So, so wrong

in so many different ways...

Impossible Babe of the Day.

Do we go with the political? Having a 'babe of the day' at all?
The technical? That photoshopping is appalling - her back would break and her shadow actually has a stomach.
Back to the political? What on earth are we telling women and girls about how they should look?
Back to the technical? What the hell happened?

Gah!

Macro

Very excitingly, I got a macro lens (Nikon 60Mm F2.8D Af Micro Nikkor Lens), and have since been photographing anything and everything with it.

Yesterday I was waiting for a bus and spotted some woods over the road (I do love Sheffield, to be in a big city and just randomly come across some woods), so I went in and got a million leaf, flower, tree bark photos with the macro lens. There are still more to upload!



The top photo is a dead leaf hanging from a tree branch. I love the clarity of the leaf's shapes and patterns, and the fab bokeh. The second of these photos is another dead leaf, with a fly and its shadow clearly visible. Again I like the bokeh, and the detail of the fly and the veins of the leaf.

Same Photo, Different Treatments

I started with this image:

and followed two different tutorials on it, both already tried and tested on this blog.

Firstly, it got the lomo treatment, the second of the two I tried.



Then I gave it the Orton treatment, which is my favourite of the two experiments.



PS.

Fake Model Photography

Since I first saw it, I have wanted to try this technique, to make normal photographs look like they are photographs of a miniature model. There are some good examples here. This is also called Tilt-shift miniature faking.



Using this tutorial, I've made my first attempts. I'm not convinced by them, but I'm getting the idea, and will keep working on this. Enjoy my experiments, anyway.

Choosing the right photos to use can be tricky, too. Photographs taken from above will suit the method more, as that is how photographs of miniature models are usually taken. I think I need to find a high-up spot and take some images for this very purpose, cutting out sky and smoke and such things which detract from the fake-realistic possibilities.

More Orton Effect

I've been doing some more playing with the Orton Effect, and the picture above in particular has had some really good feedback. I like the effect and want to try it on different types of photos, as well as floral and pretty ones.

Spell with Flickr

from Spell with Flickr

Photo to Drawing: Raspberries

Back to this tutorial, it's a bit tricky, but spending a little time can get really great results. I love it!

And the raspberries were tasty, too!

The Orton Effect

Orton imagery, also called an Orton slide sandwich, is a photography technique which blends two completely different photos of the same scene, resulting in a distinctive mix of high and low detail areas within the same photo. It was originated by photographer Michael Orton.



The original technique [...] was to overlay two or more images of an identical scene with very different exposures on slide film. One image is sharply focused and the others are very out of focus.

I followed this tutorial, with mixed results. The amount of gaussian blur really seems to make a difference and I haven't found any kind of formula, other than playing around, that gets the best results.



But when it's right, it's great. It's almost a watercolour or impressionist type effect, and I'll definitely experiment more with this one.

The tutorial is written for Elements 5, but it works fine on Photoshop CS3.

Other of my attempts are here and here.

Fresh

Human Impact