Week 14 Slideshow-"My Fabulous Friends" (final)

For my final project, I wanted to show all of the animal friends that I have had throughout my life, from childhood to now. I tried to accomplish this by showing myself in some pictures getting older and older. I tried to show the animals that had great impact on my life, but also I tried to keep in mind that this was a photography assignment. I was looking for certain aspects in the photographs or at least ones that I could manipulate. At first, I thought, oh this will not be hard. I cannot say it was actually hard, but I wanted to be thorough and then I became obsessed with wanting to get it just right. I'm hoping the captions will not take away from the slideshow. I kept adding a little bit more information to them as I continued to check the rubric. The hardest part of this whole assignment was really making the GIMP tools work for me. I would have this idea in my head as to what I wanted the pictures to look like, and then...it would not seem to come out right. I did a lot of adjusting and readjusting. This was a very gratifying assignment, as I looked back and remembered some very special moments with my fabulous friends.

Thanks,
Trina

Week #13-portraits

In this top photo, I took a picture of my oldest son looking out the window.  He has a very deep and thoughtful expression on his face, which is true to him nature. I did ask permission first, and he was very cooperative.  He was not aware of exactly when I was going to take the picture.  I chose this one because he is slightly out of focus.  Because he is slightly blurry, the trees in the background stick out more.  The part I liked best with the focus on the background is in between the trees you can see the orange in the sky beyond the trees.  Take a close look to see if you can catch the beautiful color in the sky; it's there.

 Here is a close up of one of my favorite people, my boyfriend.  In this photograph I gave him lots of room to look at something ahead of him.  I did ask his permission too, and he was more than willing.  At first, he was walking as I was photographing.  I thought that would be great because I could get some movement in my picture, but my camera was too slow in capturing the image.  I would snap a great shot when he was moving, and then look at the image, and I missed him completely.  So, I told him to stand still.  He is 6'5", so I decided to stand up on a rock to at least get even with his eye level.  Finally I got this shot, and liked it.  It does show that he he those "eagle eyes" and that is true.  I'm glad this picture picked that up.

This is my youngest son, and he is quite different from my oldest, and you can see that.  I, again, asked for permission first.  He agreed and he got so excited he put on quite a show for me.  I tried many different angles with him coming down my stairway.  I even turned my camera so that the stairway was diagonal in the background, but none of those came out with any satisfaction.  Finally, I remembered in the tutorial that maybe framing a face would be effective.  He's not in jail, but instead, stuck his face through the staircase railing.  I quick took this picture before he went goofy on me again.  This was a lot of fun--especially shooting this last one!  I did not manipulate any of these portraits either.

Week #10-text in picture

I labeled this picture using GIMP.  I just like the straight forwardness of the writing.  Being able to write information on the picture itself helps me as a viewer understand quickly what I'm looking at.

Week #10=paint brush

 The top photo is the one that I painted on.  I played around with different colors, but decided to go with the more black and white look.  I based that decision on the fact that the floor in the background was already black and white.  First, I cloned the floor to cover up the background edges that showed in the original.  Then, I found the galaxy (ap) brush, and clicked it all around my dog.  Then, I colored in his eyes with a brown round paint brush that fit very well to his eyes.  I like the shadows that were created as I used the galaxy.  It made the outline of my dog stand out. 

These are all just the originals.  I had trouble with my computer when I was selecting the pictures to put in here, and they did show up, but it took a very long time, and I thought they didn't.  Sorry.

Week #10-clone

 This is the photo that I used the cloning feature on.  I picked a round paintbrush and made the size around 3.75.  Then. I clicked on the part of the photo that I wanted cloned, and clicked all around the pumpkin.  I chose the round shape because I thought it matched the pumpkin's shape.  I purposely took the picture with the pumpkin off center because I wanted to see how the cloning would look around something that wasn't centered.  I just clicked the cloned part around in a circular motion until all the background was covered.

This is my original photo that I chose to clone.

Week #9 filters

 This original was taken one beautiful sunny morning, just as the sun was coming up.  I was slightly disappointed because the photo did not show the beauty of the sunrise.  So...I thought, this will be a good one to run through filters. 

 After trying many different filters, I simply fell in love with hitting just the Decor-Old Photo tabs.  That's it.  I know it still doesn't show the sunrise colors, like I thought I wanted to do.  In the end, I did almost the complete opposite of what I set out to do.

 This is the original for these photos.  I couldn't believe that both of my horse's eyes lit up because of the flash from my camera.  Again, I was slightly disappointed at my attempt to get a good picture, and decided to put this through the filters too.  I played around a lot with this one.

This is the process I used.  First, I added the "lens flare" and adjusted it to where I liked it.  Then, I added "fuzzy border.,"  then "despeckle." After that,  I couldn't get rid of his bright eyes, so I tried "oilfy."  Doing that took out the brightness in his eyes and made the fence wire disappear.  

Week 8

 Here is a close up of my goat.  I chose to photograph him because of all the white markings he has on his face.  I thought that he would be a good topic for this week's assignment.

 Here, I darkened all around my goat so much that even his leg in the lower left corner has mostly disappeared.  The colors have changed quite a bit--and now the image is slightly evil looking.  Appropriate for Halloween I'm thinking!

 This is the original photo of my horse.  She ended up with that bright eye from the flash on my camera.  I couldn't quite figure out how to perfectly color it in.  Once I zoomed in on her eye, I could see so many colors within the rest of her eye, I couldn't tell which color to choose.  I did finally choose a brown.  It almost works.  I also brightened up the image, and in fact, I think the second photo seems better than the original 

Week #8

 Here is my mosaic.  I must say I spent a lot of time trying to get my little pictures to pop out more.  I spent a long time trying different settings, and well.......this is one of the better ones.  I got it to look like this by changing the pixel setting.  There were some pictures that ended up looking very black, and nothing could be seen.  Then with other settings I created what looked somewhat like a maze.  None of those were acceptable.  Each time my computer popped up with a message that I was not filling all the squares.  It told me to pick a smaller double space, but I had it on the smallest number offered.  This was a challenge.  It seemed like it should have been an easy process too.

This is just the original to compare to the mosaic.

Week #7

 With the second photo here, I resized the playground equipment and cropped the scenery.

With this last photograph, I did not resize, but cropped the background so only the owl was in the photograph.

slideshow attempt #3

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AEfj-gVvy4kp2s0wn0J2ig?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxuam-zzb0jaV-CI79kcUAClXAMSq0usdn-wY0lmiC5W8Js6uwqx6RkmYwKS0aSBruuYutGsODBxVbvedkSMVDfYvOXr4q3HtHldmbRgCVaNd3fr6FyiSNwAoWP_No7beWQpjQx368hI0/s144/%2525231%252520in%252520slideshow.jpg" height="108" width="144" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/103241362397507855731/October152011?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">October 15, 2011</a></td></tr></table>

Week 6-landscaping

Slideshow post #2

Week 5 slideshow

Week #5-post about Elements of Photographic Composition and/or Aesthetics

This week I found an article written by a very successful landscape photographer named Alain Briot.  He wrote several essays on the subject of Aesthetics.  The essay I read and chose to comment on was titled "Aesthetics and Photography."  This article can be found at: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/aesthetics-1.shtml

I learned a lot from reading his words.  But, the ah-ha moment for me was when he listed nine steps to the process he has in place to use when he photographs.  He lists them, and later goes on to explain each step.  It is overwhelming to say the least, but it was nice to see how I should be thinking before photographing.  I will mention the nine items he stated, and I am taking them exactly the way he wrote them in his essay. 

1- How to see photographically
2-How to compose a photograph
3-How to choose the best lens for a specific composition
4-How to find the best light for a specific photograph
5-How to choose the beset "film" for a specific image
6-How to determine the best exposure for a specific scene
7-How to decide which photographs are "keepers" and which are not
8-How to assemble a body of work
9-How to establish a personal photographic style

He also stated this quote which I really appreciated.  "Keep in mind that the goal of this series is to walk you through this process step by step and to provide you with skills and techniques that will enable you to work your  way through both the long journey ahead and the long list above.  This list is here only as a blueprint."

I also talked with my son who has a Master's Degree in film, entertainment business.  I asked him for some advice in taking a good picture.  He gave me this piece of advice.  He said, "Make sure you use leading lines."  He explained this to me as use the lines that are around to point towards the object you are photographing.  I have found that helpful. 

Trina

Week 4-coloring pictures

 In this picture I was thinking about how purple and green complement each other.  I know they are not directly across from each other on the color wheel, but with this plant, they complemented each other very nicely.  Even the lighter purple flower stands out brightly.

 With these next two photos, I was trying for the monochromatic color scheme.  I know the purple plant isn't the greatest picture, but I kept it in anyway.  I couldn't get over how the colors in the plants, are also in the bricks behind it.   I really like the green picture too.  There are just so many different shades of green there.  Plus, it looks like a mysterious little path.  It's hard to believe that it is just behind a Super 8 motel, right next to a highway!

In this picture, I tried to capture the analogous color scheme.  Green and yellow are close on the color wheel, and there they were, right there that tree.  

Week 3-collage

I did a second post after looking at some of my classmates collages.  Theirs were much better than my first one, so I tried a second one.  These are the same pictures, but they are just arranged better. 

Week 3-collage

This collage shows a variety of sport balls.  I took close ups of the balls and placed them in the background.  I then placed a picture that showed the whole ball on top, in case there was any confusion as to what the close up was.  I was able to get good texture from the football, the gray kickball, and the koosh balls.  The blue volley ball and the smaller nerf football also show some texture, but they are not as outstanding as the others.  Unfortunately, the big blue ball showed lines before I set it in this collage.  The red bouncy ball shows that it is slightly flat by the way it sags.  I like the small whiffle ball, but the larger picture is a little distorted.  I was unsure how to fix that, because when I tried, there was white space around it.  A few of the other ball's shapes are distorted too, due to the same thing.

My son playing the piano

This image was taken from above, while my son was playing the piano.  I like this picture because it shows a very specific action with his fingers.  There are fingers playing the white keys, and the black ones, and one white key you can see is pressed down.   There is no room to wonder what the focus of this picture is.  The only thing I don't care much for is the glare on his hair and on the piano from the flash.  I did not take that into consideration before I took the picture.

This picture is again of my son, and I think I like this side view better because it gives the viewer a big picture of the whole area when he plays the piano.  It looks as if you are in the audience watching.   Unfortunately, I did not take the background into consideration before taking the picture.  It certainly detracts.  Like the first picture, the glare from the flash is too much. 

Digital Photography I

My url address for my blog is:  http://trinanewland-trina.blogspot.com