Monday, June 30, 2008

Angel

Here is one of the photographs from the project I mentioned earlier. My theme was beauty, serenity and relaxation. The photographs depict an angel that has taken her wings of for a moment, as if she was taking a brake from being an angel (and what ever angels do). In this particular shot, the model is improvising.

Post production include Camera RAW, sharpening, vignetting and softening in Photoshop. The dodge-tool came in handy when I needed to get the dress and the wings even whiter.

Peace

Peace can be a state of harmony or the absence of hostility. "Peace" is used to describe the cessation of violent conflict. ('source')

During the Winter War an iceroad was build between Finland and Sweden so that supplies could be transported to and from Finland. The hand above is a statue in memory of the iceroad that was part of keeping this peace-loving country independent.

This is my response to the challenge I received last week. CP Geek wrote: Mission: "Peace".
Photoshop: Not allowed.
Time to accomplish: Must be presented 4th of july at latest.

Since Photoshop is a well integrated part of my photography-workflow, the challenge was, well, let´s say challenging...

I insisted on that the use of Camera RAW had to be allowed, though.

So, for the artistic part that I missed out on by not being able to use the force of the mighty CS3, I had to do a lot of thinking. I tried different angles and positions. Different f-stops and shutterspeeds. Just like in the good old 'analog' days. Above is the result. I used Camera RAW to adjust the saturation and luminance and to crop the image. The frame is obviously added in Photoshop, but that is all about presenting the photograph (it has nothing to do with "what you shoot is what you get"). So, mr Geek. Your call!

Parthenon II

I´m quite happy with this HDR render. The construction is actually a family grave I found while strolling around in the graveyard this beautiful sunny morning. I really like how the sun casts the distinct shadows of the pillars on the grass.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Angelwings on a wall

Believe it or not, I can do other stuff than just HDR´s. Here´s a pic from my latest project, "Angel". Hopefully I´ll be able to post some of the other (200 +) images from that project later on. I have some contests coming up, so I have to be careful with what I publish.

This would be a great candidate for the peace-challenge I recently received, although I´m afraid it´s a bit too manipulated for my friend, the geek.
RAW-tweaking, vignetting, softing and a few dabs with the dogde-tool. That´s not too much photoshopping according to me. Weird guy, that geek...

"trophy", another HDR

Here is my latest HDR production. To get the colours right, I used a part of the original image and did some serious masking. Finally I added a light vignette-effect and tried some softing techniques I´ve picked up lately.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Even more HDR


I just love the colours in the HDR-pictures, so I´m going to be publishing a few more of them here.

Below are the three original exposures.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

HDR - for real this time

I just started a new era in my graphics/photomanipulation career. Yesterday I purchased the Nikon D80. What a magnificent piece of electronics! Above is the result of me testing the bracketing-funktion. I used Photomatix Pro to create the HDR, and I then gave the render the finishing touches in Photoshop. Below are the three exposures I used to create the HDR. As you can see I used the clonestamp on a couple of details. After getting the render from Photomatix PRO, I tweaked the colours in Photoshop using levels and hue/saturation. No colours added :)


A friend of mine is sworne by the principle that "what you shoot, is what you get". I´m not there yet, Photoshop is a much too integrated piece of my workflow. During my day out with the camera experimenting and shooting, I repeatedly caught myself thinking: I´ll fix that later in Photoshop.