Tag: Gimp

Waiting for the Marathon

Today marked the annual Auckland Marathon – New Zealand’s biggest marathon that starts at Devonport on the North Shore, heads into the CBD, out of it to the east bays and back into the CBD again. The more popular half Marathon also takes a similar journey, ending in the CBD rather than continuing on.

For a number of years now I have got back into entering such events, and for the Auckland Marathon, this was my third half, also doing the full marathon several years previous. I think I can firmly say its also my least training half marathon (literally having about 4 runs over the last 3 weeks to get prepared).

There is always an energetic buzz of excitement and nervousness as we count down to begin. Some people are entering for the first time, unsure what to expect, others are old hats, clear what they are getting themselves into. As the first 3-5km pass I run by a number of people who have unfortunately taken off to strong and ended up pulling muscles or twisting joints. The local residents turn out in the mass cheering people on. We hear towards the harbour bridge crossing and the number of runners chatting dies as breaths become louder and faster. The final 3 km’s are torture – not just because the legs want to stop for a walk, but because the sun is fully up, and we are running past the tank farms – local storage of petrol, diesel and the like. Then you finish!

I would have loved to take more images, but this is one such outing where I needed to focus on the goal. I was quite pleased that with limited training, I didn’t stop once throughout the race, and although not a personal best, it was closer to that side than the other. My legs wont be thanking me for it tomorrow though…well they are already complaining!

Image wise, I played around with how to combine and display the ‘in front’ and ‘behind’ me groups, but in the end simply settled on combining the two with a simple boarder divide. They were the only two I snapped as we waited for the countdown. I also added a cross-process filter which helped give the blown out white sky in the left photo a bit of a golden tone.

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Sun Searcher

I think whenever one is struggling to find an interesting shot, its always good to switch to macro and explore the smaller world a little. ‘Cant see the wood for the trees’ is not quite the right expression I am looking for – but sometimes stopping, sitting and looking a little closer opens up a whole new world…’Stop to smell the flowers’?

Today’s shot, ‘Sun Searcher’ came about from a walk I took the other day. It had been a long day, and searching for inspiration felt a little like it was hiding. Taking a short stop I noticed a line of buttercups on the crest of a small grass mound. Almost approaching sunset, the light was getting quite low – the golden hour. I took a few shots and settled on the above for today.

Using Gimp in post processing, I added a cross-processed filter and then adjusted the levels more to my liking. Something about cross-processing always adds a bit more of a ‘memory’ effect to images. Its quite popular with a range of modern smart-phones (and digi cameras) at present – a sort of instant retro I guess.

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The ‘Behind’

When out looking for shots, whether it be in the bush, or more-so in built up areas like town, I am always more interested in finding the less trodden path. Along small alleyways, behind big department stores, up delivery drives and near fire escapes – all are often more interesting than the ‘front door’. I think usually it is because they are run down, dirty and…well, not in need of being presented, because few people intended for inside go there.

Today’s image is one such that I took in town over the weekend with my Ricoh GR1, using ilford PAN 400 film. My film scanner has colour and B&W settings, and I used the colour setting which gave me the more sepia finish. I decided to keep it rather than convert to grey-scale. Other than that, using Gimp I straightened the image a little, applied a sharpening filter and kept the image as is.

Its been a little while since I used my Rollei 35. I have been meaning to measure its light-meter calibration against one of my digital’s. If I have time this weekend (outside running a ‘limited training’ half marathon), I might stick my last Ilford in it and give it a run.

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The Colour Lavender

Dropping in to see some family after work today, I caught a quick snap of the lavender in full bloom.

Using Gimp in post processing, I desaturated several colours, slightly adjusted levels and added a little sharpness.

Sort and sweet for today!

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The Bicycle

Another fine day in Auckland and another day where my schedule allowed me to bicycle to work. After reading an interesting article on The f8 Blog, by Olivier Duong, I decided to have a play around with the snap focus on my Ricoh. Its a feature that many GR owners love, especially for street shooting. A standard feature on all Ricoh GR cameras, I will have to give it a try some time on my GR1 also. The benefit? – I would suggest just reading Oliviers article, but essentially it allows you to pre-set focus, which along with a manually set aperature and shutter equals a very fast street snapping machine.

For today’s photo, I was on the street, but not quite street snapping. Hitting the road with the GRD IV set to B&W, I wanted to get a strong silhouette of shadow as the main section of the image. Did I need snap focus for this? no, not really, but it didn’t harm.

In post processing I cropped to square format. I could have done this in camera, but as I was riding my bike at the time, and its a fixed gear cycle, I decided post gave me a little more flexibility and slightly more safety. I pushed the contrast a little more and also adjusted sharpness.

Weekend time!

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Storm Warning

New Zealand has been hit with a mild weather bomb (depending which part of the country you are in) these last few days. Overall in Auckland we have only had a bit of high wind and low cloud. Yesterday this combined with a little light rain – nothing to get excited about.

In between appointments I snapped this image down at Narrow Neck beach in Devonport using my Ricoh with a tweaked bleach bypass setting.

Using Gimp, I cropped the aspect a little, removing some of the tree and more grey sky. I applied a light softening blur, slightly desaturated and lightly adjusting the hue. Lastly I added the rounded corners.

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Surface of the Earth

Been a pretty flat out day and I have run out of time to write much.

Snapped this on my GRD IV on the way home today. In post processing I added several selective blur layers in Gimp and cropped to play with the sizing perspective a little.

More tomorrow!

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Burried City

I’m fascinated by archaeology. All around the world you hear of digs where ancient ruins, cities and tombs lay. Whether it be forgotten, reclaimed by nature, or purposefully encased and locked away. If I hadn’t studied anthropology and sociology, I think I would have studies archaeology.

Today’s image is actually just a piece of art work at a central city park (a highly post processed one that that) that I snapped on my Galaxy S2 when taking a stroll through several days ago.

I wanted to create a scene where the building had been buried on a grass plane. The original of the photo is actually just next to a walkway, and behind that a main road and shops. I cropped out those items and cloned in grass – which worked OK if you don’t look too close. I then applied multiple layers and filters making the old building quite hard against its green background.

I wonder what our cities will look like a millennia from now?

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Leaving on a Jet Plane

A week on, reflecting on my trip to Fiji, I had a great time. The people were nice, the weather was great, and the food equally fantastic. I’m not sure when, but I’d like to go back again one day. I have a pile more shots, some which I will post at some stage, but for now, I’ll leave the series with today’s ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’ – my last ‘on foot’ view of the country.

Using Gimp, I cropped, converted to B&W , sharpened and added a vignette. The image worked fairly well in colour also, but I like the changes so went with the monochrome final.

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‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’

So…its not a brick road, or a yellow one at that, but ‘follow the orange flower trail’  didn’t have quite the ring to it that came to mind when I took, or view today’s image.

When out in the bush, in general, we get an amazing mix of forest colours – browns and greens essentially. These orange flowers that had fallen from the trees really stood out when we went through a trail in Fiji. When I captured the image, I was drawn to the trail of orange disappearing into the path ahead.

Originally captured in portrait, I went for a square format in my post processing – keeping all the subject matter in the image and not loosing anything of any relevance. Some people shoot a lot in square format – whether it be the traditional medium format 6×6 film, cropped digital or various smart phone apps. I do quite like the format, so may look at doing some more, probably B&W in it at some stage.

Cropping aside, I also pushed the saturation a bit to make the flowers pop, and slightly sharpened the image also.

Shot on the Ricoh GRD IV.

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