Sulphur on 12/5/2009 at 07:20
The tree picture is a true work of art. One could admire and dissect its imagery all day. Its stark blackness of form, its shape thrusting upwards to impale the innocent bird upon it with phallic symbolism; is it implied, implicit, or simply implausible?
Ah, singular upthrust, thy name is dead wood!
Great stuff, all. I love the angles to your shots. I'm a bit of a philistine though, and would have liked it if there was more colour to the proceedings, but that's just personal preference. What sort of camera/equipment do you use, if I may ask?
Shakey-Lo on 12/5/2009 at 07:25
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I think you're quite a bit better with the camera than I am, by the way. I almost always convert my photos to B&W because I seem to have this complete inability to capture colors in that vivid, crisp, but soft in all the right places look you see with most professional photography. I try, but I always seem to fall just short. You, on the other hand, have it straight up nailed. I'd love it if you could throw a few pointers my way.
I don't know what camera you have but I was fortunate enough to be given a Canon 5d Mk II for a 21st/graduation present just before I left, and straight out of the camera a lot of the colours, especially greens and blues (particularly skies) look great. I'm not sure I can give any pointers as I don't really theorise much, and don't really have enough experience to be an authority. I just take the CR2 file into photoshop's camera raw program and play with the Hue/Saturation/Lightness sliders until it looks best. If I had to theorise something, I'd say to keep the range of colours to a minimum but keep each colour bold and distinct. So have a bold blue sky above a lush green field. If there is a bit of muddling, eg. grass that fluctuates between yellow and green, use the sliders to make it all green, or if there's a purplish red wall, make it all red. That's if you're okay with digital tweaking, personally I prefer photography that is made inside the camera, I'm just not good enough for it yet. I do try to keep "lying" to a minimum though and most of the photos there have just had a bit of tweaking, no heavy duty post processing. The Africa photos were all taken from the back of a wobbly jeep without the chance for much planning so I had to rely a lot on improving them in Photoshop. On the other hand, the Geneva photo for example was the result of a bit of planning and test shots, trying to find the best in-camera settings and setting it all up, and consequentially is one of the photos I'm most pleased with.
Black and white is a valid method though, particularly if you have an eye for shades and form, and I think you've succeeded.
jay pettitt on 12/5/2009 at 08:25
Those are really coming on Renz :D. Methinks you needs to get bold with (
http://jaypettitt.co.uk/files/renz.zip) gimp/photoshop.
(
http://www.jaypettitt.co.uk/files/3523702700_c744ba7d37_o.jpg) Renz's graveyard
I'm not saying what I did there is awesome by any measure - it was done very carelessly in Gimp: it literally took about 10 seconds (including boot time). Maybe play with contrast, film grain, maybe get some texture going on and a crop - what ever floats your boat. The camera work is getting interesting, it's the digital dark room stuff you want to bring in here.
p.s. windows is awesome - maybe more so with a tight crop...
rachel on 12/5/2009 at 13:25
Loved windows too. Excellent shot. The old factory is very good too. I would slightly push the contrast on the graveyard one but maybe that's just me .
I have a little (
http://www.whimsicalfocus.net) photoblog with stuff myself. You should do the same :)
Shakey, some of those shots are fantastic.
infinity on 12/5/2009 at 14:08
That neat dead tree is really cool. I like these a lot Renz, please post more as they develop! (Pun?)
Renzatic on 12/5/2009 at 14:33
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Those are really coming on Renz :D. Methinks you needs to get bold with (
http://jaypettitt.co.uk/files/renz.zip) gimp/photoshop.
(
http://www.jaypettitt.co.uk/files/3523702700_c744ba7d37_o.jpg) Renz's graveyard
Thank ya, but I'm thinking I might've gone too bold with Photoshop. I spent at least 15 minutes tweaking and toning up each one of the shots above. Most of the time I end up with something considerably nice, but with the graveyard...I think I made a couple bad judgment calls. Your redo almost makes a return to the contrasts of the original raw. In retrospect, it looks a helluva lot better.
In fact, I'm thinking I should've kept it in color. Damnit, Jay...why you gotta make me all confused :mad:
Quote:
p.s. windows is awesome - maybe more so with a tight crop...
Thank ya again. :D
I was originally gonna crop the shot so it focuses tighter on the window and light cast on the wall. The way it is now, it lost alot of little details on the glass and windowpane when I crunched down the res. But after trying a few crops, I much preferred the way it looked floating within the black, so I kept it as is.
Raph. Post more shots. Those (tragically) few you've already got on your blog and jawdroppingly amazing. You need to take more.
And lastly, I'm using a Nikon D80 with a bog standard Nikkor lens. I'll post more later.
Thanks again everyone :D
Tocky on 14/5/2009 at 03:30
Nah. Trust your instincts. You have a good eye for composition and contrast and that goes well with black and white. Your sideways slice of the world picks out the best angle and that world is definitely southern. From the honeysuckle and poison ivy to the sweetgum and mockingbird it is well stamped. I even see a duplicate of an abandoned garage in that town I can't recall next to that river I don't remember the name of just south of Mountain View Arkansas in your shed picture.
I want to see more. You have a wealth in your area and if you run out there is Cleveland, the Blue Ridge, even east of Gatlinburg where old homeplaces still lie in wait of someone to capture the meloncholy of abandonment amid vistas of the Applachians.
And surely I'm not the only one who had a House of Leaves flashback at your midnight window.
Renzatic on 14/5/2009 at 04:44
Quote Posted by Tocky
I want to see more. You have a wealth in your area and if you run out there is Cleveland, the Blue Ridge, even east of Gatlinburg where old homeplaces still lie in wait of someone to capture the meloncholy of abandonment amid vistas of the Applachians.
Appalachia is where I'm intending on heading next, though not as far as Gatlinburg just yet. Right now I'm looking towards Ducktown up in the Appalachian foothills, which is somewhat near the old towns and villages TVA flooded when they built the dams back in the '30's. You can see trees sticking out of the middle of vast lakes, and, if the rumors are true, a few stone buildings here and there that have survived the years. Could be nice.
On another note, I was bored last night and figured I'd mark all the places I've taken pictures at on google maps. If you go on...yup...(
www.googlemaps.com) and type in Renzatic, it'll bring up my markers. I'm amazed the Google vans have gone so far out to do street views of some of these places. For instance, (
http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/treemap.jpg) here's my tree. They even went up the dirt road leading to the graveyard. Bastards go every damn where.
