Another week, and another trip down memory lane in terms of my photography. I’m really glad I made the decision to work on images already captured for this month, as we got rather buried in the snow the past week, and I haven’t had the time, or the energy, to get out and try and capture anything new.
This week is a mixed bag of images, shot locally and in Africa, in colour and black and white.
From 2014, a sunrise image of the Golden Ears from the dikes in Pitt Meadows where I used to walk my dog. Flying over Victoria Falls on the way into Livingstone airport in Zambia. Previously, I wasn’t really able to pull out any decent texture from photos shot through windows. Zambia, April 2013.Victoria Falls from the Zambian side. I was very fortunate to see it with just the right water level; enough so the falls looked incredibly impressive, but not so much that it was completely shrouded in mist. Zambia, April 2013.
For my then and now image, I chose this zebra from my first trip to South Africa. The original black and white conversion was done in Lightroom using a few basic adjustments, not long after I returned from my trip. The updated image was edited recently using a combination of plugins in Photoshop, including MacPhun Tonality and Topaz Detail. I’m sure I could achieve similar results simply using On1 Photo Raw (I’m not using Lightroom any longer for processing), but I like the ease of using Tonality for black and white edits.
Then – a basic black and white conversion lacking a lot of contrast.Now – the zebra stands out much better against the foliage, and there is a lot more detail throughout the image.
Another year has drawn to a close, and I have welcomed 2018 with open arms. I’ve taken a little break from posting over the past week; it has given me a chance to reflect on my blog, and come up with some plans for the future.
I feel like I lost focus with my blog in 2017; at times posts were rushed or forgotten about altogether; shoved to the bottom of a to-do list that never seemed to get any shorter. I’m sure that is something that everyone struggles with from time to time, and I am very grateful for everyone that continued to view my posts and photos, despite the lack of focus.
For 2018, I have decided that I need to add some structure to my photographic life; in terms of continuing education, time out in the field and with my editing. I have a couple of year long photo projects that I am finalizing, but I am also planning to explore a different topic each month, and use that to guide my reading, shooting and editing. I really thrive when I have schedules and plans of action, so I am hoping that this will ensure that I am getting out to shoot regularly, and be able to post some interesting content each month.
For January, I am going to focus on the frozen world. With the cold temperatures we have been having, it is a timely starting point. I’ll be posting on the topic each Sunday in January, and then move onto something new for February.
I’ll be working to participate more regularly in the WordPress topic of the week, and will still be posting my usual Monochrome Monday and Wordless Wednesday posts. I still have lots of images from my last trip that I am working on as well, so I should have lots of content to share over the year ahead.
Below are a few photos from out and about over the last couple of weeks; its not much, but it gets the ball rolling.
Here’s to a fantastic year ahead.
This is why I love getting up early. A beautiful sunrise greeted me while out for a morning walk with Spencer a few weeks ago.A few of the 7 deer that stopped by the yard late yesterday afternoon.Right now, the time between sunrise and sunset is rather brief. We do get a beautiful long twilight period though, which looks even prettier with some snow on the ground and in the trees. A quick snap while out for an afternoon walk, it was too cold to stop and do much more!
I decided that this image would be good for a before and after post after finishing the editing, so today I just have the before and after images to share, not all the steps I took to get there.
This image was shot during sunrise whilst on a game drive at Ngala Camp in South Africa. It was quite surreal to have these massive storm clouds, the light from the sun rising, the moon visible and a rainbow all at one time. With so much going on, it was a challenging scene to deal with, and the image ended up rather flat and uninspired.
I decided to edit the single image using Aurora HDR Pro, as I find that the software is great in bringing out the detail and colour in an image, although it can be a little heavy handed at times. Herein lies the editing issue of course; trying to coax the best out of the image you have, without it ending up looking crunchy and radioactive. I layered two different presets within Aurora, blending them at different opacities, and then dialed back the result within Photoshop to find a level of punch that I felt worked for the image, and for my memory of what to scene looked and felt like.
I’d be interested to know any opinions on the edit – did I go too far, not far enough, or just right, based on what I had to work with? Everyone looks at things differently and I am always interested in the reactions of other people.
Straight out of the camera.After some post processing love and attention.
