, a fancy photo sharing thing.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Taipei at night, with dreamy sky
Elephant Mountain is a great place to see Taipei at night. It has an excellent view of Taipei 101 and many people come here both day and night to take photos of it.
Elephant Mountain is a 'short' twenty walk that extracts every ounce of sweat from your body. A walk, that you start off walking and then to a determined slogg, which graduately slows down to a crawl. This short but steep walk is forested and provides ever better views of Taipei. Despite the initial struggle, you're greatly rewarded for your efforts once you reach the rocks of Elephant mountain.
At sunset, these rocks will be covered with photographers, busily clicking every subtle change of light over Taipei. This is just one of several places where photographer's gather. Once, here, the walk is much easier as the route flattens out.
The path goes on and there are maps that show an extensive set of paths.
Elephant Mountain is a 'short' twenty walk that extracts every ounce of sweat from your body. A walk, that you start off walking and then to a determined slogg, which graduately slows down to a crawl. This short but steep walk is forested and provides ever better views of Taipei. Despite the initial struggle, you're greatly rewarded for your efforts once you reach the rocks of Elephant mountain.
At sunset, these rocks will be covered with photographers, busily clicking every subtle change of light over Taipei. This is just one of several places where photographer's gather. Once, here, the walk is much easier as the route flattens out.
The path goes on and there are maps that show an extensive set of paths.
Taipei from Elephant mountain
Elephant Mountain is a great place to see Taipei at night. It has an excellent view of Taipei 101 and many people come here both day and night to take photos of it.
Elephant Mountain is a 'short' twenty walk that extracts every ounce of sweat from your body. A walk, that you start off walking and then to a determined slogg, which graduately slows down to a crawl. This short but steep walk is forested and provides ever better views of Taipei. Despite the initial struggle, you're greatly rewarded for your efforts once you reach the rocks of Elephant mountain.
At sunset, these rocks will be covered with photographers, busily clicking every subtle change of light over Taipei. This is just one of several places where photographer's gather. Once, here, the walk is much easier as the route flattens out.
The path goes on and there are maps that show an extensive set of paths.
Elephant Mountain is a 'short' twenty walk that extracts every ounce of sweat from your body. A walk, that you start off walking and then to a determined slogg, which graduately slows down to a crawl. This short but steep walk is forested and provides ever better views of Taipei. Despite the initial struggle, you're greatly rewarded for your efforts once you reach the rocks of Elephant mountain.
At sunset, these rocks will be covered with photographers, busily clicking every subtle change of light over Taipei. This is just one of several places where photographer's gather. Once, here, the walk is much easier as the route flattens out.
The path goes on and there are maps that show an extensive set of paths.
Taipei from Elephant mountain
Elephant Mountain is a great place to see Taipei at night. It has an excellent view of Taipei 101 and many people come here both day and night to take photos of it.
Elephant Mountain is a 'short' twenty walk that extracts every ounce of sweat from your body. A walk, that you start off walking and then to a determined slogg, which graduately slows down to a crawl. This short but steep walk is forested and provides ever better views of Taipei. Despite the initial struggle, you're greatly rewarded for your efforts once you reach the rocks of Elephant mountain.
At sunset, these rocks will be covered with photographers, busily clicking every subtle change of light over Taipei. This is just one of several places where photographer's gather. Once, here, the walk is much easier as the route flattens out.
Elephant Mountain is a 'short' twenty walk that extracts every ounce of sweat from your body. A walk, that you start off walking and then to a determined slogg, which graduately slows down to a crawl. This short but steep walk is forested and provides ever better views of Taipei. Despite the initial struggle, you're greatly rewarded for your efforts once you reach the rocks of Elephant mountain.
At sunset, these rocks will be covered with photographers, busily clicking every subtle change of light over Taipei. This is just one of several places where photographer's gather. Once, here, the walk is much easier as the route flattens out.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The man who graffitied himself
First of a series of 'photoshop' stories. I love colleges and this is just a new way of doing it.
I like the ideas of tattooing with photoshop, to get something different. Using layers makes this relatively easy. I'm not much of a writer but when I was younger I used to write down 'sound bytes' that I like. So I guess, I developed a punchy, low content style of writing.
I like the ideas of tattooing with photoshop, to get something different. Using layers makes this relatively easy. I'm not much of a writer but when I was younger I used to write down 'sound bytes' that I like. So I guess, I developed a punchy, low content style of writing.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
How digital photography changed my life
Like the tortoise in the race against the hare, I finally made the leap to digital last year. I have looked back but after a year I genuinely feel my photography has improved as a result of the move to digital.
What are the changes?
The freedom to take as many pictures as possible is a huge factor. Film is precious - despite trying to be to the contrary I was always aware that film cost. Where as digital feels free and the instant feedback encourages you to take more.
Instant feedback is also great for taking people. When I was in India last winter, the instant feedback was a real bonus. People got excited and they love seeing themselves. It made it easier to encourage people to be more expressive and to do more than just a couple of photos.
Disappointing results - I used to shot slide and with slide you get vibrant colours but with digital the results seem disappointing - especially for sharpness and colour vibrancy. Many photos looked flat. This left me scratching my head and reading lots of articles on the internet. I eventually saw that digital photography is not just about taking pictures. It's a whole process, from concept to post production. Just some rudimentary post production really improves a photo's appearance.
Discovering photoshop. While post production is inconvenient for film, it's make a whole lot easier for digital by using photoshop. At first photoshop can seem insurmountable, there are so many options! But it’s learnable and it’s extremely useful, not just for editing pictures but also for blending pictures and turning photographs into graphics etc.
I think using photoshop is having the biggest impact on my photography. I’m now moving from the idea that a photograph is the complete picture. I’m now seeing photographs as backgrounds, shapes, patterns that can be used with other photos to make something completely new. This is where I’m seeing the biggest changes and where I expect the biggest changes to be over the next six months.
The realization that digital photography isn’t free, it has its costs just like film. My laptop is struggling and I have to copy photos onto CDs, which isn’t the best way to keep photos. I will be getting a desktop soon, so that I have more space to keep photographs and photoshop files.
It's much, much easier to share and use your photos. Where as before, I had slides in photography agencies (not selling) and once every two or three years I would send off a photo to a magazine. Now, I share my photos on flickr, I can meet like minded people and have access to some great photos. I have started a couple of blogs (something, which if you work it out correctly, could become very valuable in the future) and last week I had a photograph featured in Wired Magazine.
What are the changes?
The freedom to take as many pictures as possible is a huge factor. Film is precious - despite trying to be to the contrary I was always aware that film cost. Where as digital feels free and the instant feedback encourages you to take more.
Instant feedback is also great for taking people. When I was in India last winter, the instant feedback was a real bonus. People got excited and they love seeing themselves. It made it easier to encourage people to be more expressive and to do more than just a couple of photos.
Disappointing results - I used to shot slide and with slide you get vibrant colours but with digital the results seem disappointing - especially for sharpness and colour vibrancy. Many photos looked flat. This left me scratching my head and reading lots of articles on the internet. I eventually saw that digital photography is not just about taking pictures. It's a whole process, from concept to post production. Just some rudimentary post production really improves a photo's appearance.
Discovering photoshop. While post production is inconvenient for film, it's make a whole lot easier for digital by using photoshop. At first photoshop can seem insurmountable, there are so many options! But it’s learnable and it’s extremely useful, not just for editing pictures but also for blending pictures and turning photographs into graphics etc.
I think using photoshop is having the biggest impact on my photography. I’m now moving from the idea that a photograph is the complete picture. I’m now seeing photographs as backgrounds, shapes, patterns that can be used with other photos to make something completely new. This is where I’m seeing the biggest changes and where I expect the biggest changes to be over the next six months.
The realization that digital photography isn’t free, it has its costs just like film. My laptop is struggling and I have to copy photos onto CDs, which isn’t the best way to keep photos. I will be getting a desktop soon, so that I have more space to keep photographs and photoshop files.
It's much, much easier to share and use your photos. Where as before, I had slides in photography agencies (not selling) and once every two or three years I would send off a photo to a magazine. Now, I share my photos on flickr, I can meet like minded people and have access to some great photos. I have started a couple of blogs (something, which if you work it out correctly, could become very valuable in the future) and last week I had a photograph featured in Wired Magazine.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Featured in Weird Science
This photo is in a Wired Magazine article on manmade earthquakes. To see the article, click below
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/top-5-ways-that.html
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/top-5-ways-that.html
Monday, May 26, 2008
Photoshop Pop India
Curves, histograms, levels, rotoscope, selections, applied image, colour balance, white balance ..... It's like a new language and like all new languages, photoshop gives you new ways to express yourself.I struggled and failed with Pop India. Here's a review of some of my Indian photos. Photoshopped and unphotoshopped.
On this picture of a girl, it's easy to see the enhancement made by two curve adjustments, one for colour/contrast and the other for whitening the eyes/teeth.
The difference between these two pictures is more dramatic. I used a 'rotoscope' effect, which I think is very effective with urban scene (probably anything that is detailed). The non-photoshopped picture is a little flat and unsharp, which is easily remedied in photoshop with a little tweaking with 'levels' and 'curves'.
A new blog, a new beginning
Last year, I was still on film, hadn't read a blog and didn't know anything about photoshop.
A year is a long time and things change, though I still have much to learn about photoshop. I joined the digital revolution last June. Discovering the huge advantages and some disadvantages too.
The babas and snow mountain
I went to India last November to do a Pop Art project on India and Indians. In practice that project failed but it lead me to photoshop and with photoshop some of those ideas are coming alive.
And it's the daily use of photoshop that I want to focus on. There are excellent tutorial sites out there already and I'll be refering to them often. They are a great way to learn photoshop as are videos (so I've heard). But with this blog I want to focus on the practical application of those techniques i.e. technique A is great for xyz, the most useful tools and new ideas for using photoshop.
I've learned a lot over the past couple of months but there's a limit to how much you can learn by yourself (not exactly by myself). Learning with a community is so much more fun and effective. If you disagree with me, want to help, know some great photoshop stuff that everyone should know. Then please contact or comment on the post. I will get back to you.
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