Tag: Gimp

Sky, Earth and Sea

Today is the first day in some time that I have be dissatisfied with all the shots I took when out on a walk. I thinks its something that happens to all of us at times. I had taken out an older digital camera, and with the light being a bit challenging, it struggled to get focus on some of the more interesting shots I threw at it. Coming home I selected about five for post editing, but just couldn’t get any to work.

Feeling a bit stuck, I pulled out a shot I took earlier in the week of Motutapu Island. Cropping heavily and pushing contrast and saturations beyond usual limits, I have tried to give the image more of a ‘painted feel’ than a photographed image. I’m not sure if I pulled it off, but tomorrow is another day and will bring us another image!

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The Refinery

“The Refinery’ comes from yesterdays walk at the Chelsea Park – which belonged to the Chelsea Sugar works. Built in 1884, and added to later on, CSW is our biggest supplier of sugar. As well as being a bright orange in colour, I was drawn to mishmash of buildings, knowing that each serves a purpose in the production run.

Playing around in Gimp, I added a few cross-processing layers and slightly tweaked the colour balance. Lastly I added a light vignette.

Been a long day, not much more to add.

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Black Swan

With a nice and clear, but cool sky, we took a stroll down to Chelsea Park. Walking a few tracks I didn’t cover on my last visit I brought along the Sony Nex and its new telephoto lens. When I tried it out earlier in the week the low sun, combined with hand holding and limited wildlife made me want to give it another go today. Down at the bottom of the reserve is a large pond full of ducks, seagulls, shags, geese and a few swans – so I was spoilt for choice and shot images of each.

I chose today’s image ‘Black Swan’ as I was drawn to the composition and the ripples of water softly emanating from the swan. In post production, using Gimp, I used the National Geographic filter set, making small adjustments to its use of sharpness, saturation and contrast. I also cropped the image slightly to remove the foot of the swan which interfered with the soft ripples of the water.

I’m quite happy with the result, and the performance of the lens at 210mm.

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Ice Planet

I had noticed a number of macro images used in artistic ‘landscape like’ was when surfing around recently and had a bit of a muck around this evening with my own version of it. Starting with a macro shot of real landscape, at the beach, I went about creating a shot that would not necessarily look like a close up of water running down into the sea. Removing the background, pushing contrast of the foreground, adding a red smudge to the background, and a cross-processing filter to the lot. I result has a bit of a weird Martian landscape feel to it.

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Marmite (the New Zealand edition)

Today’s image is a bit of a fun, sad and tragic reflection on a number of events – some being trivial and others quite the opposite. For readers who do not know of Marmite – it is a yeast spread, often loved or hated. Also made in England and South Africa, ‘Sanitarium Marmite‘ is a New Zealand only product that sadly halted production with the tragic Christchurch earthquakes  (the November quake being responsible for Marmites halt).

I took this image not long after the halt to document my supplies, which tragically (on a trivial level) have now run out – I’m in the ‘love it’ camp. On a more serious level, I was reminded of this when at a presentation in the conference I attended over the last few days.  Watching a video filmed a few weeks ago, almost two years on the city is slowly recovering, but is still in a state of disrepair. Some suburbs are still using portable toilets, roads are still broken up, the central city still half closed, and plans for repair moving, but not at the pace all would like. Residents still suffer regular aftershocks as they wait to find out if their homes can be repaired or are written off. Unfortunately, with no ‘new’ news it falls from our vision via the media. I was quite shocked to see the troubles some residents face two years on.

Image wise, I took it on my Samsung Galaxy 3 (not S3) using vignette and upped a contrast a little in Gimp.

Aroha Christchurch Aroha being the Maori word translating to much love)

 

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Caution

For Health and Safety reasons we had a caution sign put on our hot water urn at work recently. It got me thinking about how much aspects of the world have changed in the last decade or so. When I was young my dad would take me to the surf beach where I would tumble about in the waves. I know people who wont go there now as its too dangerous. There was a three story playground near my Grandmas house – I passed it a while ago and the top floor has been removed, the second floor fenced in…we used to climb on the roof and I never heard of a kid falling. Rope swings were on trees on hills – giving kids a terrifying rush when they held on with all their might…now the trees have been cut down due to danger risks.

Have we taken safety and caution so far that we are preventing people/kids from learning lessons any more? I cant help but think so.

Image wise, using my mobile phone and Vignette I was drawn to the urn for the simple and washed look. Black, white and red. The days sun coming from the left and casting the shadow of the urn and bareness otherwise leaves a simple, yet thoughtful image reflecting my above thoughts. In post processing with Gimp I cropped for the net and added an extra 1/4 to the left of the image to almost square the image and create the composition I was initially after.

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Island Bay Wharf

Some more mixed weather again today with warm bright sun, followed by heavy cold showers… Spring is on its way!

A visit for work to Beach Haven took me past Island Bay Wharf. Testing my balance again in flat soled dress shows I worked my way down the muddy sandstone flats to the base of the wharf to capture a few shots.

With a white sky, the image improved greatly when I converted to black and white in Gimp.

I also took delivery of a new lens for my Nex (actually one new and one old), both longer telephoto zooms, one Sony and the other an old Minolta mount. If the weather is right I might try to take them out in the weekend.

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Ask the Big G

Some more street art combined with ‘nature art’ today. Walking through town after work I narrowly missed a downpour of rain and went looking for some more interesting street art. Just as I came across this interesting ‘I don’t have all the answers’ artwork a rainbow appeared! I thought it made a pretty funny combination and play on themes with Mr J looking up at the sky and a rainbow leading the way up.

Taken on my Galaxy cellphone, in post production I wanted to over-do the photo a little. Pushing the saturation hard, I brought out the rainbow a little more and gave the buildings over the fence a golden glow. I lightened the blue wall a little and added a touch of sharpening and contrast.

If you like the artwork check out component’s art here. there is a lot of cool work, much that I have spotted when on my journeys in town.

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Black & White Sky

I managed to develop the film from the Rollei 35 last night. As previously mentioned, it was a 100asa I had pushed to 800asa. To top it off, its of about the cheapest film brand – Lucky SHD100. Overall I think I could have either pushed out the developing time/temperature, or given a little more exposure on the camera. I have not actually tested the camera against a light meter or one of my digital cameras, so should do that. Anyway, the film was a bit under exposed as a result of one of the above.

That being said, I did get a number of images I liked the feel of, today’s image ‘Black and White Sky’ being one of them.  After scanning I used Gimp to slightly straighten, crop and then bumped the contrast a little and added the slight sepia tone. Taken without any filters, I do like the boat masts reaching up to a dramatic sky and the ball of sun at the top.

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Smiths Bush

As spring slowly approaches the days are starting to lengthen out again. This still does not leave much light when I finish work, but left enough today for me to take a brisk walk around Smiths Bush in Northcote on Auckland’s North Shore.

It must have been about 5 years, possibly more, since I last went through the bush. It has turned into a wonderful local walkway there one could spend three quarters of an hour on a loop trail. The tall trees with mixed canopy, along with rotten fallen trunks really gives one the sense they are out in the bush/jungle.

Armed with my GRD and light fading fast, I captured a number of forest shots. In post processing in Gimp I played around with a few contrast and special layers, with the result being today image. When I get some more time I will definitely visit Smiths Bush again!

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