Photography For Your Christmas Giving Needs

If you are a photographer you may already have Christmas gifts ready to go in the My Pictures folder on your computer. If there is someone on your Christmas list who appreciates your fine photographic skills, why not present them with one of your images as a gift? Personally, I hate shopping, especially as the month of December wears on and stores become increasingly crowded. Fortunately, I can take care of at least one gift without leaving the comfort of home. My wife is an avid gardener and each summer I take several photos of her backyard handiwork. Come November, I sort through and pick out four of the best shots and work up a photo collage of her garden. I then have it printed as an 11x14 to fit the frame given as a gift a couple of years ago. On Christmas Eve I sneakily remove the frame from the living room, swap last years collage photo for the new version, box it, wrap it and place it under the tree. One less trip to the mall!

More Wintery Thoughts

When I posted previously on winter photography I honestly thought we had a couple more weeks of fall weather in front of us. No sooner had I set the last bag of leaves out at the curb for pick up than the snow flakes started falling. Looking at the weather forecast for the week ahead, our temperatures will hover in the mid-thirties. Sounds like winter, eh?

For a bit of wintertime photographic inspiration check out this link
http://www.popphoto.com/Features/How-To/Where-to-Shoot-in-December
Even if you can't find your way to the locations mentioned, you may be inspired to search out similar types of December photo ops in and around your own home town.

Don't Hide From Winter

The high temperature for the day after Thanksgiving didn't even break the freezing mark! No doubt about it, winter is moving closer every day. Out door activities are a good way to add a little joy and motivation to venturing outside on a winter day, when hiding out inside where it is cozy and warm seems much more inviting. Skating, cross country skiing and snow shoeing have all been part of my winter activity list through the years.

I'll be the first to admit that getting out to take pictures is much tougher in January than it is in July, but if I am heading out anyway for another activity, then I just make sure my camera is in hand. Ice and snow and the occasional wild creature who crosses your path while on a winter trek can make for interesting picture taking. Don't let the cold temps or a few inches of snow cut you off from the joy of winter photography. Just bundle up and do it!

Cougar On The Prowl

Just added to my on-line art gallery doctorphoto.imagekind.com is an image entitled Cougar On The Prowl. And no, this cougar is not a middle age woman looking for love or a dangerous four legged predator - we're talking the sheet metal and chrome version of a Cougar. Unlike its Ford stable mate the Mustang, Cougars seem to be pretty rare at car shows. I don't know if that is due to lack of sales during its prime years of the Sixties and Seventies or if the vehicle simply wasn't built to last, leaving few to restore. When I saw this one, I photographed it and immediately put it on my list of cars to receive an art treatment.

For my photo illustration I selected a low angle shot and applied a variety of Photoshop filters to the car and the background, treating each separately before merging the two together. As I neared completion of the project I had two versions, one where the Cougar appears relatively straightforward, while the other features a more graphic look. I went with the latter, feeling it was more exciting and dynamic.

What do you think?

A Foggy Notion

When visibility is reduced to less than an 1/8 of a mile during your morning trek to work, fog may not rank high on your list of likes, however for a photographer, fog can come in handy. Think of that heavy pea soup thick mist as natures own soft focus filter. Depending on the subject, the effect can be dreamy or eerie. No need to worry about shooting with a wide aperture setting to minimize a busy background - the fog will take care of it for you. And of you are a fan of monochromatic imagery, once again fog is there to help - muting colors without changing a single camera setting. A misty morning can provide special effects without the use of filters or post processing manipulation - take advantage of it!

Cloudscapes

Recently while paging through a book on Photoshop techniques I came across several very interesting examples of cloudscape shots. By taking his original digital files and manipulating highlights and shadows via the "Levels" adjustment then applying a "High Pass" filter overlay, the photographer created a series of truly dynamic cloud images. Inspired by these photos I began to shoot cloudy skies whenever the formations caught my eye. With a number of shots in the bank I went to work with the most dramatic ones as a starting point for my own cloudscapes. Funny how after working on a project like this the subject matter becomes burned into your brain - I now find myself paying much closer attention to cloud formations that I would have simply ignored in the past. Here are a few of my initial "cloudy" experiments. The "before" image is shown first with the altered version below it.

Morning on Bald Mountain

Mussorsky's "Night On Bald Mountain" is one of the most recognizable pieces of classical music, due in no small part to its inclusion in Disney's Fantasia. Like many people, Fantasia served as my introduction to classical music and the Mussorsky piece remains a favorite to this day. In Oakland County of course we have our own Bald Mountain, although mine was a morning sojourn rather than a night one. It happened to be one of those perfect late Fall days - relatively mild temperatures and lots of sunshine. The one drawback, with the trees mostly bare, was a general lack of color. Working with this limitation I converted a couple of images to black and white, manipulating contrast and density levels in Photoshop to juice them up a bit. Being mid-morning the wildlife was out of sight, so the focus had to be on the surrounding landscape. In the end it was a pleasant but uneventful walk in the woods.