Photo Challenge 7 – Technicolor
February 3, 2009
Yeah yeah, I used the American spelling. Less characters to type, and technicolour just looks weird.
Tech⋅ni⋅col⋅or
/ˈtɛknɪˌkʌlər/ [tek-ni-kuhl-er]
1. Trademark. a brand name for a system of making color motion pictures by means of superimposing the three primary colors to produce a final colored print.
–adjective
2. (often lowercase) flamboyant or lurid, as in color, meaning, or detail.
Steve’s submission
My thoughts:
This is representative of my typical way of thinking about things – left of centre, although I’m sure Mat would have thought of this too. This is a collage of “technical colour” things around my house. I don’t have much else to offer about this image today so I’ll leave it to others for a change. And thanks to Joepi for her help on how to use Photoshop to create a montage/collage or whatever it’s called.
Joepi’s submission
Joepi says:
Sinulog is a festival held in Cebu every year on the 3rd weekend of January. It is the Philippines’ version of Mardi Gras (sans the nudity as this is a religious festival).
The colors you see being displayed for you in the Grand Parade are just plain fabulous and earns the “WOW Philippines” tourism tagline. Among the hundreds of photos I took that day for the uber-technicolor event, I chose this particular photo obviously for the many colors in the photo but also because of the challenge I had in trying to bring out the colors despite a gray sky which dampened the color in a lot of my photos. If anyone has more tips on how to bring out sunny colors on a dreary day, please speak up!
Taken with my Canon 450 D Portrait lens.
My thoughts: An extremely bright image which I think fits the criteria of our theme perfectly. Excellent choice of crop, too. I like the tightly cropped portraits. I’ve seen the entire set of Joepi’s Sinulog photos and I have to say that the colours are just great the way they’re presented. In my view the overcast day actually helped them to stand out. Personally I dislike shooting in bright sun as it tends to wash out colours for me. Ken is the light expert, someone might want to wake him up out of hibernation and get his opinion.
Katy’s submission
Katy says:
This shot was taken in a park nearby ages ago. I tried to play with the color blend a bit by rummaging up on PS – channel mixer basically and monochromatic noise set to 15 to make it look old. However, I’m not convinced whether I got the idea right.
My thoughts: This is actually quite similar to how I imagined technicolor movies might look (I don’t watch anything that isn’t in full colour, with lots of explosions and CGI). In my view it also has an old Kodak (or was it Agfa) slide look about it. Hmmm, wonder if that’s why Katy used a slide in the image – to make that connection…
Ken’s Submission
Ken says:
This is a photo i took some time ago of Victor Pender, a local Melbourne musician. I really like the shot as it very much represented his personal style. I like that it has a kind of retro/disco/techno feel.
Victor was sitting on my dining table with black muslin draped behind him. I used a pair of Bowens monolights, one high above to create the butterfly lighting and the other behind to give the green backlight. The spot in the corner and lens flare was applied in Photoshop. I knew as soon as I fired the first shot of this sequence that it would be the best shot of the night.The sharp shadows are created using a small reflector on the light source and keeping the light close to the subject to minimise the light depth of field.This was shot with Nikon’s 28-70mm at f8.0 ISO 100. I tend to always stick to the middle aperature on the Nikon lenses when in studio as they prove to be sharpest and have no distortion. I control the exposure with the lights power adjustments.
My thoughts: I always remember a couple of things that Ken has taught me, and one is the use of F8 on my studio lenses to get the sharpest images. I also marvel at how he thinks through the lighting to create the end result. Years of experimentation and practice, I suppose. This is a superb portrait of Victor with a lovely touch of dreaminess to take it into the realms of rock. The colours of the lens flare are very cool, and I like the slightly muted, rusty tones.
Mat’s Submission
Mat says:
I was considering heading into the Melbourne CBD to shoot some of the fantastic graffiti art that decorates the city, but with the high temperatures we’ve been having lately I was worried that my camera might melt, or I may spontaneously combust, so instead I decided to shoot a portion of my unfeasibly large collection of t-shirts.
I took a few shots at different exposures and played around with the HDR Merge function in Paintshop Pro to come up with something nice and bright but also a little unnatural. And yes, I do wear these t-shirts on a regular basis!
My thoughts: Yes. Mat does wear these t-shirts. I regularly go home with a headache after he insists on accompanying the orange one, which delights in shouting boorishly at anyone who will listen. Another excellently thought out and composed photo.
Next Challenge
It’s Ken’s turn this time with his suggestion of “Texture“. For your enticement I have a very intriguing and possibly difficult theme coming up after that, suggested by Katy.
Looking forward to all images being submitted by close of the clock on Sunday 15th February.
Update – buying and using a DSLR for beginners
December 10, 2008
A little while ago I posted a link to a site providing some basic info for those making the transition into theworld of the Digital SLR (DSLR).
http://site.rockportrait.com.au/2008/08/27/upgrading-from-a-point-and-shoot-to-a-dslr/
Yesterday I stumbled on CNet’s much better version of this, so I’ve made it available to you all here. The content that really stands out to me is the workflow section. This is a critical component of digital photography yet few actually consider it so until after they enter chaos or panic stage. Once you start creating and collecting all that digital data you really do need a time-effective, and safe means of managing and protecting it. My own process took a while to put together, but works well. I use a number of products to make my life easy (see below), and I store my precious photos in four different locations – the process of which is fully automated. Seems like a lot of trouble? Maybe, but well worth it when the hard drive crashes (it will) or the house burns down (I hope it won’t, but it happens).
Saves me having to go through it with you, although you know I love it 
Please read through this, but if you still want a human being to help you with your questions about getting into the DSLR side of things, feel free to get in touch.
The main tools of my trade:
GretagMacbeth Display Calibrator – not the best available, but cheap, and if you are serious about making great shots you need to calibrate your monitor regularly.
BreezeSys Downloader Pro – I couldn’t live without this. With very little input It allows me to create and populate all the backup locations I need, as well as add the EXIF data (image identification and copyright info) and rename and deliver all my images to my working directories. It kicks in the moment my camera or card reader is detected by the computer.
BreezeSys Breezebrowser Pro – not critical, but a useful and rapid way of creating proofs. It will do a lot more, but I use Lightroom for my other image manipulation requirements.
Adobe Lightroom – The best thing for photographers since sliced cheese, and almost replaces Photoshop. An affordable way to manage and manipulate your images, including the output stages – web pages, printing, uploading, slideshows. Supports plugins and extensions. The latest version lets you make locational changes like spot removal and specific exposure modifications without affecting the entire image. Most of all I love the filter plugins – make’s black and white and wild effects so easy.
Google Picasa – Hey! You other photographers out there, don’t laugh! For a free product this thing is amazingly good. When it comes to my snapshots (you know, the non-pro stuff I’m sure you all do as well?) I want a really fast way of polishing my images and getting them online. This does exactly that. And don’t underestimate how good the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button is. They’re a clever bunch those Googleheads. And yes, I’m a fanboy. 
Adobe Photoshop – The beeze neeze of photography tools, but becoming less relevant as Lightroom ramps up. Far too expensive for anyone but genuine pros, but also by far the best product out there to fully control your images.
Wacom Pen Tablet – Until you’ve used one of these you think the mouse is all you need. However, making accurate exposure changes, and drawing objects in and out of images is so much more natural with a pen tablet.
Syncback – Do you backup? I bet you don’t. Hey, almost no-one does! In every job I’ve worked in the backup process wasn’t refined, and in some cases didn’t even exist, until after a disaster. So – BACKUP!!!! OFTEN!!! Syncback has a free version that does everything for you when you are asleep.
Filezilla FTP Client – Finally, you need a way to get your images online if you are running your own web server (easier than you might think). Why give your copyright away to Flickr, Myspace or Facebook? (Did you even know you were doing that?) Host your own images. Use FTP to manage your site.
That’s all for today. Have fun installing and playing with your new workflow management tools!
