Lost Aussie on the loose

Strangers In Town

Well, one thing leads to another and you end up with "creatures" from some other place stepping out of the water at Battery Park.

What can I say?  It was a slow news day.....and the boundaries of Photoshop are limited only by your own imagination....

A Little Portrait Makeover

Playing with a little portrait retouching tonight.  Such a pretty model with fabulous eyes, but her skin left a little to be desired.

You can mouseover to see the befores and afters....and it works best if you mouseover the top or bottom.

Oh and I'm pleased to report that the workshop on Saturday was a resounding success.  A full house, 4 hours of project work and Q&A.  I had a great time and really enjoyed being back in the classroom again.  I garnered 5/5 stars in the postworkshop feedback, so that was pretty neat too!

Thanks to everyone who attended and also heartfelt thanks to the "tech support" dude!!

Workshop Prep

I've finished up the prep for the Photoshop workshop I will be doing on Saturday with one of my local Meetup Groups.

We will work on 4 projects during the course of the day, a landscape, a portrait, a painterly textured project and one on compositing images.

The projects have all been designed so that we can work through a basic Camera Raw workflow, Non destructive editing using Adjustment Layers and Layer Masks, Selective Sharpening, adding Textures, using Blend Modes, using Gradient Maps and Gradient Masks.....and whatever else pops up along the way.

Since Photoshop is such a big bag of tricks it's always difficult to know where to start and where to stop and how much folk can absorb in one sitting.....

....so we will see.

I've enjoyed putting my thinking (teacher) cap on again, which will no doubt bode well for those who have been waiting for new classes and been frustrated at all my 'moving" procrastination.

Filter Fun With A Reject

I spent some time tonight working on projects for my workshop this weekend.  Whilst sorting through images to use I was also doing a little housekeeping and trashing some of the less than stellar captures in various folders.

Then I came across this pic, shot in a hotel lobby of some bamboo.  Nothing particularly stellar about the image.  I liked the lines of the plants but was in a hurry, the focus and depth of field is all to heck in a handbasket....quite ready for the rubbish bin.....

or maybe not....

Convert that puppy from RAW back into an 8bit image, fiddle with it using Photoshop's filters and voila, you have a whole new ball game to consider and some pleasing eye candy to boot....

Might not win any prizes as bamboo pix, but I'm betting they will look pretty funky if I print them on Aluminium in all their abstract glory!

Four Freedoms Park at Roosevelt Island, NYC

Today dawned chilly but sunny (for the first time in ages), so we hopped in the go-go mobile and headed for points west, specifically Roosevelt Island, to check out the  Four Freedoms scuplture park.

What a visual feast!  Poised at the southern most tip of Roosevelt Island the park, designed by Louis I Kahn, is simply perfection embodied in terms of symmetry and simplicity, with perspective and architectural lines that draw the eye in every direction, particularly if you have your camera in hand.

Although it was bright and sun shinny, I'd packed my tripod and ND filters in the hopes of snapping a few long exposure shots and was not disappointed.  There was plenty of wind to puff the few clouds along and 16 stops of ND did a good job of toning down all the bright lights....

Long exposure photography is not necessarily a favourite amongst chilly by standers as each capture can take 3 to 8 minutes and in my experience, the hangers on have less patience than the photographer... nevertheless I did manage about 5 decent shots before every one else's patience wore through.

Here's a few that I have worked on tonight.....the blog format does not really do them much justice as each image is around 20 inches wide....but you get the idea!!

and just in case you have no idea what the "Four Freedoms" are or what the park is a tribute to, I've posted and excerpt of Roosevelt's address for you.... courtesy of this website.

 

The "Four Freedoms"
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address to Congress January 6, 1941

 In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

And what can you really say, but Amen to all that!!!!

Tomorrow I'll post some shots of the island and surrounds that I snapped using my fabbo new Fisheye!

And Then A Pop of Color

From Black and White to vibrant, lush colour......

....tinkering with images in Photoshop, specifically some Dahlias that I snapped at the Bayard Cutting Arboretum a few days before Hurricane Sandy hit.  I know the park fared poorly through the storm and am glad that I had the opportunity to visit and take pix while I could.

On the Home front, change is afoot.  We are officially "in contract" to sell our house and steps forward that I have been so keen to make for the past year might actually be within grasp.
No balloons or celebrations yet, as I am a firm believer in waiting until the "deal" is done before I burst out the smiles.  Suffice to say that our buyers seem keen and authentic and I just hope that the next stage of bank and lawyer stuff goes smoothly..... so all positive thoughts in that direction will be appreciated!!

(OK a small happy dance is in order..........just a teensy one, while no-one else is looking!! fingers crossed!)

A Little Black And White Love

1. The NYC Skyline, snapped whilst careening along the BQE.
2. Columns around Philadelphia Independence Mall
3. The Lowry at Salford (UK)

Can I tell you that I love processing images into B&W?  In some respects it seems to be a shame to negate all that color that the uber fantastic sensors can capture these days, but B&W images always seems to  have such a timeless quality about them - to me at least anyway.

And take away the color and your eye becomes focussed on shape, form, texture and light.

Gotham Grunge

A photomontage of images wrought from recent photo shoots via Long Island and 5 Pointz.

A Little 3D Magic

Remember this photo, posted a while back?  Well I had a little "twiddle" with it tonight using Photoshop's 3D tools, making three versions which I then played around with a little bit more.  Doing a bit of dodging and burning and adding a good few layers of texture.

A little more work to be done on the shadows and highlights to get it quite right but a fun experiment nonetheless.

Who knew Dahlias could have so many possibilities?  And the textures I used are part of a new set that I am working on and hope to have "out there" soon....

Meetup Magic

I've had a lot of fun joining in with photography oriented MeetUp groups over the last six months or so.  As you can imagine, in NYC there are many interesting ones to be found.  Not quite so many on Long Island but there are a few and last week I discovered a new one which I met up with today to spend the afternoon shooting models and generally having some fun.

It's a great way to share time with like minded folk and garner a few snippets of knowlege, not to mention the opportunity to share and use studio space and meet models to work with that you might not otherwise be able to do.

Meetup, by the way, is not just for people interesting in Photography, there are groups for almost anything that you can imagine and they are all over the world..... you might like to take a peek and see what you can find to do or share with others in your area!!

I'm going to be hosting a meetup event later this month as part of one group that I belong to.  A day long Photoshop Workshop and it will be FREE to our group members!! Yay!!