September Sunflower: dltphoto

My favourite view on my daily cycle to work has been a solitary Sunflower which just gets the tiniest drop of sun first thing. Sure glad I carry a little reflector with me. Both images were shot with my phone.

Follow Bert, Offload Studios: dltphoto

So I am working with a new partner in crime, a right-hand man, wing-man, sidekick. His name is Bert!
Follow Bert and his adventures at Offload Studios Facebook Group or if you prefer follow #wheresbert on instagr.am.
Bert needs more friends as the world seems dauntingly large to him.

He is friends with Lucy!

APAC Photoclub Submissions, September 2012: dltphoto

Well, Its photoclub season again. This means submitting new images to be critiqued and butchered by "experienced" judges in the photo judging industry!.. Hahahahah, not really! well maybe somewhat.

So the Judge for this first month was Francois.. no, Francoise... umm I forget, lets call him Frank for short. Frank was very specific about how he wants to see images. He wants them "RAZOR SHARP", and I quote "images need to be Razor Sharp".
Fortunately  my images were "RAZOR SHARP", sadly one was of a sunset type scene. Frank suggested if your going to submit Sunset Scenes, it had better be spectacular because he's seen them all. Wonderful! this exhibition night should be interesting.

Sunset on Lake, score 8

First up was my shot in the Landscape category, As you see I scored an 8, which is really not a bad score in the photoclub world. I guess the only way to have scored a 9 or 10 would have meant that my image needed to be "spectacular". Its not your stereo typical sunset, its bold and vibrant. Actually it shows very little of the sunset since its just a reflection/ ambient shot. 

So, feeling pretty good about myself so far. Next up a Film Marco shot I did which I featured in a previous post "Pink Wheat". Having enter film images before and watching them being judged up against digital images and imaging wizardry, I have decided to enter them through the digital process without people knowing its film. The Judges are now so used to manipulated images that they aren't able to assess film images the way they should.

Needless to say my second entry into the "macro" category scored me a repeated 7. I didnt expect to score so well anyways. Its a random shot with shallow depth of field that really makes the image kind of messy, since the wheat was blowing in the wind, it was a case of rapid shooting to get one good one. Perhaps if I attempted some better selective cropping it could work better. I am really not a "special effects" type person, I enjoy good "razor sharp" images that I can capture in the camera and tweak mildly in programs like Lightroom. I am soooo not a heavy filter on top of filter type of guy. I am going to keep sticking to my plan and the photography I enjoy. Good "razor sharp" images as close to out of camera as possible and hopefully they will look "spectacular". Is that OK Frank?

 We did have an assigned topic for this month, "though a window", but alas I didnt have anything I thought really worthy that might score well. No need to put in something I personally wouldn't have scored well. This was a pic I considered but it wasn't crying out to me.

The Egyptian Pyramids of Abbotsford: dltphogr.am

http://instagr.am/p/PpH6-Bq34x/

"But my phone takes better pictures...":dltphoto

Sadly, I hear this all to often. What can you say to this? YES, certainly a Phone is a handy device. More than likely you have it on at all times and as Chase Jarvis says, "the best camera is the one you have with you", at least I think Chase thought that up. However, NO your phone is not better than a camera. The final output is so much better with an actual camera. Now I have been promoting the use of a phone as a cool imaging device, and that's what it is, Cool, Handy, Quick, Convenient. Sometimes, if the scene is right, it can be hard to tell a phone shot from a camera shot, but it doesn't  replace a real camera.

Below are two images of the same scene, but dramatically different in look. One from my Nikon DSLR, and the other from my Samsung Galaxy S Phone.

In my eyes the more intriguing image is the first one. Its far more interesting with the wonderfully shallow depth of field that can be only created by the superior talents of a real camera, I could probably add some fancy action to the phone image, like a tilt-shift effect to make it more appealing but I still don't have the in-camera control to get the shot the way I want.

So, Yes a phone creates fun images but a REAL camera creates much BETTER images as long as you are willing to learn it!

Further to that... here are two images below. One with my phone and one with another camera, cropped to almost the same shot and both straight out of ummmm, well Camera!!!! Can you tell?

August 2012, Favourite Shot: dltphoto

On our way back from our last camping trip with stopped off just past Hell's Gate at Alexandra Bridge. I have seen it from the main road many times but since we were "kid-less", we thought it a good opportunity to explore it. It was baking hot during the 15 minute walk to get down to the cool old bridge!

The bridge deck, which I cant imagine is the original deck was a really cool, yet weird, metal link design. The kind where you really don't want to drop anything small you might be holding, like a phone or compact camera, otherwise they are gone forever in the gushing Fraser river.

This particular shot it s a little off-putting, it tricks my eyes into thinking the top of the shot is wider than the bottom, yet it is a very straight rectangle of course, cameras don't lie! Does it do the same for you?

Cross Processing..was it a happy accident?: dltphoto

  Slide film development is a colour reversal  process allowing a positive image instead of the classic negative, there is also a technique of doing it incorrectly, purposefully, to reach an entirely different end result. This has become commonly known as Cross Processing.
I imagine someone sometime ago accidentally, not on purpose, developed there Slide film in the colour negative process and was probably jolly ticked off, however, after calming down found the results to be somewhat interesting!

Instead of the Slide film (E6 process) going into the correct chemical procedure, putting it into the regular (C41 process) film negative process can render some very interesting results.

 Firstly, its no longer a Positive, please remember back to holding up slides to the light and seeing a positive image (Fig A) you may have to go back a few years!!

Fig A

Anyways, since we are scrapping this correct process the film now becomes a negative! ( Fig B)

Fig B

 Now we have run it through the in-correct chemicals we have also "tainted" the colours in the process. We should now expect a higher contrast and bolder colours in the cross processed negative. This can lead to blown out highlights and sometimes loss of detail.... but we are monkeying with the correct process. Its our own fault. ummmm Blah blah blah..... here's the good stuff!

Granny & Grumpa's Antiques, Abbotsford: dltphoto

I was introduced to an unbelievable new shooting location by one of my photo accomplices, right under our noses here in Abbotsford on the Circle Farm Tour. I didn't have much of an idea of what I was really going to see there. Next time I visit I should have a goal or a topic to shoot, since there is SO much to see there, It was quite overwhelming. Barns and barns full of, well... junk. At least junk to someone, collectable works of art to others. Expected to only spend an hour or so there, we ended up calling it a day 3 hours later, and really still didn't do the place justice from a photographic point of view. (check Wallace's Post)
Mainly I could see more "instagr.am" style shots than really good photo content. Many signs and random objects that you wouldn't normally see. Overall after being kind of wow'ed by the place for the first hour or so I settled in to some shooting. Since it was all so packed in and dark the use of flash became apparent. For some reason though I couldn't get my  flash mojo going. Maybe it was my accidental foot dunk into a murky green bog thing, the concrete surrounding it  had a small channel built into it with  rotten plywood covering it... note to self, don't walk on plywood on concrete. Fortunately nothing got damaged, a few scrapes on the equipment and the leg, but it all still works. Could have been a lot worse!

The Pea Soup-Green Bog

The "Hole"

Plenty of textures to be had. That part I really enjoyed. Anything old and rusty is going to photograph well. I found a couple of old ornate radiators basking in the sun....texture heaven