Analog diversions

 

I picked some old photos of mine, and reproduced them using digital camera. But instead of just making copies of them, I experienced some “analog tricks” to “show old pictures in new light”. This is something I have always liked to do: combine multiple slides together and shoot objects together with pictures either projected or as prints. In some way it is much more interesting and rewarding than using “digital sampling”. And some of the pictures I worked with during last week were already kind of experiments.  Then on shooting old dia slides with macro lens, I used back lights that are far from ideal all around white light. The Shaman was especially fun experiment where I used color pencil to get some color to the picture. I just colored the paper behind the negative and then inverted it on software.

Bin can box

 

 

I’ve been trying to learn how to use ‘curves tool‘ on GIMP. It is very useful tool for adjusting the contrast and brightness selectively in very similar way as one would use sound equalizer on music player. With extreme adjustments it can been done such things as ‘solarization‘ aka Sabatier effect. Less dramating editing can be done to make the dark areas lighter and vice versa. But the best thing about curves tool is that it is fun.

Have a seat

 

Have a seat and fasten your seatbelt. The journey is about to begin. Through the shadows and twilight is where we are heading, no other map to use but the stars at sky. Past the Orion we go first but what horizons open after that, we do not know.
Cut the tree, arrange the benches around the stump and have a nice place for a picnic in the park.
You sit and wait for time to pass, and you smoke to make it pass sooner. But sooner you even realize, time has passed alright and there’s no more time left.
You buy a design chair for your spacious balcony. Then you ran out of money and move into smaller flat and put the chair on a smaller balcony shared with other apartments. Then you move again into even smaller flat where’s no balcony anywhere, and you leave the chair behind, and let others to puzzle what to do with the very unpractical chair.
You spend hours for grooming or being groomed. You wish to sense or to become sensed. Is that all there is?
You sit on a chair that simulate sitting. You pedal a device that simulates bicycling. You row another that simulates rowing. And so on, you do things on simulators to live longer. But don’t you think you miss the life while sitting?
So, you had enough of sitting. Or did not, but you lasted longer than your sofa.

Gravity lessons


In dreams everyone can fly without any strains of gravity. The flying dreams are especially common for those who practice lucid dreaming where one becomes aware it is a dream what one sees. Best way to achieve this state is to start keeping a dream diary. The point is that one should start to become genuinely interested of dreams and allow them to develop. I used to do this once but then gave up. I miss that and I guess I should start doing that again because I want to fly.

This is actually very similar for anything we do. There are tons of books on “Zen and doing something”. The ultimate lesson there is to become open for all the possibilities. So, you may have some primary goals like to see dreams of flying, but what one should actually do is keep the mind open for anything that can happen.

In photography this is very hard lesson to learn. When I go out with the camera, I often become blind because of some primary goals I have in mind. Therefore I may loose excellent opportunities to discover something completely different than what I was planning to. So, only way to reach the ultimate goal, to become open for all the possibilities, is the quantity. One just have to repeat the process till you get over it and process stops being the primary goal.

Life is a playground

 

I decided to start keeping my daily photos and monkey business series on my own albums, and also to keep some of my older albums updated. Participating to photography groups has been very fruitful and I have learned a lot on photography. However, I have received a point in my hobby where I want to learn more about picture editing, or at least be free to do so if and when I want. Last week I experienced with contrast masking where the idea is to use inverted and desaturated layer as mask to especially get more light into dark areas.

Filtered


I decided to test some old glass filters I have. The idea is to boost the white balance settings and make the pictures look “more exotic”. The best part is that I was able to achieve somewhat vintage look without any post processing, and using glass filters gives much greater control on color tones right on the spot. One option is to set the white balance for cloudy to get warmer tones, and then boost it even more with warming glass filter.

Basic image adjustment

This time I introduce some of the more advanced but still very basic adjustments one can do to improve the photos. But again I’m not just going to write everything again but point out to sources where to find full articles on photo adjustment.
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Quick and dirty tilt and shift effect


I just learned a new trick when reading news from the latest MyOpera member of the week. This so called tilt-shift photgraphy effect is for making pictures look like taken with large format camera or like shooting miniatures with macro lens where the depth of field is very short.

I became interested on the subject, and found some pretty easy instructions on how to do the tilt-shift effect on PhotoShop or on GIMP. Pretty cool or what do you think?