Dutch Pussywillows



Dutch Pussywillows, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This is a more thoroughly processed image. I started with a conversion in Capture NX, trying to capture the most information in the color image. Then in Photoshop I created the independent conversion layers that Vincent Versace describes in “Welcome to Oz”. My intent was mostly to create a well graded and fully toned black and white image. The rest of the PS work was to bring out the light that was in the scene, using some selective sharpening using Nik’s program.

All in all it’s a less casual, more controlled approach than shooting with the Leica and a C41 process BW film like Kodak CN400BW.

Dutch Portrait



Dutch Portrait, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’m back from my very extended travel. Berlin, Amsterdam, Milan. The D300 was a perfect companion and I returned with about 750 images captured.

In Amsterdam, I played a bit with capturing the Dutch on their bicycles by using a slow shutter speed, here about 1/20th second. While my intent going in was to keep the city travel portfolio as black and white, seeing images in color makes it a bit more difficult to stick to an arbitrary convention. I converted and processed this one quickly just to get an image up tonight. I’ll be working through the images over a few weeks, trying to get at least one per day online.

Greetings from Berlin

More extended business travel here.berlin.jpg It’s overcast, intermittantly rainy and a bit raw here in Berlin. In a break from my ongoing business travel project with the Leica and BW film, I brought the D300 with me instead. Since I’ve been watching the PMA announcements with the thought of adding a compact camera for travel, I tried the iPhone camera for a quick capture this morning. It’s a view of the sunrise through a hotel window, 8th floor. No editing.

Hiding the House



Hiding the House, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I hadn’t captured an image in about a week, so I was desperate to grab something today. Just captured 20 images, nothing really worked out. This was grabbed from the car window at the stoplight at 7 Mile Lane and Smith Avenue. It’s much too cluttered, but I did my best to pull down the tone on everything but the white house and tree shadows.

View Across the Street



View Across the Street, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’ve been working on the black and white conversions some more, trying to understand how to mix color channels to alter the tonal balance in an image. It’s complex and I don’t feel I have all of the tools, but I’ve made some headway.

Time and time again I get to a certain point in post processing an image and I stare at the screen, blank as to what to do next. I’ll give up and upload the image to Flickr. Once I see the thumbnail, it becomes clear to me what the image needs to get to the next level. In this image, the wall at the left and the sidewalk had the same value. It became clear that the wall needed to be brought down and the sidewalk up in value.

I also used John Paul Capinigro’s colorization method on this image, using hue and saturation in PS CS3. It’s easier than the duo or tritone methods I’ve tried before and I think is a bit richer.

I took a short trip to the Boston area on business this past week, dragged the Lecia along and took no images. I’ll start some more extensive travel soon. Should I try the D80 or D300, shoot for black and white and use conversion? Or bring the Leica as usual?

Turning It Around



Low Key Leanings, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This is an interesting image for me as it ended up exactly 180 degrees from where it started. In the original image, the tree trunk in the front was the darkest, the trunk in the back was lighter and the background yet lighter.

I realized that for it to work, the front tree would have to be the most well lit, so I worked to push the light to the front and allow the rest of the scene to recede. I also for the first time used the Nik Pro Sharpener demo to bring out detail in the trunk on the front.

Book Review: “Rough Beauty” Dave Anderson

This is a book of photographs made in the small Texas town of Vidor. While I’m not particularly drawn to the subject matter or emotionally affected by the content, I do like Anderson’s photographic style. He shot these on film with a Hasselblad on Plus-X 220 and traditional silver process enlargements.

Technically, I noted two things about the images that I’m using in my own work. First, Anderson takes a cinematic approach to the images, creating a dramatic hyper-real portrayal of the scene that is far from reality. In an interview in the book, he actually contrasts his “cinematic” approach with the straighter vision of someone like Dorothea Lange.

Second, using traditional black and white, Anderson is limited to burning and dodging. The page from the book that I’ve linked to above shows obvious traces of the dogding of the main subject. Interestingly, the messy border of the lightening of the subject creates a dramatic glow that works well as long as you don’t look so closely that you see it as manipulation. The glow from the baby’s head clearly bleeds over into the background. I too have seen in my Photoshop light painting that sharp borders often work at cross purposes to the effect. It’s better to soften the layer by decreasing opacity so that it fades to being unobvious and hence more believable.

Glimpsed in the Fog



Glimpsed in the Fog, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

On Friday, I drove to Rockville, Maryland for a business meeting. While crawling in some early morning traffic, I pointed the D300 out the car window and grabbed this scene.

I’m now considering selling the D80 since I no longer notice the added weight of the D300 and I’m so enamored with the images that I hesitate to pick up the D80 at this point.

Training All of the Muscle?

Today I ran 20 minutes of random length intervals, Speedplay, at the suggestion of The 20 Minute Fitness Solution. I ran on the local high school track doing two 400 meter intevals as the longest and a bunch of 8 second run / 12 second jog cycles with a few sprints of varying length thrown in.

While I may just be enjoying the efficiency of these short, high intensity workouts and benefitting from the novelty and lack of adaptation due to my inexperience, I’m beginning to suspect there is something else going on here as they feel very natural to me. They are short, hard and fun.

It may be, as Clarence Bass speculates here that these high intensity intervals bring a higher percentage of muscle fibers into play- including fast and slow twitch fibers. If, as I suspect, I’m not a gifted endurance athelete, but I am strong, I may benefit more from training that recruits the stronger side of my muscular abilities.

Lighting Exercise



Lord of San Francisco, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This image was small, generally unsuccessful experiment in manipulating light in a street photo as if I had used lights in the street on the subject. The original had very flat lighting. I’d like to rework this from scratch to get a more cinematic and dramatic quality.