Art and Practice
Photo challenge number 13 would have to be one of those ones that is loved by nearly all photographers. Who doesn’t love piers? I know I will drive a long way to be able to get photos of them if they are beautiful, falling apart, or just because they are there.
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A few weeks back I told you that one of the main reasons why we were going back to Tasmania was to use our Ticket of Leave cards at the Port Arthur Historic Site. So when we planned our trip we decided that this time we would spend a couple of days down there, and on one, go to the site. We left it for the end of the trip and headed there on a day of variable weather.
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Taken the other night when the streets were really wet.
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A couple of weeks ago I showed these silos in Monochrome Madness, however, I also did them in colour, here is that image.
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Since this is a new beginning for this blog and you are all here I would like to do some new things. One thing that I would like to go back to doing is looking at an image and seeing how I processed it. More a discussion on it rather than a tutorial, but perhaps over time I might start doing some of those as well. So this is the first of my posts on the Evolution of an Image, and we start with one I call Going Through.
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Over on my other blog it is monochrome madness and I thought I would take a look at my image here.
One of the things I love about taking photos in the Malllee is how amazing the clouds can be here. They can be very wispy and almost are a story themselves.
I did the image in black and white and then wondered how it would look if I made it colour again.
I do think the advantage of this one is that the small tree does stand out more from the background or the sky. Perhaps the colour one takes some of the focus from the clouds.
What do you think?
It is interesting how you can process one image in two different ways and give it two completely different looks.
I took the following image of Point Lonsdale Pier at sunrise last year. It wasn’t an especially inspiring one, but it was very early. There really were too many clouds for it to be a good one.
Initially, I thought I would try the image in monochrome and see what I could get.
The water is very light, and seems like there is light on it when it was very dark.
Then I wondered what it would be like if I made it colour again.
It seems almost like this one is a different image and taken later in the morning, but I assure you they are the same image.
In the end I couldn’t decide which one I liked more. I asked my husband which one I should put on Instagram and he said the colour one. I did and people have seemed to like it. I don’t know, which would you choose?
The other day I went out with a friend and we had a whole day planned of what we were going to do. Then once we got there we found that the waterfall we had planned on photographing had almost no water. We have had a very dry summer and with little water the waterfalls are drying up.
We had to come up with another plan quickly. It was overcast, very much so, and not far from the waterfall was the Lorne Pier. We had our filters with us, so it seemed the logical place to go, head there for some long exposures.
It was a good spot for about 15 minutes and then the clouds parts and the sun came out. Just our luck. I tried to do more, but it wasn’t long before I knew I wouldn’t get anything else.
We headed back inland, but you will have to wait for the photos from there.
After a massive walk we went for lunch at one of our favourite places in Lorne, The Bottle of Milk. They do great burgers and the most amazing chips (fries), I know Martha would love them. We decided to try Dog Rocks. We had been there once before, but it was on a clear hot day, so not good for photography. It was getting to the end of the day and on the way home.
When we got there the sun was going down and then the most amazing sun rays appeared.
This is quite a famous tree around Geelong and you can pretty much bet every photographer around there has photographed it. It is hard to take an image that everyone else hasn’t, but when I saw those rays, I knew I could get something that would be more unique. I tried to do it so the rays appeared to be coming out of the tree.
This was actually taken before the other one. The rays weren’t as prominent, but still there. I processed this image a little differently. I also took out much of the colour. I like that look more.
For a day that didn’t seem to go to plan, I was really happy with what I got. It was lots of surprises and some gems.
As I usually do with long exposures images I started by making the image of the Eureka Tower monochrome, then I wondered what it would be like with a touch of colour. The gold windows at the top of the tower make it such a distinctive building and every time you see them you know which building you are looking at.
As I said, it was a long exposure. Taken with the Formatt Hitech Firecrest 16 Nd Filter. It was a six minute exposure that I did last weekend.
Here is the monochrome version.
I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with this image, but it does tend to look like a lot of other images done the same way.
In the end I decided that while I didn’t mind the majority of the image being monochrome, I did want the top bit to show the gold and the little strip of red. I like the touch of colour and think it makes the image more interesting.
On another note, but along the same lines, I wanted to let you know that I am now a featured artist on the Formatt Hitech website. It has been such an honour to be featured and I feel in very good company when I see the work of others there. You can check out my page here, Leanne Cole.
I do love their filters and I never have a problem promoting them. I keep hearing from others how much they love them too. I find I am using them more and more as well, and now I’m starting to get asked to teach people as well, that’s nice.
Long exposure photography seems to be becoming something I am doing a lot. I know it is important for my art work and you will be seeing a lot more of it in the future.
