down the road that I realize too late that I should have stopped. I have gotten better as I do try to stop more often, but for some reason I still miss opportunities. I really need to listen more to that inner voice.

Leaving a friend’s place early one morning, with the top down which makes sightseeing that much easier, I came across a building I had seen many times before. But this morning with the early light and the rich greenness of the late spring landscape this building seemed to beg to be photographed and I did listen.
While I’m not an architectural expert, I do remember that there is really very little true Canadian architecture, at least historical. The one item that did stand out in my memory was the Canadian Barn as pictured above. The main architectural feature being the double angled roof structure.

It was good to see a farm structure that was still showing that there was some life still left in that old building. It even had a fresh coat of red paint. What could be more Canadian. In the unreduced version it is easier to see the fine details of the flowers in the tall grass. If you scan carefully you will notice another red building peeking through the trees.

A little further down the dirt road was a more typical farmhouse rendition, at least in eastern Ontario, of what we have come to expect of old farm buildings. There is lots of character but not very liveable. I should probably ask permission one day to try and photograph some images form inside those dusty and dilapidated rooms. Nothing like a little dust in the air with sunbeams to create instant impact.

Delta Stone Mill

In the village of Delta they have restored the old mill that produced flour for the local inhabitants many years ago. As part of their restoration work they hope to have parts of the mill actually working. This mill is to be on the next Canadian stamp. Unfortunately though, not my image.
The link to the Delta Mill site is here Old Stone Mill

The above is a faux IR image. The orange, yellow, green sliders were set to maximum luminance in ACR. The sky was quite washed out in the morning so I added a gradient to replace the sky and create more of a normal IR sky (dark). The darker sky highlights the white foliage and lighter building better.
This is almost as captured but I did slightly increase the yellow and green luminance.

Digital Storage Solution

Costco in Canada has a very effective external storage solution. It is a Western Digital 2TB Drive that is mirrored as RAID 1, to give you an effective storage of 1 TB. The benefits of this type of solution is that should one drive fail and as far as I know all drives will eventually fail, there is still one drive that will still work. No permanent failure unless a major catastrophe such as lightning or huge power surge. There is software for automatic backups but I don’t use it in this mode. Cost is $309.00 CDN.

I will be away next week on a 5-day oil painting “en plein air” workshop in Lyn Ontario. This is my first time taking any type of workshop and the weather should be good for most of the time. While this is a small village there is an old mill and I will bring my camera because at least this item should be able to make some good images.

Niels Henriksen

SoFoBoMo 2009 – A Walk around the Pond

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:06:00 +0000

Well I finally finished my SoFoBoMo 2009 project. It always seems to take more effort near the end, as those little finishing details do seem to add up.

A Walk around the Pond

This year, due to 2 unforeseen events, I was not able to truly complete it within the 31-day timeframe but I did make it by the closing date of end of June.

Since this is not a judged competition with strict rules I hope it is still acceptable since the primary driver is a self undertaking to learn and grow in your skills and have some fun at the same time.

Thoughts on this Year’s SoFoBoMo Book

As I stated in the previous article this subject material was not my first or even second choice but an opportunity that made itself available on one day. While in Denmark I knew I still wanted to make the book, but I wasn’t sure on the subject. Several things floated around in my head as possible ideas but nothing really gelled as I was not always in control of my destinations during this stay.

One day my brother and his wife decided to take all of us to see some water with high cliffs. At least that was my translation’s abilities. I initially had vision of jagged cliffs with large breaking waves along the bottom.

My translation was not perfect and we arrived at Maglose Lake completely surrounded by land and with no large breakers at the shoreline. In fact to me this was more of a pond than a lake.
It was as we started the walk around the pond that I thought I might be able to make the book out of this adventure and then focused on getting more shots that I could use.

It is not a great photographic book but I did manage to complete it and to tell a story at the same time so I was at least successful with that part.

To produce great photography books I do believe that it requires a great investment in time and perseverance. The time it takes to capture your subject in many lights, at different times of day and even in different seasons. Not an undertaking that normally can be completed, at least the photography, within a few hours.

With my second SoFoBoMo book, I realize you do get experience in creating books, which is more than just a compilation of images. There is a need to tell a story with the images in a specific sequence as they unfold. There is also the need to write prose to support the story.

I know that there are some participants that did not finish their books and I wonder if they felt that their effort was not going to measure up against others. I think it is a big mistake to measure yourself in contrast to the other books. Do it because you love it and others will find good parts if not the whole effort great.

The technical stuff about producing this ebook

I once again used Open office to create my document and save as a pdf file. The main reason is that border can be set right to the edge of the page, which I was not able to do in MS word because of printer default limitations. There was always a residual edge and if choosing a coloured background, the whole white edge would show.

Book format is 18cm x 23cm about 7” by 9”

I chose Century Gothic at 11pts as I find the serf fonts harder to read.

The one thing I forgot from last year’s experience was to set each image to anchor on page. In paragraph anchor the image would sometimes move around when changes were made.

I also inserted my text within a frame and anchored this also to page. This gave me complete control to position text anywhere I wanted without having to think about tabs, margins and line spacing. After all, this is mainly a photo book with some text.

I made jpegs with the utility ‘Instant Jpeg from RAW’ and placed into a folder. There I used Adobe Bridge with star rating to reduce the set. Any images with no stars would be deleted (only jpegs). I would keep doing this until I had a manageable set.

I then placed these all into the document and with view set to 25% I would position the images around as I though the story would unfold. This process would also cull a few images and once I felt the set was right I would then work each image in Photoshop for desired effect and size. At the same time I would start working on the text for the images.

Will I do it again Next Year?

Most likely yes. It does take a significant amount of time and energy but in the end it is worth it. If we are serious about art and photography then it will take commitment and determination to see it through to truly learn.

I had wanted a Top-of-the Chart type book with just exceptional images. I was worried at first that my effort would not be good enough and wondered whether I should still proceed or back out. The word failure was slowly rolling around in the back of my mind.

With some reflection I came to the conclusion that this is mainly a book for me, a project for me to learn and develop as a photographer and now a little as a book writer.

If you are being artistic then in my view there is no word “failure”. There is only your vision, skills and effort. If you worry too much about success then the joy and pleasure this should bring starts to disappear and re-emerge as negative thoughts.

It was an interesting challenge to compile the images from such a short excursion and duration. Not a challenge I plan to do again. Maybe next year I may be able to undertake my original theme.

I hope that in the book you find a few enjoyable images and find the excursion interesting and maybe give you a few thoughts about how the ordinary may seem interesting depending on the view.

Niels Henriksen

Yousuf Karsh and SoFoBoMo 2009 update

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:16:00 +0000

I was very fortunate to be invited to the opening ceremonies, Thursday 11 June, for the Yousuf Karsh Image Maker exhibition which is coinciding with his 100th year birthday, were he alive today.

He is mainly recognized with his classic portrait of Sir Winston Churchill at the start of World War II. This is were Karsh had the audacity to rip the cigar out of his hands which left Churchill with the slight scowl on his expression.

The Science and Technology Museum was the first venue to open and the Portrait Gallery of Canada is opening a few days later.

The images are all taken with my iphone. My first real trail with the new phone, and while the images are not great, they’re not bad when you consider how dark it was. Though many were also blurred.

Mrs. Karsh (images above) cut the ribbon into hall and also gave a great speech on the legacy of one of the finest portrait photographers. There sure were a lot of people waiting to get into the exhibit. There is something special in gazing at the beautifully rendered Black and White images that hang through the museum. One room is all black and only large portraits are lit around this circular room. The white dots are the few ceiling lights that provide a measure of safety for movement.

Because it’s a science and technology museum, they not only display his photography but also the equipment he used in the studio.

The set of brushes were a gift from Karsh’s mentor, the Boston Portrait photographer John Caro. There was this giant, almost 9 foot enlarger in one of the rooms. And best of all, there was his 8x10 View camera There is even a positive photograph that is back-lit, of Karsh and Ansel Adams standing side by side and by their expressions, somewhat reluctantly agreeing to being photographed. There will be another exhibit at the National Archives. Mrs. Karsh indicated in her speak that they are now showing some prints from negatives that he had never made a print of before.

SoFoBoMo 2009 Update

Originally I had an idea for this years SoFoBoMo’s project, which was to do a photographic study both in distance and in time as I travelled from the Capital of Ottawa to Algonquin Park. The journey was to show how nature and people are viewed near urban centres and how their lifestyles (external) change as they live more in remote areas.

My trip to Denmark used up a lot of vacation time and I was unable to undertake this journey when I got back. While in Denmark, we went for a walk around this park with a very small lake, almost a pond. I thought at the time that if I got enough reasonable images I could do a book just on this subject. To try and show how one could capture many different perspectives and views from what may seem so ordinary at first.

Many of the images are not great to my standards and I had thought I would try and find another pond near where I live and that way I could do a 2 lake study and hopefully get a better set of images.

Part of undertaking the SoFoBoMo project is to enjoy the process and learn to be flexible in your approach. There are always some things that will pop up that causes a change in the course. If you enjoy what you are doing and are not concerned with what others are achieving or how they will view your book, then adapting should be part of the excitement and not a frustration.

After all it is only another form of a slide show with some text added and I am sure we have all created slideshows from some of our images. This image shows how small the lake is with the other side being so close.

Niels Henriksen

Blog Award and Photographs that You Need to Explore

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:25:00 +0000

I was very honoured last week to receive the ‘noblesse oblige’ Blog award from what I consider to be a very fine artist.

Life can seem strange in a good sense at times. Here is a blogger and artist whom I always visit to see his inspirational works of art and at the same time obtain motivation for my own creative juices. With this award from I now surmise that Lorainn finds my own artist interpretations, mostly with a camera, in a similar vein.

Do visit his site loriann signori's painting-a-day as he has an excellent impressionistic approach to rendering landscape scenes. This is a fluid style that I hope to one day to be able to render in my own approach. Even on the web, which tends to dull vibrancy at bit with the sRGB colour space; his images are vibrant and alive. I can only imagine that to stand in front of the original works, the colours must just sing.

With the 2nd pat of the article title I hope to present some images that encourage the viewer to spend some time to take in all the elements. I’ll discuss my approach to creating interest and maybe one or two will create this effect for you.

Many viewers at first glance, especially if you’re looking for that ‘wow factor’, the above image may not grab a hold of you the right way.

If you do take the time to examine and reflect you will realize that this image has many compositional elements that does keep your eyes moving over the scene and that is what many of us try to achieve in our photographs. Wow is great but with my own tastes, this can become boring quickly and an image that causes me to take in the features is one I enjoy more.

At first you see the strong diagonal lines created with the cast showdown of the roof structures. The line of square box shape shadows form diagonal columns, which is repeated with the shape of the brick column. Next the sun lit part of these columns form triangles pointing back to the shadow patterns where texture and colour are strongest. The green bushes support the patterns of the light rectangular patterns and colour is complimentary to the Reddish (orange) brickwork.
The left and right side of the image has darker objects that help frame the pattern. At first, the viewer may be left wondering in what setting this was taken but upon closer inspection you will notice that on the right in the dark recess is a patio with tables and chairs.

The above image is simpler with its harmonious colour scheme. The focal point is the lamp and the texture on the grey pipe, but I am not sure if that is what the eye goes to first. I do find that the lower right pane in the window on the red wall does hold my interest. Working on an image, you sometimes tend to loose your own first impressionistic instincts. There is texture and lines on the left, which is repeated on the red wall but here, there are dark areas to explore and maybe gaze inside these rooms.

In this image, I enhanced the blue/grays of the bridge to compliment the yellow/greens of the distant sunlit area. I also wanted to create a little mystery with the blue cast of the shadow to make you wonder about going over the bridge.

The above bicycle image is fun on many levels. The blue and yellow are complimentary colours, and also, the red and green pair. The red of the bicycle is re-enforced with the red in reflections and on the signs. The strong reflection in window almost creates a portal down another street, like you are on an intersection, which is not apparent just seeing the store front.

I hope you enjoyed the images and the attempt to create a little mystery or intrigue with each of these photographs.

Niels Henriksen

Some Photographs and Notes from Denmark

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:57:00 +0000

I have returned home from my short stay in this wonderful county. I did manage take a fair number of photos, probably around a 1,000 in total. About 300 were centered on the wedding event. Another 200 were focused on people images that I could use as reference material for my oil painting studies. The remaining 500, which is not a lot in digital standards, were around town and in the country side. Looking at them now, many just seem ordinary.

One part of me says every image should be great but is that really practicable when you are walking and shooting without giving much though to composition? Especially when you are just grabbing what’s interesting and trying your best to make it reasonable in the viewfinder.

When it comes to landscapes I find perform best when I have a tripod. This forces me to spend more time to pre-think the setup and final composition. This process of examining and feeling really helps me to identify those elements that can excite and stir some passions. I didn’t use a tripod on the trip but instead relied on my trusty 18-200mm Nikon VR lens. This sure is a great tourist lens and coupled with a high ISO capability there is almost no scene you can’t capture.

My brother’s wedding went well and it was great to celebrate this event with him and his new wife and then to connect with some family members that I had not met before. We were lucky that we were granted permission to take images inside the Queen’s church and a few of these I will show on a later date.

While visiting another brother out in the country I came across many fields ablaze in vibrant yellows, which are from the oilseed rape plant blossoms. These fields are quite common in many farming areas and the plant is nicknamed the "sunshine crop”

The above image I find very interesting because there are 2 sets of complimentary colours. The Blue which I enhanced to better match the glow of the Yellow. The other set is the Reddish -Green pair. I muted (de-saturated) the foreground green to better compliment the more muted orange tones. The overall harmony is maintained because there are also greens in the yellows and orange is speckled in the lower greens where there is bare ground.

In Copenhagen I was walking around the historic area of Dragor which was an old mariner’s port and now is a very expensive community. Out in the channel I saw this freighter passing in front of the channel markers leading out of the harbour. I decided to crop the image to pair up the 3 buoys with the 3 white structures on the ship.

The green is as captured and the red and blue only have a slight increase in saturation.

The telephoto lens (200mm) really compresses the scene almost making the buoys seem near the ship when in fact it’s probably 2km away.

In the central part of Copenhagen there are many parks with small lakes that provide a surreal tranquility when you know that just on the edge of the park is the hustle and bustle of a busy city.

There are many people who like to just sit and relax in the afternoons and enjoy a bit of paradise.

I enjoy travelling to new places and exploring the local sites and customs but I never travel well. It’s the getting there part. First since I don’t fly business class and I find the economy seats very cramped (6’3”) and when the time change is more that a few hours sift, it takes me a long to time to adjust.

Denmark has a great train system more like our subways with short stops and frequent schedules (many leave every 20 mins) that traveling around the country is a pure pleasure.

Why does North America have to be so dependant of cars that public transportation is almost an after thought unless you are in large downtown metro areas?

In one of the old king’s parks Frederiksberg Have (garden) there is this tree with thousands of soothers hanging from it.

De-saturated the green and yellow in tree leaves

When your child has out grown the soothers, parents hang these from the tree and a few even add wish notes which I guess is common throughout Europe.

Niels Henriksen

Use ACR Clarity to create shallow DOF

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:08:00 +0000

With a few of my previous images I have used the Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) “Clarity” settings to improve the focus (clarity) of the subject and in corollary reduce the detail in the background, which is very similar to using a higher F-stop or shallow DOF.

When experimenting with digital editing techniques, sometimes you realize that you have a new tool of choice that is better than some other method you are using. But with all good things there are limitations and images that are better suited for this technique.

Occasionally, I did use Photoshop blur filter, normally with small settings but I was not fond of the overall effect it created when larger settings (above 10) were used. It is a bit hard to describe but it seems too unnatural even when adding some noise back in.

To demonstrate the effects that can be achieved, I select 2 images to compare using just the blur tool and the blur tool with clarity set at full reduction of –100.

Using the clarity tool is not a one-button-solution as you will need to use layers and a mask to separate the subject from the blurred background. To really see the comparison, click on any of the thumbnail images below, as the originals are 2400 pixels wide.

Normal Clarity set to - 100 Blur only 16 Blur at 16 on clarity layer

Just using the maximum clarity setting has softened the background by removing contrast, which has the effect of leveling or washing out the colours and tones. Better, but still too much detail that is competing for attention with the colours and details of the bird.

The 3rd pane is just using gaussian blur at a setting of 16. Details softened but the contrast in green tones still competes with the bird.

In the 4th pane, I used the same blur setting (16) but applied this to the layer that was set to minimum clarity (-100), which is the best of both effects. Background softened and no highlights jumping out.

Normal Blur only 16 Blur 16 on clarity layer

I used the same settings as the first image but omitted just showing the clarity layer only.

Normal Blur only 16 Blur 16 on clarity layer

With very fine detail not much improvement between versions

When using the clarity setting with or without the blur effect, you may need to adjust the colour saturation, with whole or individual colours, to fine tune to your taste. Certain areas that are now washed out may need to be increased in saturation or lightened or darkened to better match the focal area.

It’s not a perfect or do-all tool but it is something to further help with increasing clarity of subject. It works great in fog scenes such as in this article Winter Fog – Great Photography Weather , and when I used it to soften background with the portrait of the curly-haired kid In the Creativity Article and Candid Portraits .

I will be heading to Demark for almost a couple of weeks this coming weekend as one of my brothers is getting married in the Danish Queens church which is inside the castle.

This is where Crown Prince Frederik and his wife Mary live. Queen Margrethe II will be staying at the castle during this period with her guards.

My brother, whom had been given a medal by the Queen a few years ago for distinguished service, asked permission from the Queen to marry in her private church (Fredricksberg Slotkirke), which she granted.

There is no photography allowed inside the church.

This trip will change my SoFoBoMo plans as I will not be able to do the original theme but now, I might pursue a theme of Copenhagen Bicycles.

Other images

This was taken on the west coast of Denmark and while the sky was heavily overcast there were shafts of light shining through. Since it was taken with a telephoto lens, the kite was not visible within this tight frame, therefore added from another image.

Thanks to all those who have joined this blog lately and a special thanks to those who still come by on a regular basis.

When the readership finally reaches 1,000 members, highest so far has been 885, I will give away 2 singed prints to those readers (random selection) that indicate an interest.

So please continue reading the articles for a little while longer as I am hoping by late summer or early fall to reach that threshold. I don’t actively try to get more members but through our community, it seems to be slowly increasing.

It will most likely be 3-4 weeks before I am able to post again.

Golden Fields of Summer

Lately, I have been busy trying to improve my oil painting skills and I feel I am now starting to see some improvement. I did this image from a photograph. Not mine but a book that is meant for you to practice. I used my own creativity to enhance the glow in the fields by changing from summer yellow to an orange to enhance vibrancy. Also, I changed the gray parts of clouds to purple-red to show reflections from those glowing fields. I

Niels Henriksen

Photographing Black Objects

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:52:00 +0000

We were visiting the Vemork Hydroelectric Plant in Rukan, Norway which is now a museum. This is the site were the allies in WWI tried to destroy because the Germans were producing heavy water during the war.

In a previous article, Your Body of Work or Life Long Project , I discussed the train that was sunk on the ferry carrying the heavy water back to Germany. See link

Off camera flash. Blue colour added as a layer in Photoshop and set to color mode and the copper items masked-out Blue and orange are complimentary colours and I wanted to create contrast and conflict with this image. There are lovely tones and shapes in the blue areas and the 2 copper items disrupt these patterns and almost don’t seem to fit.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the hydro plant tour but I thought we would see more of the inner workings of the whole plant, maybe down the water tubes and other good tunnels and underground workings. This was not the case as we first saw a 12 hour film (British movie about the mission to destroy the plant) and then a tour guide explaining about the processes and equipment for electricity generation.

Being an electrical engineer I did not need a repeat of previous general course material and went off to film the generators in the other half of the large singular room. The photo below shows the area I was exploring while others were listening to the museum guide.

The room has very many windows facing the cliff side, which was now in the shade and therefore, no direct light striking any surfaces and thereby creating very large dynamic range from pure black to white, which would make it even harder to show any details in the image.

I only had about a half hour to shoot before the gang moved on. For these types of scenes that are new, complex to shoot and contains a lot of detail, I would have liked to spend at least an hour to walk around and visually inspect all the nuts, bolts and other doodads before planning what to shoot. I think there could have been a nice theme developed if I had the time as opposed to shooting a bunch of what may be interesting views but no connection.

Shooting black objects, unless it is documentary in style, will tend to focus on the abstract in design. There is not much colour available and at best you are probably only going to capture any reflected colours in the objects.

Off-camera flash set on the ground and to my right. The light from window was not striking this area and I wanted more contrast in objects and lines.

I decided to use my SB-800 off-camera and wirelessly triggered in the hope that these extra reflections on the shinny black generators would give more interest.

I would lay my flash all over the place on any other piece of equipment to see what kind of effects this would give.

One thing I did notice is that when the flash was behind me, there was not always enough reflected trigger flash from the camera to overpower the ambient light and the flash would not fire.

Photographing black objects is not much different than photographing any other object but there are a few hints that will make every shot more likely to be successful.

Correct Exposure

First, your camera, whether shooting RAW or Jpeg, will want to make everything mid grey. This means that if your image is mostly black with no specular highlights, it will turn the black object a nice mid grey. This is less of a problem with digital cameras as it is easier with digital editing to lower tones as this doesn’t introduce noise as opposed to white objects when you have to increase tones.

The downside, if not corrected, is that some of the information is lost when clipping occurs.

Camera RAW is very forgiving and in many situations any exposure and colour temperature corrections can be adjusted later.

Do check the histogram if you can. If the subject is shinny then it is ok to have some of the highlights clipped if these are only the edge or point reflections from light source.

Normally reducing by 1 ½ (-1.5ev) to 2 (-2.0 ev) stops should cover most situations.

Colour Temperature

Is the black object you are capturing really black? Black is not really a colour but the absence of colour. This can be achieved by no or little light coming from a coloured object or it could be painted black. I know from my oil painting experience when I lighten what are labelled as black paints with white I get nice blue, greens and browns.

If there is no reasonable areas of reflected light source, your camera may interpret some of the lighter black tones with a colour cast due to the true black colour.

This image has 2 light sources, Bounce flash on the left, which gives natural tones to rust and the blue sky light from the right which adds blue highlights to those edges.

Artistic Merit

For a lot of black items, the focal point will be the abstract lines created by the sources of light striking the object.

Taking images of mechanical or even architectural features may be great if that is your passion but for many others it can be boring if they are not connected in a theme or story. These individual images, since they are not ravaged by time, do not tell a story in themselves but only by connecting them together is a story told.

The direction of bare rock outcropping and shadows help to re-enforce the downward direction of the cascading water. By having the trees block some the bottom of the water we are not completely drawn out of the scene.

What is not apparent from this image is that the waterfall is less than half of the canyon wall. These canyons are very deep.

The power plant is situated half way up the canyon walls and this image captures some of the houses on the other side of the valley that are built precariously (at least for those venturing out late on a dark night) on nooks and outcroppings along steep cliffs.

Niels Henriksen

Creativity Article and Candid Portraits

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:51:00 +0000

This week I came across a good article on the topic of creativity. This is something I try to write on and then only in specific areas. As far as I know there are no perfect formulae that all of a sudden will make you creative.

Being creative is mainly about doing. Doing things that help the creative ideas flow and at the same time reduce the interruptions or burdens of everyday life that wants you to be robotic. There are many people whose daily job it is to be creative and even these people I know have to practice at making the creative juices flow.

This linked article may seem a bit long at 49 pages, but I found the writing style enjoyable and with the added bonus of his comical drawings on the back of business cards, it increases the extra entertainment factor. There are many good ideas contained within and where there is a slant towards the advertising industry, it is relevant to photographers and other artists. I would encourage you to read it and pass it along to any others that you think might enjoy it.

Update: I inadvertently included the wrong blog as the source for the link. The article was from Pixelatedimage blog as the link can be found here and Chris Brogan is still a good read.

Chris Brogan’s blog is one of my regular reads. His blog deals with social media and community mainly at the corporate level but it is easy to extract material for our business and personal levels. I think it is important that being a photographer or any artist, that we explore more about business, people and customers.

The article I had originally planned was to deal with shooting completely black objects so now I have an article ready for next week. Feels good to be ahead.

I love this photo on many levels. First and foremost the expression of sheer wonder is what grabs you. If you take the time for a closer look you will see that red is the dominant colour, The red glasses, red chair and the pink bathing straps as well as the dark red in the background all help to re-enforce colour dominance. This is complimented with the green hat and also with its analogous colour of cyan in some of the background and with the reflection of water in her face and the lettering on the lens strap.

To many of my regular readers you are probably aware that most of my images are either landscape or inanimate objects and people rarely are the primary focus. This week I decided to show some of my pure people images.

In this image the colours on the shirt are balanced out with same colours in the background. In this shot I had the lions head on the background wall line up with the boys’ own wild main.

I had noticed the boy and his parents early in one of the rings around the street performers and when they started to leave I asked him and his parents if I might take a few shots. They were pleased by my offer.

A street party or event and this case both since it was a Buskers festival becomes a photo-rick area for getting lots of people in interesting images

The main focal point of this image is clearly the interaction between the 2 women obviously enjoying a good laugh. I removed the lower portion of the dining table as its clutter only detracted from the focal point. I also converted to B&W, as I did not want any background colours to lend the eye away. B&W does a good job of removing extraneous detail and clutter, especially when they are colorful

There are strong focal points for eye movement from first the eyes and then mouth, finger over to flower and then up to highlight on the top of head. I decided to leave in the tiny highlight on top of his head to ensure that you take in his whole portrait and take away from those intense eyes.

When I gave him my images of the evening’s event, both he and his wife enjoyed my images more than the professional wedding photographer.

While there is a pleasing smile, I really enjoy the brown tones.

Addiction Hint:

You know when you’re either addicted to photography or seriously challenged when you take photos of your own wedding. This was the case for me. During the actual ceremony I handed my camera to my son, but I took the before & after ceremony shots plus some group shots. This was an outdoor civil ceremony in the gardens and a fine hotel that night.

Niels Henriksen

SoFoBoMo 2009

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:08:00 +0000

This year I am again entering the SoFoBoMo (2009) project and I decided to describe my experiences and tips to those of you who are going to or are still deciding to enter.

Last year was the initial launch for Solo Foto Book Month, which is an online event to create photo books as a community. At the same time, it was my first venture into producing a photography book.

These statues run along the front of the moat or second island, the 3rd being the castle of Frederiksborg. The first island contains the stables and rooms for other workers.

Never having created a book before and with the conditions that there where only 30 days to complete it did seem a bit daunting, at first. Now looking back, it seems easier than my insecurities/ anxiousness permitted.

While I can’t really help much with the selection of your topic regarding theme, there are a few suggestions that might make it easier for you and give you some flexibility with your approach.

The photo book project starts the 1st of May and you can, at your choosing, start anytime during the whole month of May.

My own approach is to plan as follows:

1st week to get out and get the images. For many who have working jobs during the week you could assign both weekends to this.

2nd week for photo selection and editing.

3rd week to layout the book and write a few words.

This gives you an extra week at the end to overcome any problems, like needing more images or more time in the other parts that always seems to go astray.

Taken on the Paris subway. I liked the expressions on the people in relationship to the poster behind them.

Be Creative and have a Backup Plan

My approach is to have several rolling projects that I could use for this year’s book. There are many themes I would like to explore and having several in the thinking about or initial planning stages gives flexibility to really select a topic I can be passionate about. It also gives me the confidence that as I set upon the quest to complete the photo book I have contingencies if the selected subject doesn’t seem to be working.

First week of May project 1 begins. The second week, project 2 could start and the same for the 3rd week project 3.

This may seem like a fair bit of work, but the main object is to have fun and if you’re busy or not excited about the second week’s theme, then skip and wait for the 3rd week. DO what you enjoy.

Some ideas I have this years are:

Along the Ottawa Valley to Algonquin Park

The emerging life in spring.

Still working on other themes.

This was my first use of the Di-GPS adapter for the Nikon camera. I was out on a friend’s property taking a few images as reference points on map he had. In this image I used the Orton effect by first duplicating the layer and then increasing size about 10%. The layer was then blurred (10.0) and set to overlay with 50% opacity. I wanted to create a glowing floor as we are heading down into a valley.

Book Publishing Software

I use Open Office writer to create the book. The main reasons I like this is first it has the ability to have 0.0 margins, which MS Word cannot. Second, and importantly, it allows you to save as PDF file.

I tried Scribus, as others are using it, and it works well but seems more complicated than I need. Also, if I remember correctly, image size was critical. I find Open office easy to use and meets the functionality I need. It you have used MS Word then most of the functionality is the same.

The problem I had with Ms Word is that I could not set the margins to 0.0. It always had a residual size with printer defaults.

I did enjoy creating the book last year but there was some self-imposed stress, as is normal, when you are undertaking some thing new.

This year I have no apprehensions about the approach or time limits. It should all be enjoyable.

I am not trying to create a book that will sell millions or even 10s, but a book that I will enjoy and in the process learn more about what it takes to make a book

Due check out Paul Butzi blog “Mussing of Photgraphy”as he has been instrumental in getting this going.

There is now a flickr discussion group where you can also post questions and share your ideas with others about the book project.

You can sign up for the SoFoBoMo project website to register your book

Niels Henriksen

Why is bAd Art preferable to Good Photographs?

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:25:00 +0000

First I would like to clarify the title (bAd) I used, as I don’t really mean bad art in the technical sense, even though it may apply sometimes, but I was referring to impressionist or non-realism styles (heavy brush work where very little detail is present except fort the crude brush strokes with colour mixing).

Secondly this is not based on any scientific study but only from my own experiences in dealing with other people, both buyers and artists.

Raw layer (ACR) for sky clarity set to –10 to soften the noise, which always tend to show up in skies and dark and reduce saturation and luminance of blue channel as this was a bit underexposed.
Another RAW layer for land and water parts, increase clarity for more general contrast, increase vibrance; curves up for mid-tones; large increase in luminance of red/orange/yellow/green/aqua and reduce for green and blue; Increase saturation red/orange/yellows/aquas, reduce saturation for greens/blues. This enhances the turquoise transition zone in the water and for the foliage increases the colour contrast in the yellow/greens by making the lighter grasses stand out more.
Curves layer to lighten the sand/rock-face. Added a brownish-orange layer and set this to colour mode with mask for sand rock face (opacity 29%). Darkened border areas of hillside.

I am in the process of painting the above scene and in the end it may really be bad or mediocre artwork. With a bit of luck in picking the right bush techniques and colours I believe that many people will prefer the painting to a printed image in the same size.

I know that if I used the smudged technique to create a painting effect they might even like that version better that the original especially if printed on canvas.

The images in the article are taken from the north tip of Mors Island, which is situated in the middle of Jutland. Denmark is very flat, but occasionally there are these larger hills normally near the sea, which rise a few hundred feet at max. The next 2 images show the adjusted version, followed by the original RAW. Nothing great but I find a quaint charm in the country setting.

Once again 2 RAW layers. One as above to soften sky. The other increase clarity, luminance for red/orange/yellow. Added curve for white shed to lighten white and at the same time the yellow grass in front on the left. Cloned out a mud blemish in front grass and removed a white object in the back field. Added orange layer and set to colour mode and with mask used to tint the corrugated roof of shed. Lightened front of posts and darkened shadow parts.

This is the original RAW image unprocessed.

I wonder if in people’s minds a painting is perceived as a one-off and with a printed photo there can be many copies. I also have a opinion that people tend to think that with a painting a person is creating something new and unique, but with a camera, its the camera that is doing all the work and we are just along for the ride. As photographers we really do understand the work that can go into creating an image. Yes some are gotcha moments but we do plan for season, time of day, camera position. With studio work are not these one-off creations with all the careful placement of subjects and lightening?

I love the rolling texture on these hills.

I know with my own better photographic images I regularly spend 1-2 hours working on the digital file and this doesn’t include that time to plan and go out and acquire the image.

This is about the same time it takes to a one-session painting. Currently from 1-3 hours. So far my photos are better.

I just don’t know what all this really means to us as artists, but I do know that there is still al lot of work ahead to educate the public about our artwork and by that I mean the images hanging on people’s walls .

When the public sees the licensing of images at the ridiculously low prices which give the owner the ability to print many images how can we justify to them why the should spend more for just one printed image.

I do think, that in this is one area were we artistic control. It is important that we preselect the paper that enhances image qualities we are after and also to ensure the ink/archival qualities. We shouldn’t let the customers choose their own paper and ink system. These are a lot like the skills of a painter (medium and canvas). I think a lot can be done with marketing and branding of our work.

Reduced sky brightness and saturation. Darkened the rocks and increased contrast. Increased contrast of boat.

This image has do more with a standard joke we have in our camera club about judges always seeming to say for a water scene, if there was only a red boat it would add more punch. Well no there is lots of punch.

I would love to here your thoughts on this topic or any suggestion you have where we can promote some of our work more in the artistic vane.

This is a small 5”x7” study I did in preparation for the larger 16”x20” final painting I am in the process of completing (first image above). I wanted to check the balance of the various greens and also ensure that the front ridge (longer grasses) was separated from the middle ground foliage.

Niels Henriksen

Tivoli – Photographing Laser Light Show & Night Photography

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:07:00 +0000

Tivoli is an old style garden and amusement park in the downtown core of Copenhagen Denmark. There are many novel cafés and ethnic restaurants (29). There is even live theatre, mostly Hans Christian Andersen stories, trapeze artists, pantomimes, and ballets and concerts mainly performed during the summer. It is open all year round but I don’t know about hoping on a wild ride while the temperature is around the freezing point.

The park was opened in 1843 by the writer-architect Georg Carstensen (1812–59) on the southern part of the old city. A remnant of the former moat became a lake for boating. It still has a feel from that period.

With Tivoli’s extensive flower gardens, fireworks, coloured floodlights, and illuminated fountains, which all tend to brighten the park at night, I thought this would be a good place to take some night photography in between bouts of pure amusement.

Tivoli sits on a one block site and for those walking on the side of the street you wouldn’t even know that it existed except for the main gates and a couple of times you can see these 200 ft towers sticking up.

f3.5, iso 800 .4 sec, 18mm

I set the ISO to 800 which for the D300 gives very low noise visibility and still allowed to capture most of the shots between 1/30 and 1/50sec which I could hand hold with the added vibration reduction on lens.

The top image, I laid the camera on a fence rail as I needed more than ½ sec to really capture some background detail.

f5.6, 1/30, iso 800 170mm

Close-up of central part of light effects. It has almost a curtain like feel and wonderful moving green luminescent patterns.

Thanks to my relatives because they knew the time the laser light show was to start and the best place to position ourselves (on the bridge over the pond) for the best view of the show.

Ten minutes before the start of the show, huge fog guns were filling the pond with huge clouds for the light to strike. We were lucky this night as there was not much wind.

f4.5, 1/30, iso800, 46mm

f4.5, 1/30sec, iso800, 18mm

This image is more of a wide angle showing the layers of fog and the lights striking it. I did add the red center as it was all green. I did this by adding a new layer and painted the central part Red and set the blend mode of color. I tried a rainbow circular gradient but it was a bit too outlandish.

f4.8, 1/30sec, iso800, 55mm

The one thing I like about the above image is that on first impression, I thought I shot this upside down. But it is correct. The lights on the water radiate up and now hit the lifting fog bank.

f4.5, 1/40sec, iso800, 18mm

Many of the buildings are gloriously lit at night. In fact, most of the park is one large visual feast.

f4.5, 1/50sec, iso800, 36mm

On one side of the park are these giant hanging sheets of lights and the above image was an attempt to capture these with some depth.

f4.5, 1/50sec, iso800, 18mm

At the end of the evening we stepped back out on the normal Copenhagen streets and for one image I was able to capture all the street lights turned green. This scene is in stark contrast to the brightly lit park which is very crowded and now this normal street seems like a surreal world almost Outer Limits in theme.

My wife and I did try some of the exiting (scary) rides and while I was able to test one more the 200ft vertical drop, she actually faired better during the course of the ride. The picture below, taken by the amusement park, shows how I was hanging on for my dear life, while she was grinning with excitement. I was enjoying it.

After this ride we went on the H.C. Andersen ride in a chest through his stories. A lot slower and safer on the body!

Niels Henriksen

Be Thankful for our Modern Cameras

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:58:00 +0000

Today I feel grateful that our modern cameras work so well that from a technical camera point-of-view it is quite simple to take very good images. I am also thankful that I have over the past few years taken a lot of photographs.

You may wonder as to why I am being so thankful. With my artistic endeavours some things work well like photography. With others like the exploration of oil painting, the paint does come out of the tube and when you mix 2 colours you get a new colour but that is as far as those parts that are doing well.

On the weekend I was trying to paint a street scene from one of my photographs and why do I always pick the hard to paint scenes. I hate being a raw beginner again but as far as I know there is no other way to start the journey.

The images in this article were all taken at the Jespherhus Gardens near Nykobing Mors, Denmark.

I darkened some of the green foliage on the top and bottom right to give a bit more emphasis to the lighter branch near the middle.

I have done some watercolour paintings and after awhile some were good enough to frame and sell. With watercolours it is very difficult to correct mistakes and I thought, well with oil paint I just paint over. What could be easier?

Well a lot of things. I was encountering difficulties between the vision of a great painting in my head and what was actually rendered in front of me. I had started this a while ago and wasn’t sure how to proceed next.

This image was fun to play with in Adobe Camera Raw as I adjusted the luminance and saturation sliders to bring out more of the colours.

So I mentally said to myself, “Stop beating yourself up.” Just paint and have fun. Learn from what happened even if it isn’t better than a kindergarten painter. Hey some of those children are good.

That’s what I did. In different parts of the painting I tried different t techniques. Not that these techniques support each other but to experiment and push the colours around.

Close-up of a very large cactus plant leaf.

That’s the fun part loading paint on the brush and pushing the colours around. Almost therapeutic but not great art.

The same learning approach can be applied to the camera. Don’t stress over the fact that your images aren’t hanging in some great gallery.

Have fun. Do try different approaches such as depth of field (DOF), slow or fast motion, various or strange angles. Then when looking at each image try to determine what parts you like best.

For other sections of the image try and figure out why its not working for you as this will give you insight for future shots for those things to avoid.

The back-lit leaf provides a very striking graphic pattern with the light and dark veins.

Once again the reason I am thankful for camera technology and a huge file base is that at times like this, when I don’t have enough time, I can go over some previous photographic events and with reasonable probability find some images that you find interesting.

I liked the Cyan colour tinge on some of the central leaves.

During one afternoon in a flower garden I was able to take a range of different plant compositions and because our cameras are so great now, it was relatively easy to have a few turn out well.

The plant has a very strong golden colour to the leaves and central flower cluster but I just couldn’t seem make it pop. When I converted to B&W the curly stamens now became more interesting.

All that is needed is an eye to see more or deeper than the grand vista. A mind that is inquisitive and willing to examine our perceptions of the everyday world and now just an off-the-counter camera that for the most part will take the great images that you see before you.

There are a few skills and techniques that will help you in modifying a scene through the camera settings when some parts need to be de-emphasised.

I hope that you found at least one image interesting.

Niels Henriksen

Web Makes Poor place for Photographs

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:14:00 +0000

I was working on set of images from a walk I did about 2 weeks ago to shoot from the top of a large hill, which was the highest point in a radius of 25km. While I was trying to bring out all the fine detail of leafless branches this winter scene it occurred to me that the blog readers will not truly be able to see this detail and therefore may not appreciate the quality of this image. In a large print It is fun to explore the different parts as you scan about the image.

With the other problems I have had with some images being displayed on the web I thought that the web just isn’t that great a place to show your images if you are trying to manage your quality. This is an over simplification as there are many images that do look just fine on the web, but there are still problems.

Fine Detail

The images I display as well as those from many other photographers have been reduced in detail to make them easier to see on a computer monitor. I mostly keep mine to a max width of 800 pixels. Most of the blog readers have resolution 1280 pixels wide or less. There are a few at 1920 px but this seems to be the maximum size. This is a reduction of more than 1/5th in image size.

Any images larger than this resolution will either get compressed by the browser to fit the screen resolution or the viewer will have to scroll around to see all parts of the image. Not the best of solutions. Nothing beats looking at a well-made photograph when printed 16x20 inches in size.

This image was created using 3 Adobe Camera Raw smart layers. The base layer was set to normal default settings, which keeps some of the softness in the treetops. For another layer I increased clarity and the luminance and saturation for the yellow, orange colours and reduced for the cyan and blue channels. I then masked in some parts to give them more visual punch to these parts of the image: the yellow tree branches and the white birches. For the last layer I wanted the distant hills to have more of a cool darker blue tone.

Color Temperature

At first I thought that this was only applicable to monitor White Balance settings, where most people have the monitor set too high in colour temperature, either 7,500 or 9,000K which will tend to make any subtle purple tones almost completely Blue in Hue.

But this also happens with prints where the colour temp of the lights, from Red incandescent, to the blue of bright fluorescents impact the colours. The eyes have the ability to auto correct and therefore it is hard to see a colour cast when viewing a print, but it is still there. If you have ever been in an underground parking and observed the colour on a red car under tungsten (3,200K) lighting, it almost has a muted brown-orange hue, not the bright red you se outside in daylight

It seems that either medium has its own set of colorcast problems. Monitor having too much blue cast and home indoor lighting either too much red (incandescent) or fluorescent ( can be blue or red).

I used 2 B&W layers to create this final image. The first layer I increased the luminance and saturation in ACR for the yellow and green channels and darkened the blue and cyan for the sky. I wanted the green pine needles to go very light when I applied a B&W layer in Photoshop. With the large reduction in Blue channels the sky went to dark near the top and the bottom edge stayed light. By creating another ACR smart layer I could control the sky color better and with its own B&W adjustment layer and then I masked in this sky.

Dot Size

Most monitors these days are LCD types and these have sharp edge contrast to do the construction of the pixels. There are no gradations between LCD pixels, it goes instantly from one color to the next.

Most of the current ink jet printers using a print dot range of 240-360 dpi create images that have ultra fine and subtle tone and edge transitions. I have always enjoyed a printed image over its LCD version even at higher resolutions.

It was an icy cold day and the camera did correctly capture the cold hue in the shadows. There are times where you don’t want WB corrected.

Screen Contrast

By far, this is the one attribute that causes the largest photo alterations. I have 2 sets of double LCD monitors. One is calibrated, the other is only a cheaper type used mainly for pallets and tools. On the cheaper monitor the photos all look drastically different.

I know exactly how my images should look and when I also observe on other monitors, there are drastic tonal changes. Darks becoming brighter and high light tones being almost blown out. Many displays tend to increase the contrast of the image.

Just a slight LAB adjustment to increase color contrast.

Summary

No medium is perfect I on average I find more consistent results from printed images but how do you display your works of art and hopefully convey to someone remotely the quality you intended when they are viewing on questionable display monitors.

I don’t have any answers to solve this but I know when I display in a gallery or art fair at least the viewer and I are looking at the image in the same light.

Niels Henriksen

Book Review – A Digital Photographer’s Guide to Model Releases

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:23:00 +0000

This weekend I was out shooting in cold weather. Very cold weather at –20c (-4F) and luckily, on one-day, bright sunny skies and no wind. I did bring my beaver tail snowshoes but the snow depth was only about 6-8” in most places and I decided to just hike around in my big boots. I was hiking up to a rocky knoll that has a 40km (25m) view of the surrounding area. I was hoping something would show up. While I do stay in a nice warm cabin when not outside I don’t quite have the amenities (computer) to really see if I got any decent photos.

That is why I decided to do a review of a book that was related to photography during the quiet times when I was by the fire.

But first, a photograph since this is a photography Blog

disposable film camera and negative scanned

This is a 21 foot stitch-and-glue method sea kayak (Tred Avon) I built then my son and I are off the coast of Maine on the Maine Island Trail in the early 90s.

In hindsight, since I didn’t plan it that way (maybe subconsciously) but the paddles, right rock face and the background islands all create visual directions to focal point which is the positioned kayak.

A Digital Photographer’s Guide to Model Releases

While in Chapters bookstore one time for my regular routine of “grab a hot drink at Star
Bucks and a magazine or photography book” and sit at Chapters for a good read, I came across this book and decided to buy it.

As yet I haven’t had experience with model releases or other photography related licensing requirements but I do have almost 20 years experience with government contracting and therefore by extension contract law and particularly with rights and liability needs.

The book is written by Dan Heller, a renowned photographer with many years experience who has a blog Dan Heller.

Early on, Dan does a good job of explaining that law is not a mathematical formula applied to any situation but rather legislation and legal ruling may have overlapping coverage under model releases and therefore competing needs.

He actually explains this way better than I can.

I will briefly describe the 7 Chapters in the book.

Part 1: So everybody’s doing it. So what is right?
This chapter provides a basic overview of the model releases within the many photography usages as well as people’s misconceptions about the facts.

Part 2: What’s a model release?
This section describes, in layman’s terms, the legal structure (parts) of a model release and most importantly ties in the three views that impact a model release (Subject, Photographer, Publisher).
It addresses who is responsible for having and obtaining these model releases and it also discusses litigation that may arise from the different views.
Also how to think about the subject when running a business.

Part 3: Understanding Use
This section goes into a good amount of detail on defining what photo publishing means and an understanding of the various ways photos are used, such as editorial, fine-art and art work, commercial, satire and how the photographer acquired the image. Also, self-publishing and self-promotion.

Part 4: Analysing the Need for Model Release
This section helps you walk through the process of deciding factors and needs for a model release as well as analysing the risks for possible usages of a photo. It examines different obligations that arise from how the photographer obtained images and then ultimately conveyed related information to the publisher.

Part 5: Dissecting a Model Release
This section provides guidance on who owns photo (work-for-hire, commercial shoot, freelance) - your own model release and pitfalls with boilerplate templates. The creation of a simple release.

Part 6: Dealing with Photos as Properties
This section describes the legal need for, and many usages of, model releases for other than persons, such as buildings, trademarks. It provides guidance on how these objects can be used within photos and what situations require a model release for property.

Part 7: The Business of Licensing
This section helps you decide in your business life on when is feasible to obtain model releases

Summary

Because of the nature of this subject, and as Dan clearly articulates, it is not practical to give little tips on model releases here. There is a whole set of context that surrounds the need for a release that it is important to understand the guiding principles before you start interpreting an idea into your different situation.

The book as a whole is well written in every day language and provides many examples from the every day needs of photographers. It provides an adequate understanding of this very complex subject.

It won’t negate the need for a lawyer in complex or risky circumstances, but will help you understand better when such a subject matter expert is needed. It won’t make you an expert on the subject, as this whole field is just too complex.

As a photographer, Dan has included very many photos of every day people out and about across the whole globe. Many of the chapters have references to court cases that help to demonstrate issues. Dan brings a lot of practical experience to the many nuances of writing, obtaining, and using model releases.

Recommendation
Price $36 CDN, $33 US
272 pages

I would guess that about ½ is wording and the other are images with little sticky notes for emphasis of key thoughts.

If you plan to submit to stock images site or undertake commercial and even wedding photography then I would recommend this book as providing a good and well-rounded guide on the subject of Model Releases.

I enjoyed this book and will keep it as a reference on this subject. There were even a few paragraphs that I used the highlighter on.

Niels Henriksen

Disclosure:
I have not received any monies or gifts from the author or any business related to publishing or distribution of the book.

Masking a Yellow & Blue Flower

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:39:00 +0000

Where I live, a deep cold sets in every now and then (Ottawa the coldest capitol in the world). The one good point about –33 degrees is that it doesn’t matter whether it’s in C or F. It’s the same and it’s very cold.

This week I thought I would take a review of some of my sunnier and warmer images and I had one subject in mind. While on route through the hard drive folders, I came across an image that for some surprising reason has always peaked my interest but as yet never experienced any playful adjustments. What better is there to do on such a cold day.

Part of the interest with this image was that I thought I could create more colour contrast between the yellower parts of the flowers and the yellow-green and darker lower parts of the flowers. Another appeal was from my previous article Winter Fog – Great Photography Weather , which looked at creating masks. Sometimes it’s just fun to play.

I thought with just the right mask I could add more blue and cooler tones to the under world and with the very yellow flower heads I could make them warmer (orange) and increase the contrast of the softer petals.

For the blue changes I duplicated the layer and used LAB mode to adjust both the blue and green channels and then converted back to RGB mode.

Initially I tired using the same techniques as last time but as you can see from the original camera image below there is really only varying tones of lime colors and the copy/paste and fade to screen or multiply didn’t give me the right separation for a mask.

Another Method to find a Mask

It hadn’t occurred to me before and maybe some of you are already using this method, but in camera RAW with the temp adjustment and the curves and B&W adjustment I should be able to create a good mask. A Photoshop layer can also be created with the adjustment layers but I find the color temp along with the 2 extra colours available in the RAW adjustments that this is better than a Hue/Sat and a B&W layer.

It was easy to create 4 similar but slightly different masks, as I wasn’t sure which would work best for the changes I was going to make.

Top Left
Standard B&W RAW setting
I just set the HSL / Grayscale tab to ‘convert to grayscale’ and a slight yellow increase and then imported the image through ‘the ‘Place’ function in Adobe Bridge.

Top Right
Hue and Sat B&W
I increased the yellow and orange and decreased the green and blue channels.

above image is 1200x800

Bottom Left
In this version I maxed out the orange and red and left the yellow at 70%, the rest remained the same. This mask was for parts that were more pure yellow less green or cool tones.

Bottom Right
H&S Curves B&W
In this version I used the Curves Tab in RAW for radical adjustments to create more of a true mask. The other settings being set as before.

The 2 bottom masks seemed useful and with a slight bit of cleaning up these would work as masks.

The blue leaves and the darker greens were created in LAB on one layer and masked in. On other layers, curves and hues with mask were used to increase warm colours and contrast of these parts.

I often use the ‘Difference’ mode on some layers as image file is being created. You never know what strange beauties will emerge. The blue flower version was created by using several layers and the mask above played with blend mode. I then used a hue-sat adjustment layer on the left image to change the hue of the blue flowers to red flowers.

You may wonder why and sometimes I do also, but I do find a certain charm in their abstractness developed from a photo image.

Niels Henriksen

Winter Fog – Great Photography Weather

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:08:00 +0000

I was going to say the ”best” weather but I’m sure that it’s not really the case as there are a few downsides over more perfect weather, especially if you hate the cold and then have to be near cars when there is fog.

Still I think this is an excellent opportunity to take great outdoor photographs.

There are 2 photographic styles that winter fog (snow on ground and fog) has the ability to enhance, such as simplify a scene and abstractness.

Simplify

There is much said about our need to simplify our photographic images. To reduce the clutter that takes our focus away from the focal point(s).

In sunnier weather this can be achieved by in-camera or after cropping of extraneous material out of a scene. Using a shallow DOF to blur background when foreground is the interest or evening using contrast to affect elements within the scene.

Fog naturally achieves a lot of this by itself by simplifying the image into those parts that are still visible within the fog. Add winter and especially snow cover and it has become even more simplified in texture.

This is the actual mask created for one of the images and was completed in under 3 minutes.

Abstractness

Abstract image allows the viewer to see an object that is either being lit a certain way to reduce full visual detail or at angle to leave out some detail to make you wonder exactly what you are seeing.

Fog and snow does some of this by removing detail, as clarity quickly diminishes as distance increases or may be lost into the fog.

This time, while out driving, I did stop when there was any inkling of interest in the landscape. I thought a few images would be good candidates for selective contrast adjustments and they were already nearly B&W in colour depth.

Photoshop Enhancements

In this series of images I wanted the majority of focus to be on the trees in the foreground and I used several techniques to enhance these trees, at the same time reducing the clarity of any other elements, in some way, as if the fog had been stronger.

The key element was to darken and increase the contrast of the foreground trees and soften and reduce contrast for objects in the background.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 through the ACR Interface allows you to load both layers into a Photoshop file. One set to enhance the softness of Fog and the second loaded as a smart layer with different ACR settings.

Base Layer
Clarity set to –80

And another layer adjusted to make the tree branches stand out better and loaded as a smart-object.
Clarity set to +80

There just needs a mask created to permit the finer detail of the branch layer to show through and then final curves layer to adjust brightness in some tonal ranges.

Quick and Simple Method to create fine detail Mask

It might seem at first glance that creating a mask for the 3 trees would be a laborious job but there are simple tools to quickly help you make such a mask.

For this type of masking, I usually do the editing directly on the channel layers Tab but for Photoshop Images I also did same using normal Photoshop layers. Either way it will work fine.

For these types of masks with fine detail, it’s always good to zoom into regions of the branch tips where background is to be removed. I carefully watch the branch tips during any of the adjustment processes.

The next set of 6 images shows the progression of changes through the various steps.
Not all masks will need this many steps. The process remains the same until there is good enough separation of mask and then a little cleaning for final mask.

Since I am mainly using Screen mode to further lighten the background, I will adjust the curve of each mask to first compensate for this overall lightness. I apply a curves layer first to set the black point of curve near the left most part of histogram, which also extends the range of blend mode effect.

In the Channel Tab method I would duplicate the best of the RGB channel (contrast separation) and then in this order

Cntrl-M (set curves)
Cntrl-A (select all –channel)
Cntrl-C (Copy all)
Cntrl-V (Paste back into same channel)
Then before anything else, FADE to desired blend mode

For the purpose of this article, I will be using the standard layers in Photoshop to create the mask. The first image was made using the channel method.

Duplicate Blue channel to new layer

Curves layer and set dark point to 0/50

Cntrl-Alt-Sft-E which takes all active layers and makes a new layer on top. This layer will then be set to Screen mode for contrast effect.

For channel method
Copy channel (select All and Copy and then Paste into itself and fade to screen mode.

Then new curves layer and set dark point to 0/28

Cntrl-Alt-Shift-E once more and set to screen mode

I then quickly create a mask for the 3 trees by going around the branch edges and then filling the rest of the trees. In the Channel Tab mode I just erased the lighter background material. This mask may be used later and that is why I created it.

Use mask to duplicate layer and set to Multiply mode to darken the trees

Then a final curve Cntrl-M with low point set to 0/120 to really darken the mask and we have the mask image shown as the second image in this article

It may seem a little convoluted but when you are familiar with the copy-paste and fade to blend mode on channel masks then these become second nature as you play around to see which mode produces the best effect you want.

This close-up section shows how the branch tips are being preserved through the copy and fade actions and the few curves adjustments. (Normal, Blue Channel), the 2 screen blends and then the final with the multiply layer and mask.

In the above image you can just make out the outline of a house on the right side of the image.

Another Fog image this time with a singular tree in foreground and the soft tree shapes in the backgound

Niels Henriksen

For a fellow blogger who has done horses in the past I included a workhorse playing around in the fields further down the road.

Creativity Ideas

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:06:00 +0000

A milestone such as anniversary dates (Blog launch) or calendar dates (New Year) provides a good opportunity to reflect on your goals, artistic directions, how well you are on your path and most importantly a time of celebration. I like the last part best, as I think it is very important to celebrate any success that you have achieved and not necessarily at the opinion of others who may not always understand your creative ideas.

With a New Year beginning I thought I would reflect a little and at the same time suggest some ideas that might spur new photographic opportunities.

There are many words, maybe too many, written about creativity, about being creative and the freeing of the inner spirit as if there were some scientific formulae that we could all apply. Unfortunately that is not the case.

The one main thing that I do believe is that creativity is opposite to the task of living, at least for most of us. What I mean is that the everyday, logically, right-brain side, task oriented, approach to our lives does not generally allow us to be creative. There are many people whose daily job is all about creativity, but I would imagine that even these people have deadlines and pressures and therefore use a kit of tools to kick-start the imagination. The key piece they have is that they regularly practice a variety of techniques to stay on the imaginative region.

It is only when our mind is free; to wander, to explore, to not accept the status quo on what is ‘good art’ that we may find creative thoughts and with some skill and persistence create artistic works.

I do have one measure that lets me know when ~~the force~~ creativity is strong. It doesn’t mean I am creating great or even good works but there is a chance. This is when I am oblivious to most of life around me. I enjoy so much what I am doing that time doesn’t matter.

With this article I selected an image I enjoyed from each of the last twelve months starting with November. I thought that last December’s images were too fresh to reshow so soon. Showing images is the celebrating part. In the last year I posted 320 of my images.

In-line with the theme ‘twelve’ I thought I would also suggest 12 new ideas that might help you peruse creative routes. There is another 12 related idea and I will explain this latter. If nothing else, I hope that the best part is that there are a couple of ideas that get you smiling about images you are taking.

I would be pleased to hear your ideas or suggestions or any other thoughts on this subject.

Stop for 21 days

I need to get this drastic method out first, which includes all photographic related events therefore, no shooting, editing, or related photographic readings. Sometimes you need a holiday from yourself especially if you are working too hard at it. Or feeling frustrated about your progress or current state of mind.

As with any recipe, season for your own taste and pick any number of days you like and adjust to your own needs, but make it long enough that you are longing to try new avenues of exploration.

Quick Sketch

Take a small note pad and sketch, with a few lines as possible, a subject in front of you. It doesn’t have to be accurate or good or anything special. Just the practice of reducing scenes into simple lines, shapes and patterns will help you to better see compositions when looking through the view finder

Hang around wild ones

We do tend to enjoy the company of like-minded people with similar interests. But if you could go out shooting with someone who is completely different from your approach, this cannot help but be a learning experience. It might feel a bit painful if too radical but it should open up your vision to new ways of thinking.

This could include three year olds as this Christmas my granddaughter was allowed to use point and shoot camera. There was a special awe in the moment as I watched her look through the tiny viewfinder and the flash continuously firing away as she moved around the room. I thought I should try that sometime.

Wait an Hour before Photo Swimming

When getting to a place to begin your image taking, sit and wait an hour. Take in the whole scene; understand how time and people or things move through this space. Think about how you relate and how your images can explain this place or subject. Then go in the deep end, at least figuratively.

Words a Day

I was talking to a close friend the other day about creative ways that she could once again write more. One of the ideas discussed was to write a small number of words a day (I love easy to complete learning tools) with whatever struck her fancy.

The next day I thought that this would be interesting for me. A method to distil little things into a few words is another way of seeing with words. In line with this theme I am now writing twelve (12) words a day mostly about objects around me. I may have several such per day, but at a minimum there will be one a day. Doesn’t have to be good, just the process describing is enough. It’s only been a few days now but on 2 occasions after completing the test I later got up to actually take a picture of the object.

For those who would like to see how good or bad my words are I have created a blog to capture some of these words. Of course it is called “Twelve words a Day”.

Let Others give you 12 image Photo Theme

Ask someone who might understand your passion about photography and ask them to give you a theme or subject for you to shoot twelve images (there’s that 12 again). This could be family members, friends or fellow photographers or even another type of artist.

While there is not a need to present your collection, it would aid your creative process to either discuss results with the person who suggested or even post images and observations to a blog.

To any who might wish, I would be happy to give you a theme as long as I can see some of your current images.

A Project
Start a project to explore and document a passion you have about elements of our life whether it be new trends, your favourite pursuit or hobby or entities that are to be lost to time except as recorded by photographers.

This may be a little more daunting or demanding while the work is on going but when completed there is a unique satisfaction with your body of work. A project allows you to explore a theme over a longer period of time and in so doing your own ideas and visions may be re-focuses as time progresses.

Last year I participated in SoFoBoMo (Solo Foto Book Month) project.

I definitely found this challenging and not only did I have 32 photos ready, I also had to learn and publish a book with the results within a one-month time frame. A little stressful but great fun once completed.

Lesson leaned:

I went completely artistic with layout, but this lead to a problem that not all mass-market (less costly) book publishers could handle the photo layout. This year I will choose a standard template so I can have the book printed without high-end cost of a completely custom layout.

This year it will be starting up again and please check SoFoBoMo status update from the blog Mussing on Photography by Paul Butzi

Photo a Day

A standard practice with many photographers and bloggers. But don’t fret if you miss a day or two or that no images are the finest artistic quality. This should be fun and not a chore and should help you to better see compositional images in the everyday objects and life around you.

Go on a Photowalk

Check Facebook or other social media tools for online clubs or even join a motor and brick club and see which photowalks are planned. There are even professional photographers who organize and charge for their photowalks. Not a bad investment.

Why not organize your own photowalk. Choose a location, time and route. Have people meet at a convenient place for a starting point and do suggest a location like a coffee shop to meet afterwards for some good camaraderie. Do have an alternate date or place in case of bad weather

Take a Bus

Hop on local bus, subway, train or bicycle and decide to get on and off on many of the stops and take images of the street/landscapes or objects around you.

GPS your spot

Pick an area on a map that you can assign GPS coordinates and establish a grid range that is feasible to shoot within. Randomly pick out the longitude and latitude coordinates and go and shoot whatever you find. Do give yourself some flexibility in case the coordinate is deep inside concrete.

Even use a map on a dartboard and who knows where you will wind up.

Progression Series

For a period of time, either take new images or review works completed and see what can be learned about yourself. This could apply to many ideas above especially the photo-a-day. The one key is to wait about 6 months or more so that your judgement will not be too biased with recent mental images.

Summary

There is no need to share this work with others because once you begin, you start to judge your work and that’s not the intent of exploring creative approaches. It should be just for the pure fun of seeing what happens with no rules or constraints on what’s acceptable.

Keep the guidelines simple or adapt as you go along so that there is no failure to complete.

Niels Henriksen

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The Original LegoLand – Denmark

npnh@rogers.com (nielsp) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:09:00 +0000

One of the big tourist attractions when you visit Denmark is to see LegoLand where it originally started. It’s on the same scale as the Taj Mahal or Petrus but it is one place that you should visit, especially if there are young kids or you have not quite left that mind set.

Legoland is all about colour and even these carts for parents to place their kids are brightly coloured.

While most of the day was spent with the family and the young kids running around looking at scale model of buildings, train rides and amusement activities, I thought I would also see if I could use my camera to render parts of the park interestingly.

Reproduction of Nyhavn tourist harbour in Copenhagen, Denmark

The lego trains ride around on the tracks and the old locomotives even exhausts steam.

Under the water are tiny cables and the boats move on a course through the canals.

There are models of Fredensborg Castle were prince Fredrick Henriksen (hey that’s my name but no relation) lives with his wife Mary. The Danish royalty only use their first name and it was when prince Fredrick lived in USA that he was forced to take a last name. He chose Henriksen, an old historic Danish name.

A photo of the real castle is shown below, but at a more realistic street angle.

It’s not all about Denmark as throughout the park are many other models such as the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, 4 US presidents and many others and of course, the NASA Space shuttle and launch pad.

Legoland is just not about the recreation of famous locations in Lego blocks. There are also marching bands

and fun water events at least if you are standing and watching.

From the top of the rotating tower, there is a view of one of the Lego sets.

Thanks for viewing today and through all the year.

To all, whether just up-coming or recently past, have a festive and joyous Christmas, Hanukkah, Islamic New year Muharram and to all other events I may have missed.

Niels Henriksen

There will be no article next weekend but the following in the start of the New Year.