Last week we drove to upper Michigan to view the wonderful fall colors. The timing and lighting were just right the day we went to Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Paradise, MI.
The upper Tahquamenon Falls is 200 feet across with a drop of almost 50 feet. The lower falls are about 4 miles downstream, and are made up of a series of five smaller falls around a small island. The water is a golden brown color which is caused by tannins from nearby cedar swamps that drain into the river.
After so many years of taking and processing “traditional” photographs, I decided to expand my creative side and signed up for an “unconventional” photography class at a local community college near me. The class is designed to sharpen your photography skills and combine images artistically through photo manipulation. The professor displayed a number of creative photographs that were the result of combining two or more different photographs. Window frames became works of art, and portraits were fashioned into painted illustrations. It awakened me to a whole new photographing/editing adventure!
Part of class last night was to take abstract photographs inside the campus. Below is a closeup of part of a waterfall taken with a slow shutter speed inside the entrance of the building my class was in. I liked the way it turned out and decided to try my hand at combining two photos. I had taken a photo of a white pelican on a lake a couple of years ago. Given the white edge at the top of the waterfall photo, I thought these two photographs might blend well. Both photos where processed separately then processed again when combined. I used two Apps, Snapseed® and Painnt®. Then finished it off with Photoshop Elements® and NIK®. I am quite sure this can be done using just Photoshop. I haven’t mastered it enough so I improvised with what I know well. If you haven’t tried this yet, I would highly recommend it. It has awakened a whole new energy within and expanded my parameters on what to photograph!
f/8; 1/125 sec; ISO 100
I had the opportunity to visit Olympia in the springtime during my trip to Greece where the ancient olympic games originated and were held. The trees were just blossoming and the sky was overcast which brought the ruins to life.
There is a very cool little app I discovered called PAINNT-pro art filters by Moonlighting Apps, LLC. It is available for Android and Apple tablets and phones.
I found this app to be a lot of fun to experiment with different artsy effects. It is easy to use and provides tools to control the effects. Would be awesome if they added brushes!
Thought I would pass it along!
Two yellow flowers, two different backgrounds.
With the summer days quickly flying by, I decided to visit the Chicago Botanic Gardens to photograph flowers. My focus was to isolate a flower and pay attention to background. At the time of capture I honestly had nothing in mind in choosing a background. But, after reviewing, discovered color can really impact the mood of an image especially when photographing flowers…two yellow flowers, two different backgrounds evoke two different moods.
Chicago Skyline – f/5.6; ISO 800; 1/15 sec.
Danube River – f/7.1; ISO 200; 1/125 sec.
Sorrento, Italy – f/10; ISO 200; 1/250 sec.
