Goofy Gargoyle

What can be said?  Sometimes we are just in a goofy mood!  I snapped this guy last Fall at a "gargoyle" exhibit here at the Phipps Conservatory.  In and among the various plant displays, they had some gargoyles hanging out.  It was fun but I think they should have had even more.  I was hoping for an over-the-top all out gargoyle fest.  Instead, there were some here and there but nothing like the glass saturated Chihuly Exhibit they had some time before that.  But it was fun nonetheless to see these little characters.  Sometimes I feel exactly the way this gargoyle is expressing himself.  Kind of like, "Argh, what to do? what to do?  I'll just sit here and do nuthin' til I figure it out!"  This was an indoor exhibit although there was a good bit of natural light - a definite greenhouse effect thing going on.  I didn't do too much to this image - some levels adjustment and a sepia overlay with hue/saturation adjustments.  Then it was cropped.  Nothing too complicated.  Just having some fun with this goofy little gargoyle!

Mess

This is a shot taken yesterday from the parking area in front of my apartment building.  In an earlier post I mentioned how I have a tall hillside behind my building that looks to come tumbling down with the next heavy rainfall.  The above image is the view I get when I park in my "normal" spot.  Something about this image speaks to me and the feeling I have living in an urban area:  just a feeling of clutter and mess.  Asphalt, motor vehicles (although you see just one in this image), wires and frazzled branches are just about everywhere when you walk up and down the street, any street.  I don't know, I feel too closed in and suffocated.  Never before in my life have I craved being outdoors in open areas with views and fresh air than I have this past winter.  I used to crave "city" but something has changed.  I can only take so many days of noise, clutter, exhaust fumes, traffic and electric and phone wires before I have to just get away (seeking refuge in a park, on a trail, away somewhere).  I'm not bailing on Pittsburgh just yet but time will tell where I end up settling for good.  Until then, and like always, I will make the best of what I have and where I am living.

Pittsburgh's Allegheny River & Bridges

If there is one thing I am not good at, it is taking pictures outdoors in full sunlight midday.  I need a filter for sure and I need to figure out just how you get good shots outside in the sun.  I took this picture yesterday in the middle of the afternoon.  This is the best I could do and the more I look at this image the more I don't want to look at it.  I've posted it just for my own record - so I can see if/how/when I improve.  Pittsburgh has been called the city of bridges and looking at this image it is pretty clear why.  When you figure there are 2 other rivers around with just as many, if not more, bridges you see where the city gets its nickname from.  I do like the fact that the city recently (a few years or so ago) re-painted a lot of the bridges yellow.  It brightens the color scheme and in winter here we need all eye-appealing and intense colors we can get!  I did a lot of adjustments in Camera Raw and Photoshop on this and while the post-edited image is better than what came out of the camera I have yet to capture and edit an image in full sun that I am really content with.  I guess that's one good thing about the gray winters here - they make taking pictures outdoors in the middle of the day quite easy!  But bring on Spring, please.  I could use some green surrounding these rivers.

Rock Wall Before and After

Before.

After.

If I park my car behind my apartment building this is the view I get.  A stone wall holding up a pretty high hillside.  (Let's hope for little rain this Spring because I can't see this wall holding up all the mud that's on the hill out back.)  I usually park in the side or front of the building anyway.

After I got out of my car I took a shot of the stones and loaded the picture in my laptop and thought the image looked really flat and dull.  I don't know if got the look I was going for but I definitely like the direction the After image is going in.  The stones seem earthier to me with some hints of colors on the leaves that are wedged in between.  The biggest challenge was selecting the stones in Photoshop and working with the edges.  I had a bluish halo around many of the stones so I have to figure out where that came from - whether camera raw or Photoshop.  The blue rings around the stones weren't in the original image so I know it was something I did.  Once in Photoshop I mostly used the sepia preset on the adjustment layer and then adjusted the hue, saturation and lightness accordingly.  Long way to go yet with editing these things - for now just working with what I know.  Was this a fun exercise?  Yes and no.  Yes, because I liked seeing the change in the after image.  No, because my neck hurt after sitting over this laptop for hours painting in Quick Mask all the details of those edges.  Not complaining though.  Just realizing I have to read up on ergonomics.

Swamp Flower

This is another picture I took back at the end of April last year down in the Okefenokee.  Yes, the water actually is that back and the flower is that white.  I really don't like this picture all that much, though; I'm just not crazy about the flower's placement.  I'm telling you, it was hard to shoot while balancing yourself in a kayak and hanging on to the paddles.  Still, I decided to work on the image and sharpened it a bit, played with the levels and hue/saturation and, well, I just decided to post it.  I think I'm going through these swamp pictures because I need to decide whether or not to head back down to Southern Georgia next month to paddle and play and take more pictures.  If you are a paddler and have paddled down that way, you know how great it is.  The photo ops are in abundance (to say the least).  So great, in fact, that you can't believe such a sight feast could exist.  Makes you wonder why people head off to Disney and wait in long lines to ride a boat around "It's a small world".  Grab a kayak or a canoe and paddle around the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge and you just may never settle for artificial entertainment again.  Yes, I think I may head back down at the end of April.  The SLR is ready to go.

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

THE swamp.  I took this image at the end of last April 2010 in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge way down yonder in Georgia.  We kayaked around the swamp for 3 days.  Black water, gators, cypress trees drizzling with Spanish moss, a color feast beyond description and more.  My SLR was still relatively new and I was challenged trying to balance my paddles, camera and gator detector all at the same time but I managed to get a few good shots in here and there.  I pretty much did the same with this image as the past two:  some exposure adjustments and noise/sharpening in Camera Raw, and then a bit of hue/saturation and levels adjustments in Photoshop.  Just playing but keeping at it nonetheless.  I don't know if I am going to take an official class this summer.  I may just say the heck with that and go out and shoot like crazy on my own.  Most people seem to do better that way.  I'll be more motivated once we get out of this crappy lingering gray winter we're having here.  I was motivated to shoot out in the cold last winter but not feeling the same this time around.  Bring on Spring.  (And maybe another trip down South to my swamp.  I have the invitation again.  It's tempting...)

Red & Purple

This is a picture of the entrance to an antique store situated along the Ohio River not too far from downtown Pittsburgh.  The picture was taken in April of 2010.  From what I remember the day was cool, gray and rainy.  I worked on this image in Photoshop (after a few exposure adjustments and noise/sharpening work in Camera Raw).  That darn red door.  Red seems to be tricky in digital images.  Red is really red.  This red door was blotchy in spots.  I had it evened out pretty good but looking at it in this .jpeg format I still see some blotches at the bottom.  Working on that.  In Photoshop, I adjusted the levels on the door itself, the purple wall and the white "Open" sign.  I worked with the Hue/Saturation layer adjustment on the red and I swear the .tiff file looked great, but again, I see blotches in this image.  We'll see what it looks like once it's posted.  This photo, like the last one, was taken before I knew how to use my digital SLR.  (not that it's mastered at this point - I'd put myself on a 5th grade level).  I didn't really want to clean up the bricks.  I kind of like their imperfections.  An imperfect foundation.  Imagine that.

Pittsburgh Winter Day

Welcome to a Pittsburgh winter day.  Nothing out of the ordinary here.  Just some snow being used at a bus stop to hold trash in place.  People waiting for the bus last February 2010 found an excellent use for the snow:  cup holders.  Why not?  They brought some color to a pretty dreary winter day.  I just hope someone was there to pick up the cups once the snow melted and they toppled to the ground.  I like this picture because the yellow cup really popped out at me.  I shot this picture before I learned how to use my digital SLR.  I've made some basic adjustments to the image in Camera Raw and then in Photoshop.  Just some slight exposure fixes and levels adjustments.  I don't know.  I have lots to learn yet as to what looks right.  For now, I just like the randomness of trash and its place in the image.  This accompanies the randomness I have to image editing.

Photography

I'm not sure why I am beginning to explore photography.  There certainly are enough photographers in the world already, and from what I can tell it's not a field that welcomes newcomers with open arms.  But still, I have enjoyed looking at other professional photographers' work for some time now - whether they are artists, commercial photographers, documentarians, photojournalists or wedding photographers.  I cannot draw, paint or sculpt; and I certainly cannot sing and play a musical instrument.  And while creative and non-fiction writing are nagging at me to explore them, too, for now, and for reasons I cannot pinpoint, I have begun to "explore" photography.

Since January of 2010, I have taken a Basic Digital Photography class, Intro to Digital Photography, Intro to Photography (film & darkroom) and am currently taking a course called Photoshop Foundations.  Oh, I've also taken an Intro to Digital class which touched on, among other things, Final Cut Express.  These classes have been taken at a couple of "art" schools in my area.  Have I enjoyed the classes?  No.  But, I think it has something more to do with the "art" scene rather than photography itself.

So, what do I know about photography?  Not much actually.  I seem to just randomly take my camera out and shoot things that appeal to me.  (nature, city, people, objects, whatever)  I'm in the beginning phases:  composition, white balance, aperture settings, shutter speed, ISO, metering and lenses are all challenging enough for me right now.  Haven't taken on lighting yet.  Photoshop is a beast that I have yet to tame (or at least come to believe I will be able to get it one day!  Lynda.com to the rescue.)  Do I understand film and how to develop prints in the darkroom?  Nope - or at least not at any acceptable level.  Tonal range, levels, color balance?  Head is spinning.  But that's okay.  At least its moving.

Not sure at this point in which direction I am seriously headed.  It's either going to be photography for sure, writing and/or digital videos.  Lots to explore.  Feel free to comment on, criticize or commend anything I post.  We'll see how this all develops.

(*As for the image that I've posted here, it's one I took back in July of 2009 while backpacking on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia (not too far from Pearisburg).  This was what the trail looked like when we woke up in the morning.  The picture was shot with just a small point-and-shoot.  I like it, though.  The digital SLR is too darn heavy to take backpacking.)