Image of the Week

orange hot rod, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

It was quite to my surprise that this image was selected as the Image of the Week on the National Association of Photoshop Professionals website.

No photo...just a quote that I found interesting

Simplicity is the last step of art. - Bruce Lee

Feeling a bit blue?

blue daisy, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

For whatever reason I went away from photographing flowers. Well to be honest I know the reason but I'm not proud of it. I stopped taking photos of flowers because I didn't feel it was very manly of me. Guys are supposed to photograph cars and women right? I'm being a bit facetious but I did feel flowers were a bit beneath me. I mean...how hard can it be to photograph a flower?

This is just one of any number of roadblocks I have created for myself while on my photography journey. I'm slowly trying to break down these roadblocks so I can fully realize my potential.

In the meantime I'm going to take photos of flowers whenever I see some that are asking to be photographed.

Hot rod collage

hot rod collage, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

While I haven't been shooting nearly as much as I was during my 365 Project I'm still going out at least once a week. Last Saturday I went to Pacific Grove's Good Old Days parade and festival. Somehow I found myself taking more photos of old cars that were in the parade and later parked on a side street with very little foot traffic. The lighting was good enough to use my 70-300mm macro lens so I took advantage of this. Thought the best way to present the photos was in a collage.

Photowalks...not just for exercise

paints & brushes, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I pretty much did my 365 Project alone. I was either in my garage at night or out walking alone taking photos the entire year. It wasn't until I was almost finished that I discovered a local photowalk group. Would it have been helpful to my project if I had found the group earlier? Probably would have helped with the learning curve.

I've only had the occasion to go out with them twice so far and most recently was last week. A small group of us ventured out to the Monterey Farmer's Market that is every Tuesday and is the largest in the area. I've gone alone a few times but felt so self-conscious that I only took a few photos. I was still a bit shy about taking photos with the group but not as bad.

What was more fun was being able to chat about photography and to answer questions that a few of them had. The questions asked were all the same questions I was trying to find answers to myself when I was first starting out, like how do you use the f/stop correctly and why do the numbers change when I zoom in and out. It felt good being able to answer those questions.

Besides having people to talk photography about it was also really interesting to see how we each looked at the scene. Not a single shot looked identical and I had several, I never would have thought to look at that that way, moments. While I will still go out and walk around myself the majority of the time I highly recommend finding a photowalk group to join, or starting one yourself.

Here are a few more shots I took.

 

Diptych

reaching for the sun, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I've been wanting to try doing more creative post work for a long time and have finally gotten around to playing with diptychs.

What is a diptych? It's a photograph that uses two different or identical images side by side to form one single artistic statement. The two images can literally be in contact with each other, or separated by a border or frame. It isn't limited to photographs and has been used for centuries in other art forms.

I have a few people I'm using as inspiration on these and have lots to learn. It's not limited to using the same scene or even colors. As you can see in the top image I just used two shots of the same scene. The one below I wanted to see how two different shots with the same basic theme (waterdrops) would look together. Not exactly sure how I feel about it yet.

Nothing is permanent

nothing is permanent, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

An old piano a former student at the university bought and put out in the woods as a project and has stood for a number of years was recently destroyed. The piano wasn't just sitting there...he took it apart and put it back together around a tree so the tree was growing up out of the piano.

I had heard about the piano and had seen pictures of it and had wanted to search it out a number of times but never did, today I went in search of it only to find that it destroyed. This I'm pretty sure was a recent occurrence as a video made in November shows it intact.

 It really deflated me when I turned a corner and saw a pile of wood on the ground. I had been envisioning this piano in the tree for quite some time and was coming up with different ways to photograph it in my head. I guess what this has taught me is to not wait around and when you want to try something you better find a way to do it sooner than later. As the vandals (I'm assuming here) points out....nothing is permanent. 

Here's a video of the piano and an interview with the artist who came up with the idea. Wonder if he knows yet that someone destroyed it rather than it going back to the earth as he intended.

White Crane

white crane in b&w, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

If you're a regular to my site you'll notice a bit of a change. I've been wanting to change the template for a while now because I didn't like how the old one limited the size of my photos so much. I'm still playing around with the template and will probably change the orange to something less orangey.

This shot was taken a while back and while cleaning up my 365 archive I wanted to see if I could take it from being a blown out throw away photo to something more appealing. After converting it to black and white and cropping to remove excess tree branches I started to see it come together.

- Converted using the black and white adjustment layer (neutral density preset).
- Used a new technique I just learned that uses the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Create a Hue/Saturation layer and change blend mode to Color. Create another Hue/Saturation layer and move the Saturation slider all the way to the left. Switch back to the other Hue/Saturation layer and adjust the sliders as needed.
- For extra contrast added a Curves layers and used the Increase Contrast preset.
- Did a little dodge and burn on the bird where needed.

Los Laureles Grade (Carmel Valley)

Los Laureles Grade in b&w, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Saturday was a stormy day but only in certain areas so while out I went in search of areas with big fluffy storm clouds yet not raining. My hope was to really work on seeing in black and white since my new style interest has been black and white. Something about the "feel" of a good black and white photo gives me a warm fuzzy.

So here is a landscape I shot with black and white in mind. I'm also playing around with a few different conversion techniques in Photoshop in lieu of buying additional software like Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro.

I also cropped this to be more of a pan. The immediate foreground was nothing special and took some plain clouds out at the top. My plan is to create a large white border with extra at the bottom and title it and have it printed out as a 11x14 to see how it looks.

Excuse the mess

The small compact post area has been bugging me for a while now so am playing with other templates. I like this one but need to reconfigure a few things so in the meantime please excuse the mess.