In the Mug

I have said it before and I will say it again. There is one group of people that have kept my photography alive this year, and that is the Rhodes Chamber Choir. With recitals happening at least once a term, dinners, parties and more, they are my one consistent job here in Grahamstown.

That’s why, when Elethu came to me with a challenge, I was very keen to take it up. The challenge, if I chose to accept it, was going to be an advertising campaign. The theme? Mugshots. The Choir is looking for new members to start next year and will be holding auditions in early 2013. I put together a simple photoshoot to provide flyers for the auditions.

The photoshoot itself was simple enough – five people arrived to have studio shots taken. There was no particular requirement in terms of makeup or anything along those lines and it was just the average, everyday portrait shoot in my studio that I am perfectly used to. The poses were incredibly simplistic, which made giving instructions very easy – look straight at the camera, don’t smile, act crazy, turn to the left, don’t smile, act crazy, etc.

The difficult part came in after the photos had been taken and it was time to edit them to look more like mugshots. Each person had been holding a black notebook in place of a nameboard, and I had to try and make the notebook look less notebook like and more nameboard like. I tried a few methods – from trying to create a nameboard of my own, to Googling nameboards that I could use, and ended up finding that the simplest way was just to use what I already had. With that in mind, I went about trying to make the light a little harsher, the colours pop a little more, the nameboards stand out a little more and the background look more like a height scale as they use in mugshots.

My first step in trying to process the images and make them more mugshot-like was actually to Google it, but I found no helpful resources. If anyone is interested in how it was done, I am willing to put together a short tutorial. Just let me know in the comments, and if there are enough takers, I will write one up!

The end result? I must say, I was impressed with it myself. And, from the look on Elethu’s face, he didn’t think they were too shabby either! It was my first editing intensive job, and I think I pulled it off despite a few panic attacks in the beginning.

What do you think? How did I do?

Thailand Again

I am still going through and re-editing photos from my trip to Thailand, and today's one comes from our trip to Big Buddha on Koh Samui. It was our first day on the island and it had been an exhausting 14 hour trip to get there, but we were not about to give in and go to sleep! Instead we decided to see one of the sights and do a little shopping while we were at it.

This was the original photograph. The sky was overly cloudy and did not make for a particularly appealing backdrop, drowning out the colour and leaving the image rather bland. The Big Buddha himself was dull and lifeless and not at all the Buddha that I remember him to be.

This is the first edit using Picasa. You can see that the colour was rendered rather well with the backdrop becoming white, which (to be fair) isn't necessarily a bad thing in my  opinion. It was a bad day for photo taking, but the blown out aspect does not extend to the statue itself and works to bring the Statue to the  main point of focus. I do find the two objects on the bottom right of the picture to be distracting as is the pole coming up behind Buddha's head.

And this is the final edit done in Photoshop. The colour is not quite as bright as it was in Picasa, but this is intentional. This is more the colour that the actual statue was rather than the overstated gold that came out from the Picasa image. I was also able to use Photoshop to edit out the parts of the image that I found to be distracting. This was done very simply with a clone tool to clone the white area towards the top of the screen and to the right of the pole by Buddah's head and carefully place the white over the areas that I found to be distracting, leaving a clean image of Buddha over the white background. Had I not been there myself, I  would not have known that this was the skyline. This may make the image seem overly fake or generic, but I feel that considering the circumstances of the weather, it was the best that could be done in this instance.

What do you think?

Post Processing

There is an advert that comes onto South African radio (or at least Algoa FM) fairly often. It is an advert for Kodak, and it is one that strikes a chord every time I hear it. It is an elderly woman talking about her wedding day, the day her daughter was born and (today) the day her granddaughter is born. And she says in this wistful voice that when they come out of the delivery room, she will be there with her camera. Which is all wonderful and beautiful. Only the ad ends off saying "It's only a photo when it's printed". It is such a beautiful advert, but that line gets me every time. It strikes a chord, of course, because I don't print many of my photos. I have collections of them stashed on  my computer. I want to print a portfolio, but that takes time and money that I just do not have.

And it brings up the topic of what exactly constitutes a photograph. It sounds easy, but everyone has a different say. Some people would say that only a printed picture is a photograph and that, until it is printed, it is still nothing but an image. Which is true to some extent, but I think that having it printed does not suddenly make it photography worthy. Some would say that once it has been captured it is a photograph and anything done to the picture thereafter is changing it so that it no longer constitutes a photograph but art instead. But isn't photography an art in any case? Where does the line get drawn between creating art with your camera and creating art through post-processing. Some people would say that HDR photography stops being a photograph and becomes something else, a compilation of photographs, a merging of artworks. I was watching a most interesting video about how an image of Imogen Heap was created using the merging of various photographs and the layering of them, one over another, until the original picture was almost unrecognisable.

So where do I sit on the topic? I think that a photograph is a fluid concept. I believe strongly in post-processing, since I like to make my images pop, stand out. While I could spend forever trying to get details in camera perfect, I would far rather touch up minor imperfections later than waste time trying to get it perfect on the spot and missing an opportunity to capture a moment. I think that some people can take the post-processing a bit far, but I don't think that stops the image from being a photograph. Any image that comes  out of a camera is a photograph, and every  photograph is a work of art, an expression of self. You just have to find the right way to express what you want that image to show.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be doing a lot of re-editing of photos. I am trying to structure the photographs that I have taken over the last two years, and there are thousands of them to go through. I have grown in my editing, from making simple changes in Picasa to starting serious editing in Photoshop, and I am hoping that the changes in vision will come across. You can expect to see some comparisons over the next few weeks, starting with this image from my vacation in Thailand:

This is a temple within Wat Phrat Kao in Bangkok, Thailand. To get to this golden statue, you need to wait  patiently in the long queues and even then, you are only able to walk through the room without stopping. No flash photography is permitted, which meant that the photograph needed to be taken within a split second without stopping to position myself for the best angle and with throngs of people around me. This is the photograph out of camera, the only editing being the resizing of the image.

This was my first attempt at editing the image in Picasa. The aspect that I wanted to bring out was the golden statue and the platform surrounding it. I certainly managed to draw attention to the colour, but the background behind it is very much in shadow and there is still a lot of distraction at the front of the image. At the time of editing the picture, I was very against cropping images, feeling that their size should always remain relative. This is something that I have grown out of. I now realise that there is no reason for the size to be stagnant. What is more important is symmetry and removal of obstacles that draw the eye away from the subject  of your image. And so, I tried to bring this across more in my final edit.

This is my final attempt at editing to image. You will notice that a lot more detail has been brought out from the background, but there are less distractions due to the way that the image is cropped. The people in the front have been removed as has the statue to the right, to allow for symmetry as a rule of thirds would not have worked in this instance, the left hand side of the image has been cropped as well. The statue itself is placed towards the centre of the image with the head almost precisely one third of the way through. though the colour isn't as vibrant as in the initial edit, it is also not as harsh in places (like the bottom of the platform) and I feel that it makes for a much more rounded image which brings out the fascinating nature of the temple rather than just focusing on one aspect on  its own.

Watch this space for more editing advice to come while I sort through the photos from the last two years and make some adjustments as I go.

Post-Processing Fun

I came across the most awesome effect in Photoshop about two weeks ago, and I have been going crazy with it ever since. Making polaramas!

Polaramas are images that have been distorted to turn them into little worlds, as in the images above. These two  polaramas were created from the same image, one just slightly more cropped. You can see the huge difference that it makes to the image itself.

Polaramas are images that have been distorted using Photoshop's Polar Coordinates distortion which turns them in on themselves to create a little world out of  your photo. They are really fun to look at and really simple to make.

So what do you need to make a polarama?

1. First, you need Photoshop. I don't work with other photo editing programmes, so I am not sure if they would have the same option to create this or what it would be called.
2. You need to have a photo that is at least twice as long as it is wide. Panoramic images work well with this,  particularly if they have been taken at 360 degrees as it means that the ends of the photos come together well. You will see in some of the examples that are posted here, the sky was bluer on one end compared to the other or one side of the image had rocks when the other didn't. I still like the look of them, but it isn't as cool as when everything comes together perfectly.
3. You may want to choose an image that is fairly simple around the top and around the bottom. The top area is the area that gets distorted the most, so if it very busy, you will have a very busy area around the top and it won't keep much definition. I find that photos with a sky framing them work well.
4. Five minutes to spare.

Open up your Photoshop and either load your image or (if you are using a panoramic image that has yet to be pieced together) put it together. Note: If you are planning on using a panorama, you will often find that the bigger the image, the longer the polarama takes to generate and the more of your CPU space it uses - don't be scared to save the panorama somewhere and then resize it for the polarama. 

These two polaramas were made using the same panorama of my front garden. On the right is the regular polarama, on the left is the inverted one.

Once you have your picture in Photoshop, the next step is to change the dimensions. I use Photoshop CS5, so please bear with me... I only know how to use this and do not know the steps to change the image size in other versions or other programmes, but it really can't be too difficult! Select Image from the top menu and click on Image Size. You will want the height to be adjusted to the same size as the width. So copy the width and paste it into the height area. You will see that you have a big, distorted square.

Now, here you have a choice. You can either have a regular polarama with the sky on the outskirts of the image, or you can have an inverted polarama where everything else is on the outside and you are looking into the sky. I love them both to be honest and can't decide which method I prefer. You will have to decide that for yourself. If you want a regular polarama, be sure  to rotate your image 180 degrees so that it is upside down. If you want an inverted one, you can leave it as is. See the above for examples of each.

Some polaramas from tongyeong island in South Korea. Note the different colours and aspects of the photos joining in the middle where the two sides  of the image meet. Taking a 360 degree panorama will fix that, as in the cases of the panoramas taken in my garden above.

Now your image is ready. Select Filter from the top menu, mouse over Distort and select Polar Coordinates. It may take awhile to load, particularly if the photo in question is a large one. I know that I had trouble with large images that couldn't handle the distortion and it kept coming up saying that I didn't have enough RAM to complete the job. If that  happens to you, just shrink the image and you should be fine. Make sure that Rectangular to Polar is selected and then click OK. And voila! You have  yourself a polarama.

A panorama of Tongyeong and one of Grahamstown.

Have fun with it! I know I have been :)

What are you worth?

I discovered a clever little site a few years ago. At the time, I used it for my writing while Grant used it to further his Photoshop skills. But over the past few months, I have also found it incredibly useful for photography. That site is Worth1000.

Worth1000 is a site filled with contests. The contests are arranged into different categories, such as Effects, Photography, Writing and more. Every few days a new contest is posted and everyone has the opportunity to enter. There are levels and rules, of course, but you can always find a contest aimed at your skill level and providing some interesting ideas. I have found it particularly useful when it comes to photography, since it gives me the incentive to try new things. Once the contests close for entry, everyone has the chance to rate the photos that were entered to decide on a winner. There are no prizes, but it is still a great feeling to know that people thought your photo was the tops, and you will find that the site randomly picks winning photographs to display as photos of the day, which (I imagine) is also a great feeling!

Worth1000 is also a great place to enter into discussions and ask questions. There are forums for each section which allow people to ask questions and get answers from those with more experience than yourself. Because there are different categories, you will find that the people entering the contests will range from beginners to experts, and you know that there is always the opportunity to learn. During the contests themselves you can also ask for constructive criticism of your photographs, which means that you can learn what it is that people don't like about your photographs and what it is that they do like. You also have the option of closing your photos to comments, which means that you will only get feedback if that is what you want.

Another thing that I love about Worth1000 is their mentoring programme. I was involved in this during the month of November where I got paired with an expert from the States and we had weekly Skype sessions to discuss photographs and to learn more about photography. It was an awesome experience, since I learned quite a lot about placement, using Photoshop and more.

Entering Worth1000 contests is a great way to challenge yourself and to move beyond what you know and into areas that you are still uncertain about. It is a great way to put yourself out there and receive positive feedback and constructive criticism for your photographs, writing, Photoshop work and more. I would highly recommend that any beginner, or photographer of any level for that matter, enter a competition or two and see how you do. You never know what may come of it!