Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 21, 2020 8:18:51 GMT -8
Just so, Mr. Flu. Sort of the Muzak of photographic wall art, bland but not totally without merit. Better to look at than just beige-painted plaster.
But I do like the shot. In this one area, I’ve never seen this grass sprout up like this so it will be interesting to see what the end result is. Is this some new kind of grass that his seeded itself here? I don’t know.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 21, 2020 8:23:04 GMT -8
I’ll continue to search out interesting patterns and textures. I’ll remind you to give me some of those kale seeds and you can remind me to take my Nikon DSLR (not just the phone) out with me when I go biking. It’s much better at capturing this sort of stuff.
Is 5” x 5” okay? Did you have a particular frame you wanted to match? Let me know and I can size/crop accordingly.
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Post by lynda on Apr 21, 2020 8:30:21 GMT -8
If you could make it 7x7, or something larger than 5x7, I can trim to fit.
Kale seeds? (She laughs)
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 21, 2020 8:32:38 GMT -8
I can make it 7 x 7 no problem.
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Post by timothylane on Apr 21, 2020 9:00:29 GMT -8
I've never heard of weigela, much less wine and roses weigela. But that is one nice photograph of it.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 21, 2020 13:01:19 GMT -8
This shot was a total accident. I don’t know how this happened. I found it on my phone. I would imagine someone hit me over the head with a big stick and this is what it looked like as I tumbled unconscious to the ground.  Large View |
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 21, 2020 14:45:14 GMT -8
Looks like a shot of someone going through the Time Tunnel.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 21, 2020 16:44:42 GMT -8
I don’t know if this is a good example of it — and I’ll admit it can be an acquired taste — but shooting things in black-and-white can make for some interesting results. This is a large sage bush. 
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 21, 2020 16:55:44 GMT -8
I believe the photo is too "busy"for a good black-and-white photo. I do like the color photo, especially the magenta colored flowers in the upper-left-hand corner.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 21, 2020 17:29:10 GMT -8
I’m playing around with photo editing within the phone (quicker that way). That’s why you see the vignette (the darkening of the corners) for no particular good reason. But, anyway, this is the Mega Rosemary. Despite this thing taking over, it’s still true as Gibbnonymous Nurseries and Limerick Studio says: You can’t have too much rosemary. (That sounds as much like a demand as a truism.)  Larger Image |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 21, 2020 17:33:39 GMT -8
I think you're right. But I was just playing around with a new HDR camera app for my phone . . . which also does b&w. HDR can look way to artificial. But it does help to capture highlight and shadows. I may show a side-by-side sample of the difference.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 21, 2020 17:45:57 GMT -8
Okay, here’s he side-by-side sample. (Note that the watermark was a consequence of having not yet purchased the app.) With HDR (and some post-processing to add a bit of contrast back into it, otherwise it was just a bit too blah…I could have added a bit more)  Without HDR.  There are still some trade-offs. And this is just a quick example. The yellow flowers in the HDR version are not blown out and show much better detail. The plum trees in the back are more vibrant and less muddy in the HDR version. Even the rafters of the building look better. The down-side is that the foreground bricks are not as vibrant. And some of the glasses are bit blown-out (too light or over-exposed). Anyway, really just a first pass at this but I think I can put the HDR to good use.
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Okay, I did fix some of the problems with the HDR one. I’m more satisfied with this version:  |
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Post by timothylane on Apr 21, 2020 18:04:15 GMT -8
The differences are minor and barely detectable, except that in the middle one (without HDR), the reddish colors in the background at the top seem darker. They're all nice photos, but I think the third might be a hair better than the first, which is slightly better than the second.
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 21, 2020 18:08:10 GMT -8
Glad you did, because I preferred the non-HDR to 1st HDR photo. I think this is because the foreground in the non-HDR was clearer to my eyes than in the HDR and one expects near-by things to be clearer than faraway things. The bricks were very different in each photo.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 22, 2020 7:35:13 GMT -8
Thanks for the feedback, Mr. Flu and Timothy. I don’t see the clarity issue but I’ll keep that in mind. For me, it’s another tool that can be used and abused. The overuse of HDR (high dynamic range) is fairly rampant right now as a more natural color is replaced by something nearing the psychedelic. What I really like about the above sample is the way it brought out the detail in the foreground primroses as well as changing the background plum trees from a murky dinge to something more vibrant. The way HDR works (or at least this implementation) is that it takes three photos: One underexposed, a middle exposure, and and over-exposure. It then combines (or hopes to combine) the best elements of all….with an added kick of saturation if you want (which I don’t really want, by and large). So, without HDR, I could have exposed the shot for the background plum trees. That would have made the foreground dark and dingy. Or I could have exposed for the foreground (or the lightest elements, such as those yellow primroses) and then the background trees would have been in even darker and dingier than they are already in the “without HDR” photo. Anyway, it’s a new tool I’m going to try to make good use of on my phone. I think the algore-rhythms already embedded in Apple’s software does a whole lot of magic as it is…likely including some HDR-like magic. With the phone — without any HDR at all turned on — it tends to be able to capture the sky better than my Nikon DSLR (which takes way better and sharper photos, overall). If I shoot a landscape scene with the Nikon, getting the landscape in front and the sky in the rear (or the mountains in the rear) to all look good in one shot is very difficult and usually somewhat impossible without some post-production work or using things such as graduated filters in front of the lens — which intentionally darkens the sky, or upper part of the frame, a little. This basically does to some extent what HDR is doing — compressing the shadows and highlights so that it all fits into one photo. What people are typically doing with HDR, from what I understand, is stuff like this:   Then it’s not so much about preserving detail in the highlights and shadows as much as it is about a more psychedelic effect. Frankly, a little bit of over-saturation can pop a photo. And there are cases (for an intentional artistic effect) where really ramping up the saturation and color is great. I think the top photo is cool in its own way, although it screams “HDR-produced” instead of natural. The bottom one just screams “too much.”
I believe that HDR (and there are some other terms) on TVs also refers to an extended color gamut over "normal" TVs . . . so that basically you can indeed see more colors (as well as more detail in the shadow and highlight areas). But that's a different pony. And there are also HDR monitors for your computer that can do the same thing. My iPad Pro, for instance, has a screen with a larger color gamut — they call it "Wide color display (P3) — than my older iPad. If I bring up the same image on each pad, the former will (if it's a good photo) indeed show at least more vibrant color, if not also more subtle shades. It's a small thing but it is a thing.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 24, 2020 11:59:20 GMT -8
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 24, 2020 12:28:06 GMT -8
Here' a slightly more famous study in grey (and black)
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 24, 2020 14:09:36 GMT -8
Hey, if I throw it in a gallery and put a famous name on it, it could sell for tens of thousands. But in one of my first photo assignments in a college class, I shot a bunch of black-and-whites of an old church finding unique and interesting forms to frame with the camera. Not particularly exciting, but it's all in the training to look at the world differently. And if you've ever seen some of the stuff that has sold for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, it should embolden anyone to just go ahead and do your thing, because you cannot ever hope to become as trivial or superficial as some of today's "masters" are.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 24, 2020 14:14:45 GMT -8
This one ought to go for about $50,000. I call it “Low Light Brad,” not to be confused with Low Life Brad. I was messing around with making a long exposure and didn’t realize I had the camera aimed in the wrong direction. I had mounted it on a makeshift tripod.  The $50,000 View |
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 24, 2020 14:16:35 GMT -8
Black and white photos can sometimes be very interesting and evocative. I need to look around for those that I took of Singapore around 1980, before the huge push for modernity took place.
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