ursula's workshop: photo impressionism

no recap

2006-02-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

I haven't gotten around to recap .... it's so much easier to go out instead.

recap

2006-02-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

oh, the horror of it all! - 2 versions

I'm trying to figure out where I am with this. What's it all about. That's my goal for February, what's this all about. I figured "the horror of it all" is a good place to start. Figuring out anything seems so difficult, almost terrifying. And putting anything into words is even more difficult.

Will start tomorrow (my usual excuse) :)

textures

2006-01-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

I remember summer

I think I'm fascinated right now with the concept of working with textures. An old concept for sure, but it never struck me before that I could make my own textures! I've been walking all over the house trying to find "texture" images. I'm waiting for a good bright day to go and find textures all over town.

This is another combination of two images, one of a pink gerbera in a blue vase in the kitchen window (w/b way off, +2 full F-stops, not particularily in focus) and another of a little part of the ceiling in one of the rooms. It's upside down because I like it that way (saves me the trouble of standing on my head to look at it).

homesick

2006-01-21T19:40:00.000-08:00

Neil, you're right. It is all about feelings.

Tonight I felt very lonely. My husband is away teaching in Nicaragua for two weeks, the weather has been dreadful, and I have a cold. I tried to make a picture of how I feel, lonely, homesick, tired - like walking outside by myself at night, looking in windows, wishing to be part of something beautiful and warm.

I had made some pictures of a wet window earlier today, thinking to use them as textures, and tonight I made this picture of a candle, the background colours are the TV. To me, they put in picture sort of my mood tonight, although, just making this image has gotten me in a much, much better mood. Go figure.

doubles

2006-01-20T20:26:00.000-08:00

I was so happy that the thread was alive again, that I decided to make a bunch of doubles. All are from image made in the last 10 days.

Comments, as usual, are very welcome and much appreciated.

playing with moss

2006-01-20T17:33:00.000-08:00

matches

A "multi", a blending of four separate images, 3 of the same clump of moss, one of a different one. I think it's funny how the mosses look like matches with all the red heads.

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I think what I really need to figure out is, "What is the point of any of these images?" What in the world am I trying to say with them, beyond that I think moss is absolutely fascinating. Or does it matter? What is the "essense" of these images?

Or, from a slightly different point of view, can a visually pleasing design stand on its own, without a story, especially over time?

mushroom in the sky

2006-01-11T16:49:00.000-08:00

Composites of two different images are a lot more difficult to make than I expected. This is a composite of a closeup of a little mushroom in some moss and a picture of a couple clouds.

glassware

2006-01-04T22:06:00.000-08:00

Another multi:

the blues

2005-12-27T20:31:00.000-08:00

Winter is long, and there's so much blue ....

"ornamental"

Digital double exposure, same image (closeup of a glass Christmas ornament), twice, once flipped both horizontally and vertically; blended in normal at background = 100%, layer 2 = 50%.

"landscape in smoke"

Digital double exposure: the Columbia close to Northport, WA and a closeup of smoke from in incense stick, blended in normal second layer (smoke) at 34%.

"rain on pines"

Attempt at "impressionism" right out of the camera. Closeup of a pine branch by the river, in the rain, evening light.

Monday's vase

2005-12-19T22:08:00.000-08:00

In my kitchen window

I was reading an article by Patterson in an older PhotoLife magazine last night, and he mentioned that it didn't matter to him "how" the final product was achieved (in camera, as a slide sandwich, in post-processing), so I figured I could try with one picture again.

This one I made yesterday morning - vase in my kitchen window, backlit from reflected light (reflected off snow in the backyard). Layered background and 3 copies of the picture, copies blurred using motion blurr, and blended at 50, 33, and 25 in normal. Comments appreciated as usual.

After the pause

2005-12-18T11:13:00.000-08:00

I took some time out from photo impressionism. I think I'm getting back into it. Last night we were in church, and this is the result:

Composite of three images, two way out of focus, one more or less in focus. All made at ISO 1600, ambient light, 105mm macro lens at F2.8, aperture priority.

snowy friday

2005-11-25T14:32:00.000-08:00

"the old bridge"

"fall in winter"

Two composites using methods described in chapter 2.

The first (the bridge picture) is a composite of one clear/one much lighter oof image, although in this case I did the oofocusing digitally using gaussian blur, lightening with curves; blended at 50% in normal.

The second is the same image twice, second layer flipped both vertically and horizontally, blended in normal at 50%.

cloudy tuesday

2005-11-22T12:38:00.000-08:00

"frost"

Composite of two images made seconds apart, one in focus normal exposure, the second completely out of focus exposure set to F +1. I am trying to imitate one of the effects talked about in Chapter 2. The two images were blended as follows:

base layer (in focus photo) at 100%
second layer (out of focus photo) at 100% in soft light
third layer (out of focus photo again) at 50% in normal

As usual, comments, suggestions for improvement, ideas are welcome.

monday monday

2005-11-21T21:49:00.000-08:00

A blend of three different images: a drop on a blade of grass, some dried moss, and a maple leaf. No relation, except that all three were found close to a backroad in Trail, BC (lower in elevation, no snow yet).

A blend of 8 images of a cross-country skier. I blended layers 2-8 at 50/layer# (rather than 100/layer#) in normal mode. Images made yesterday close to Rossland, BC.

just one more for chapter 1

2005-11-19T15:44:00.000-08:00

"winter dreams"

The weather has been miserable today, not just miserable, but that heavy cold grey that makes you wish you lived elsewhere. So I started playing with pictures from September. This is a composite of three close-ups of a little purple flower by the Columbia. I am cheating though, I cropped the finished composite picture.

chapter 1 - resumen

2005-11-19T12:53:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1 talked about 2 different kinds of multi-exposures, (1) many exposures of the same subject, slightly off register for each subsequent exposure; (2) two or more exposures of different subjets.

Both methods use a single piece of film for the result (no sandwiching). The first and biggest problem is that neither method can be replicated in digital camera at this time. So the question for me immediately became, can I replicate results using digital camera methods, and how.

The answer for me is, "No, I can't. Not really. It's not the same."

But what I can work on is the ideas behind these multiple exposure images. I can work on textures and beautiful soft images, create mood, make dream/nightmare composites, work on abstracting what really makes something what it is. For the ideas it doesn't matter whether it's film or digital.

Anyway, these are my thoughts at the end of chapter 1. And a couple more experiments:

"driving by the cinema"

"first snow"

"salud"

who cares what it is

2005-11-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

soft breeze

writer's block

wednesday's landscape

2005-11-16T16:02:00.001-08:00

Pend d'Oreille Cutoff

This is a composite of 4 shots I made back in late October, on a sunny afternoon when the trees were still full of gold. The river is the Pend d'Oreille, which flows into the Columbia about 12 miles downriver. The cutoff is the Nellway road, a very bumpy dirt track that follows the Pend d'Oreille from 7 mile Dam to Nellway (it's about 10 miles of road I believe, but it takes me a couple hours to drive - yeah for Subarus!).

It is a bit frustrating that a lot of the multi-image composites turn out so dark, and frequently lose most detail. I wonder if taking images with very sharp, shiny edges would make for better multi-image composites, although, some of the soft, brown textures I get from these composites are beautiful as textures. I think I am used to more detail in my images. Question: Is detail important?

shooting in series

2005-11-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

This is turning into a bit of a personal discovery journey. I went back through a bunch of pictures I made this past Summer, and noticed that I tend to shoot in series - I have quite a few "series" of pictures, getting closer series, all sorts of different angles series, just plain same shot series. This is coming in handy right now.

Both images below are made from composites of pictures made in June of this year. The stop sign picture includes 4 separate shots, the daisy composite includes 3 separate shots.

"stop"

glow daisies

tuesday's musings ....

2005-11-15T11:36:00.000-08:00

Vivid vs. soft, it seems that in general, the more layers, the softer the final look. The possibilities are almost overwhelming at the moment.

The top image is two photos blended in normal; the bottom image is a series of 7 photos blended in normal.

one more from today ....

2005-11-14T19:33:00.000-08:00

One thing we have a lot of around here is rocks (rocks and trees and water, the Arrogant Worms have it right). This is a rock face by the Columbia. I made two series of about 25 shots this afternoon, one vertical, the other horizontal, diffused afternoon sunshine for light. Living North gives you good shadows in winter almost any time of the day :)

Here I combined a bunch of verticals to create a flowing sideways texture, then combined that picture with one of the horizontals. Both times they were blended using the decreasing percents formula. I'm starting to like that formula.

I think I will experiment more with this rock face - it looks a bit like a cathedral. I wonder if combining architecture and rock pictures would work.

monday's experiments

2005-11-14T16:43:00.000-08:00

"evaporation"

two pictures, one from a couple days ago, the other from today

"afternoon chores"

two pictures superimposed

"river rock"

a series of 9 pictures of a few rocks in the Columbia - the contrast between water and rock is quite beautiful in real life, I tried to give it back a bit here.

a couple more experiments ....

2005-11-13T19:51:00.000-08:00

Both are combinations of three different images, both were each subsequent image was shot a bit closer to the subject as before (using fixed lens, so no zooming).

For the pears I used a black background, then combined the three pear pictures in three layers at about 40% in normal mode with that background. The result was rather dark. I lightened, added another layer, and blended in soft light (forgot the percentage).

For the tree in the rain, blended using the decreasing formula (100/50/33/and so on). I used 6 layers, 2 of each picture, background was the original at 100, second layer the original in soft light at 50, third the second picture in normal at 50, fourth the second picture in soft light at 33, and so on (more or less, again, I didn't write down the numbers exactly, and I'm never particularily exact when it comes to post-processing).

chapter 1

2005-11-13T16:49:00.000-08:00

First attempts at multiple exposures:

For the first image I took the same image 9 times, slightly moved each time, then merged in normal at decreasing percentages. After merging I added another layer of the original picture, blurred using strong gaussian, and blended in soft light at about 30%.

For the second image, I took two different shots and blended in a variety of modes. One of the shots is a closeup of a leaf, the other is a blurred (vertical camera motion) of some aspens.

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NOTES:

What I found most interesting about Chapter 1 is the notion that for this kind of multiple exposures it works best to have the individual frames be quite in focus. It makes a lot of sense. The stacking of sharp, in focus lines and shapes would create a dreamlike effect quite different than the effect created with longer exposures/camera movement.