Challenges

Scott’s Call for Color

kanniduba2 Comments

Well well well!  Seems I’ve come alive just in time for Scott’s last photography assignment of 2012!

This new assignment is “Color Composition” and Scott has (as always) included some helpful links to articles on the very subject.  This assignment is due to be posted on or before Midnight (your time zone), Wednesday, November 21, 2012.

Thought I would search through some of my old photographs to see if I could find a few worthy examples.  I found a few, but discovered in my search that I rely much more heavily on line, shape, and placement of the subject than I do on color.  Should be an interesting challenge to focus on just color.

Happy Hunting!!

Driven to Abstraction

kanniduba5 Comments

Well, I’m a day late and a dollar short again, but I figured I would post anyway seeing how I actually have something to post for Scott’s latest challenge!  Abstract photography was the topic, and I have said before how I love making abstract images.  Problem is I have trouble seeing the possibilities without my extension tubes attached. But, the past couple of weeks I’ve been stretching my brain a little to see the abstract around me.

The first image is one I took when I brought home paint swatches to formulate a plan for painting my kitchen…here, the many shades of white:

Next, I was able to capture a glorious morning sunrise…by purposely blurring the shot, it took on an abstract quality:

The next photo was the bark of my maple tree.  I thought it looked a bit like alligator skin, and the texture really jumped out in black and white:

This last one was a photo of the same tree taken during the snowstorm on March 1st.  (Hard to believe it was snowing just 3 weeks ago…it is 80 degrees here today!) I “cheated” and messed around with the shot in post to give it an abstract quality:

So there you have it! I think I’ll be playing with this concept of “abstraction” a bit more in the weeks to come.  But I leave you with a photo that is NOT an abstract, but wanted to share with you anyway…my budding lilac bush.  The buds started to swell on Sunday, and have already gotten this far.  So sweet.

Rule of Thirds

kanniduba4 Comments

So, this assignment from Scott was quite instructive!  I spent time looking at photos that seemed “off” when I made them, but couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted to do to “fix” them.  Turns out the Rule of Thirds helps tremendously.  I also applied straightening to some, sharpening, contrast, and saturation fixes on some.  I could have done this all afternoon, but alas, poor me has to go out to dinner.  😉

Here are the befores and afters.

First up, a shot from Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida:

Another Animal Kingdom shot:

This shot from EPCOT had so many things wrong with it:

But a little straightening, and some cropping, and voila:

And to think I almost deleted that one.

I wasn’t crazy about this next shot when I took it:

But now:

And a last one of one of my favorite local views…the change isn’t dramatic, but I do think attending to thirds makes it better:

Better:

Thanks Scott,  for another lesson!  I will go back to more of my “garbage” shots later.