Stanedge Edge

One of my favorite places.

Sometimes all you want to do is hide in a big tree....

I think this tree is incredible! Serious lack of commenting on my recent photos... how can i improve if I don't know what I'm doing wrong :-(

The Escape: Part 2

Continued from Part One.

Here's How...
1. Find a maze (I found the Malborough Maze in Blenheim Palace)



2. Take photos in maze











I dressed up for the occasion in what could best be described as gypsy-meets-hippy-meets-pre raphelite-meets-lady-in-waiting from the TV series 'The Tudors'. I got some funny looks but very nice comments about "my outfit" from three old men and the lad behind the checkout in tescos on my way home :-)

3. Take photo of cat (don't take cat to maze)







4. Bung all into photoshop
I used the extract tool to extract me and Mali and place within the maze. I had to play a lot with the exposure, curves, levels, and contrast and brightness of the different layer to get the lighting similar then I used Michelle Black's 'Even out and contrast' and 'Cool down' filters as a starting point to bring all the colours together. I played with the render lighting effect for "moody darkness", and used a slight orton-method to combine all three images even more and get the dreamy effect. About 2 hours work in total.

Nearly a winner

My clown shot entered for the DPO competition on costumes was first runner up! :-) See the other winning entries here

Just clowning around

This week's competition on Digital Photography School is 'costumes'. Being one who loves to dress up I thought I'd give it a go. I have a bag full of weird and wonderful outfits but a few weeks ago someone was telling me about the Clowns International and how their annual church service in Dalston, London (in full dress) is a great photographic opportunity. Made me think doing something clown-like could be interesting.

I surfed the web for info on clowns and there are many things to be said about them, but there is one thing that must come first. The clown face is not a mask it exaggerates features rather than hides them. The other thing I found out was that the clown's job is to cheer people, no matter how they are feeling. I also found lots of discussions of broken clowns, their clown lives takes them away from their gloom. I'm not sure if this is true but I thought it would be an interesting concept to work with. The idea is that the costume is brass and bold but the person wearing the costume can in fact be quiet and vulnerable, makeup fades into nakedness. Two become one, and this is actually how many of us cope with the difficulties that life can throw our way.

This was a scary thing for me to do but I'm probably fretting about putting it up too much, afterall, people I know plaster photos of themselves on holiday in their swimsuits all over facebook and blogger, and I'm not nervous about what the people I don't know think about me. Saying that though, I grudgingly haven't put up the 'best' one as I'm a bit too nervous about it and the one I have entered for the weekly competition is on my flickr page - it has more costume! It was nearly the one below though!

Her function is to sit and be admired

Unseen Oxford

It's not all dreaming spires. Yesterday I went on a photography walk with the Oxford Photographic Society. The walk took us through Jericho, by the canal down to Botley, and then to Christ Church. Whilst the splender of the Oxford colleges is always impressive I think I've become a bit immune to their photographic opportunities and I prefer the grittiness of the bits the tourists don't always see. I've blogged about Jericho before, it's not the first time I've attempted to capture it. I think the idea of 'unseen oxford' could be a good project to keep working on, one I started a while ago but haven't really pursued. More photos from the walk can be seen on my Flickr page.







See my That Sweet City Set for more Oxford Photographs

My Latest Faves on Flickr

Composite Photography

I've really been wanting to have a go at a 'levitation' image for a while, mostly influenced by Love Loren and Chrissy White (two amazing teen flickerites), and anitmethod.

Click on image to see bigger of view an alternate Large On Black.

Even though it is so fairy tale like there is a lot of me in this image, sometimes I think it is easier to express yourself through the surreal. I've been reading a lot about arabian fables lately, one in particular, 'The Indian Bird', influenced this, it kind of stuck in my head - the way a good fable is meant to. But other things are in there, but well, take from it what you will!

How did i do that......?
I used four images in total for this - three photographs (the bird, me and the cat, and the street scene), and one texture from Nichol Van. The street scene 'Alley' was found using flickr creative commons and was taken by damien_m_in_japan. The bird is an oldie of mine and the one of me and the cat was taken this morning.

I used photoshop's extract tool to dismember me and the pigeon from the photographs, and then really it was a case of tweaking and refining. I used Michelle Black's 'Even out and contrast' and 'Honey Glaze' as a starting point to bring all the colours together and I twiddled a lot with the layers, curves, selective colour, and also burned and dodged overly contrasty areas. Finally I added the texture (a bit like grey blotting paper) on multiply and that was that. This version is very desaturated, there's a more colourful version on my flickr site with the story to go along with it.

I'm sure that I'll come under quite a bit of criticism for this...it's not 'proper' photography, but sometimes there is more there than what you see through the viewfinder.

Oh, and hope you like the new look blog!