This gallery contains 3 photos.
Hello Hello! Just a quick note about PhotoToaster. Back in January I did a tutorial/review of PhotoToaster. Shortly after that I had the opportunity to do some beta testing of the 3.0 version, which hits the App store today. Did … Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
When I pursue more abstract notions in my iPhoneography, I often receive a couple of questions, “how did you do that” or “what app did you use”. Sometimes the answer isn’t simple, as I will often stack apps. App stacking … Continue reading
While I was on the road I was doing quick edits and blogging along the way as I wanted to have notes, thoughts on the places and moments. Now that I am home from the trip and things are a bit more sedate, I’m slowly working through my images, finding more and more faves and playing about with some creative, dramatic post (in some cases).
With the images below, I use a combination of Adobe Lightroom 3 and Nik Silver Efex for processing. I love Lightroom for the simple yet powerful tool that it is. There are loads of presets that you can use as starting points and add to, or you can create your own presets. You can control levels and curves and cropping and noise, it’s a joy to work in and so easy to lose hours in. 
What I like about Nik Silver Efex are the deeper, sometimes grungier, textured effects available, again, pre-sets to start with and build on. Heck you can even add film texture to an image, have a fave black and white film? It might be available, add to that you can adjust the level and size of grain. Imagine that, we have fancy digital cameras and we take those shiny sharp images and make them look like the good old days .
Anyhow, the three images below were taken somewhere in Oregon, heading back to Washington, on the last day of a two week journey.
You may have heard of a web based creative education group called creativeLIVE, they produce and sell some of the most amazing photography, filmmaking and creative classes out there. This weekend they are broadcasting a workshop on Dramatic Post-Production with David Nightingale. His site is filled with compelling images, I’d highly recommend checking it out, and the creativeLIVE workshop too, especially if you have any interest at all in creative post production.
David’s approach offers discussion of the technical while not losing site of your creative vision, as a matter of fact there’s a strong focus on creative vision. Making the ordinary stand out. Pushing yourself to do something more than just snap a photo, to create.
The first day of his three day workshop wrapped with a live photoshoot and a homework assignment. The homework assignment is for all those who wish to participate, whether viewing the broadcast or not.
I decided to participate.
The Homework Assignment:
- Pick a location… somewhere with little or no immediate visual interest.
- Shoot something on the basis of how it “could” look, or how you would like it to look.
- Post process it to get as close to your creative vision as possible.
- Post it in the NightingaleLIVE group pool on flickr.
I am often drawn to little things, flowers or plants, and I found several things along the way.
Below are a couple of diptychs. What I wanted to display is a before and after, the image on the left being the original image, untouched, and then on the right, my final result. With Fall in full swing here in Seattle, and an overcast afternoon, I knew I would convert these images to black and white, as I was capturing them.
Another part of the process today was stepping away from Lightroom for my processing and moving back into Photoshop, using layer masks and such. I do love Lightroom, but with David’s focus in Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw I opted to process these photos using those tools instead.
Posted in creativeLIVE, workflow
Tagged creative post-production, creativeLIVE, workshop
