Anyone here into Photography?

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Mountain Sheep, at White Swan Provincial Park, British Columbia
May 25 2008

I've done a lot of photography in my day too.
I used to prefer my old Pentax camera but now use digital more.
I like photographing flowers and anything in nature including architecture.
I use these to enhance with the use of software,
and also as subjects for paintings and other artwork.

That photo of the sheep is awesome! Well done, spudnik!

Here's a link to a few photos from my Jerusalem collection. I go to Jerusalem almost every weekend, I love photographing that city, especially the Old City quarters...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matt2/show/

Not a normal link; by using the IMG tag (or the image button, in your message editor), you'll be able to actually integrate the image into your message, just as Spudnik did.

Ok, so a few of mine:










And now for a funny one... this one seems to be questioning his partner's hygiene:

Why doesn't it work?

Landaree, those are pro photos! Did you take a course?

None at all. I frequent photography forums a lot, so I've probably learnt a few very basic things about the art.

But, truth be told, those photos are probably at the very high end of my ability; you don't want to see my average photos

(And, just to avoid any confusion: most of them are heavily post-processed).


Greentea, copy the URL of your image... the actual image, not the page where it's shown. If necessary, use your mouse's right button, click on the image itself, find the option that will copy the URL/address. Then, when writing your message here, click on the image button (the one with the mountains and the sun), then paste the copied URL into the dialog box that'll appear, then press OK. An opening IMG tag should appear, followed by your image's URL, then a closing IMG tag.
If you're not sure you've done it correctly, simply use the “Preview” button here instead of the Submit” one; if the photo doesn't show, try again.

I think a lot of post processing is required for the pro look. Just wondering, what kind of post processing techniques do you employ on your photos? Any beginners tips?

I always have problem with colour. I dont think my equipment is crappy, my framing seems to be ok. Its just I live in england where the weather is mostly dull grey. What can I do to bring out the colours?

I've been in London four times, Jonny... can't get enough of it.

It's true that the weather doesn't always help... you'll know that much better than I do. But when it doesn't, trying to bring out colours that simply aren't there in the photo at all, can be pretty frustrating, and you usually end up with a mess, unless you have one heck of a camera (and a lot of skill and patience with Photoshop). For example, in this one all the colours are already individually enhanced quite a bit, mainly with a Photoshop plug-in called Color Mechanic... the blues were made bluer, the brick red were made more like that... and the whites were made whiter (and that's where this selective method differs from simply cranking up the saturation/vibrancy levels, an usually poor choice); yet I'm still not satisfied with it, and exaggerating it more wouldn't help. With this other one, though, I didn't even bother, because there simply wasn't anything worth being enhanced.

My point is, if the weather doesn't help for daylight exteriors, simply try something else: either interiors, like the Covent Garden, the Theatre Museum (has it been closed permanently? ), even local pubs that have some nice style (the Sherlock Holmes, for example)... or night city lights (i.e. Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square...); dunno, living there, you'll probably know a hundred more photogenic places in London than I do.


The scenario always has to help a little bit, otherwise...

Great post Landaree! Thanks for the tips. I guess some things just can't be helped and an alternative is better.

Love the photos you have there. Did you colour boost the Covent Garden ones? Looks very rich in colour.

How do I get started with learning this stuff with Photoshop? (actually I use Gimp, but I'm sure most things can be done).

I do occasional photography. I mostly do scenery, though.

Colour, overall contrast, local contrast, sharpness... you name it Except when pressed by time, I always post-process the hell out of all of my photos; it's not necessarily that I think they're no good as they come out of the camera... it's just that, with post-processing, you can always take them a bit further.



If you prefer the flexibility of a forum environment, DPReview's Retouching subforum and the whole of RetouchPro's message boards are two of the best sites to start. But if you'd like old-school, tutorial-format resources, check out RetouchPro's tutorials section, and other sites that Google will easily find out for you; now, most of those are centered about Photoshop, but anyway most of the techniques are described not just in Photoshop terms, but explaining the underlying idea as well, and that can usually be translated to The Gimp's equivalent (anyway, if you have trouble finding such equivalent, try here or, even better, here).

Awesome information. Thank you!

My husband and I are creative souls, but we struggle to find anything that we are really GREAT at. We dabble in different forms of art/craft and have just bought a digital SLR (Canon Rebel XTI).

Whilst I love photography, I am far from technical-minded and so my husband has taken the courses to understand the mechanics of the camera (which he has made a special effort to regurgitate) and now we are looking for something more.

He is a photo shop whiz and is totally into this sort of thing, so I passed the info. along and he is happily plowing through the info.

We recently had a (post wedding day) photo shoot with an amazingly creative and edgy photographer. She has actually offered to have James tag along and learn through experience, but is really busy with her business at the moment.

Any other suggestions would be hugely appreciated and completely welcomed:)

Nothing else comes to mind now, MLH; the way you describe it, you're both off to a great start already. Nothing beats the enthusiasm to learn which you seemingly have

I love taking nature photos, you can view my photography in my facebook albums but you have to be my friend in order to see them. I used to have deviant art but I closed the account for privacy reasons.

What kind of cameras are you guys using. I use a Nikon DSLR. I take mostly skateboard shots for a skate team out here.

Here is one I got yesterday: