Sable beach at dusk

I took this shot on Sable island on 11 January 2007 at 18:10, so quite late. It was shot on a tripod at 30 seconds, f9.0, ISO 100 with my 17-85mm lens set at 35mm. I selectively sharpened the sand in the foreground and left the remaining photo untouched. I really like the colours in this photo. The browns in the sand, the greens in the sea and the blurred surf zone. Damian

More on CS4

I found this good review online. Click here for details.

I think this is on my Christmas list...

Ivan

3rd Anniversary Celebrations

Dear All

Critical Light will be three years old on 25th November 2008. Here is a link to that first post. Looking at my aspirations for the blog, I think we can safely say "mission accomplished". I know blogging is soooo 2005 (according to an article on the radio recently), but I can't imagine doing this on Twitter...

To celebrate this achievement, and the fact that we have grown from only 2 contributors (myself and Dams) to now seven members (if not all contributors on a regular basis - you know who you are... ;-)), I thought it might be nice, on 25 November (or thereabouts) to post a picture depicting or inspired by the theme of "Three".

It can be anything at all, as long as three is clear or strongly implied in the image. Carte Blanche, as the French would say.

It may be good to have a small competition, where we vote for our favourite image on that theme. We can't vote for our own, but we can express our preferences, ranked as 1st, 2nd and 3rd (of course). Max 2 images to be entered per person. A deadline for submission and voting will be set later.

Let me know what you think.

Ivan

Another Sandwich Bay mono image

Just finished working on this one - really like how it's turned out in mono, the contrast in the sky and grasses, and that band of sea and beach (with tiny tiny walkers in the distance) works well to my eye.

Ivan

Sandwich Bay (Kent) mono

Taken this weekend, as we visited friends in Kent. I loved the seascapes in Kent, and miss the sea terribly now we are landlocked in Cambridge.

On this occaision, it was a bright, cold, clear day, with lots of great skies, good light, wet sand and wide open spaces. Hardly a soul on the beach, except us.



This one appealed to me because the sand was wet, picking up the reflections of the sky, which looked huge through the wide angle lens.

Mono seems to work better than colour in this case, since it gives emphasis to the tones rather than it all looking blue.

Ivan

Bench with a view

Early morning, bench on top of Hopesay Hill, Shropshire. A wonderful place to be, and a typically English vista.

Ivan

Damian's tree - cropped

I had a go at cropping, and slightly upping the contast on Damian's tree image. The hole in the cloud needs cloning out (I think), but what are the views on this crop, and what other crops do folks think might work?

Original:


Cropped:


Ivan

BIG thanks to Ivan

Well, it seems that the blog is back on form.  And this is only because of Ivan's continued effort to keep it going. When the blog goes quiet Ivan steps in and gives us all a kick in the buttocks to get posting again. I know that I certainly appreciate this. So, thanks Ivan for doing that.

Damian

  

Keeping with the tree theme

I took this photo on Sable Island on 31 Dec in 2006 at dusk. I remember this well. We were driving on our ATVs from the East camp to the West camp for the New Years Eve celebrations. It was 6pm and the weather was awful; cold, very windy and there was snow falling. We were close to the camp and I was really looking forward to getting inside but saw this tree trunk in the distance. It was one of those times when you have to think twice about pulling your camera out. But, its at these times when you get the best shots. I was also very happy to have IS on my lens because there was very little light.

1/25th at f4.5, Image Stabilised
ISO 1600
Focal length 30mm

Damian

Lonely Tree (part 2)

Another lonely tree from the Shropshire shoot. This time, in the middle of a newly harvested field, with some tiny sheep around. I liked the lines and shapes of the field, the imprint of man, with this tree isolated. The sheep are a semi comedic touch.

Ivan

Beautiful Clouds

Another one from the recent Shropshire trip.

This time, I noticed these lovely clouds that seemed to echo the land formations, and almost looked like some further distant hills, catching light. Minor adjustments for levels, and cropped to be panoramic.

Ivan

Photo competition

Damian

You wondered about the other images in the recent competition I entered at CCC? Well, here is a link to all 94 images, and if you click on them you'll see the title, photographer and what (if any) award was given:

Results of the Second Projected Image Competition

The images entered for Monday's competition are now available to be viewed with the Titles, Authors and any Awards (click on thumbnail to display these).

Please note that, in the haste to finish the meeting, some awards were omitted from the final run-through although they were on the Judge's Award list.

More information at: link

Ivan

Vertorama tutorial

This is from a contact on Flickr, called Panorama Paul - check out his site, it's excellent.

Anyway, this link describes his way of stitching two images vertically to get a "vertorama" (his word, not mine), and simulate a kind of high resolution, medium format type approach. Some of his images done this way are nothing short of spectacular.

Check out the tutorial, and check out his photostream for inspiration. Lots of good descriptions on there and excellent shots.

Ivan

The future of low-noise, high ISO cameras...?

From an article seen on DPReview.com. This new technology looks like it may have future applications for incredibly low noise, higher ISO detection. Imagine, image quality of 100 ISO at 25,600 ISO or more, as this material is said to have 100x light sensitivity to conventional silicon based sensors. Also, it is said, that this material can absorb light at a wider range, including infra-red, so you could switch to infrared mode as if putting in ir film (and no PS mucking about). Also, sensors could remain small (APS-C) and have many more pixels on them, as the sensitivity would be greater, and resolution, but with little/no image quality trade off. If you like grain - and digital grain - this could be the end of the road.

You saw it here (nearly) first...

Too early to shed light on Black Silicon say developers

Creators of the 'black silicon' that has been much discussed, following an article in the New York Times, have said it's too early to discuss what their material's benefits might be for digital photography. The novel, doped silicon technology holds out the promise of increased sensitivity but is still in development by SiOnyx, a Harvard University spin-off.

The company holds the rights to develop and commercialize a silicon doping technology that research has suggested absorbs light (including in the infrared region of the spectrum that can be detrimental in conventional photography), more readily than conventional silicon chips. Although initially believed to be a result of the conical structure formed when lasers impregnate the surface of the silicon with sulfur compounds, the company now believes it's these compounds' effect on the electronic behavior of this surface layer that is more significant. The company's patents are not restricted to the use of Sulfur however, and cover the doping technique itself.

ATV tracks---GONE!

Upon the suggestion of Colin, I have removed the ATV tracks from the image.



This image will be a part of my limited edition catalogue and on sale at the November Nova Scotia Design and Crafts Council Xmas Craft Show (a very up market show).



what do you think? any difference?

Damian

Photoshop CS4

Lots of new features, and I REALLY need to upgrade from CS...

Summary of details (plus some nice Quicktime movies) here.

Look at the content-sensitive scaling movie - looks awesome...

Ivan

Tonight's Digital Competition at Cambridge Camera Club

Hi

Well, not as grand as Damian's exhibition (which looks great, btw), but I managed a minor first this evening...both images placed in the internal digital image competition tonight. The limit is two entries, and I always enter two, but one does OK/quite well, and the other nothing (or both do nothing). This time, "Roman Vase" got a Highly Commended, and "Peek-a-boo" went one better, and got a Third place grading.





Also, rather than agonising over my choices for ages, I just banged these in, late on Sunday morning before leaving for the airport for a work trip. Little thought, but good result. Just goes to show, eh?

Ivan

My first exhibit is almost over

Last Saturday night (18th October) I spent a few hours at the gallery where my work is showcased as part of the Nocturne event. Essentially, 28 galleries kept their doors open until midnight to showcase their art...all sorts of art from music to video to paintings and photography. Two city buses, which were ilustrated with photographs and also had music on board, moved people from venue to venue.  The Hydrostone Gallery where my work resides was part of this event. I had my camera and took a few pics inside and outside of the gallery. Images were also projected on to a screen and through the window.

The opening reception of the exhibit was great, with lots of people and the gallery offered wine and beer.  I found it all quite daunting though and was somewhat shy to discuss my work. It is an odd feeling like you are exposing a part of yourself for people to see and in some cases judge.

Preparing for the show was also stressful. The images were printed on Hahnemühle fine art paper with Epson UltraChrome pigment ink. It gives the photograph some texture and looks far better than standard photographic paper. It is far more expensive though. The framing was a little tricky. I thought metal would work but then opted for a rich brown (expresso) wood and kept the frame and mat (white) the same for all of the images. The next issue was the size of the print. Some images work best at particualr sizes. To solve this I printed photographs at different sizes starting at 12 by 18 and moved up to 20 by 30. Most of the images seemed better at 15 by 24 while one of them worked much better at 20 by 30. I had sevenphotographs in all, less than I originally planned. However, space was an issue since Nick also had seven and his were quite large, at 30 by 40. 

Nicks images were captured in a very different way to mine and make my images seem like child play. His images are sharp, with deep colour, a very precise composition and were captured through a long exposure.  So, there was a lot of thought and planning involved. At 30 by 40 they are quite impressive.  The presentation is also different; printed onto a fine aluminium sheet and laminated. 

In contrast, my images were captured through spontaniety.  When the frozen sand landscapes were created I wandered through looking and shooting at images that jumped out at me. I had no tripod, the images were captured in fractions of a second and the weather was windy with sand blowing around my face and camera. 

Nevertheless, there is a similarlity between Nicks' images and mine. There is a lot of space, a sense of nothingness and structures that, in the case of Nick's images, were consciously planned while in the case of mine were created through random movement of air. 

The exhibit ends a week Sunday. I have sold one piece of work, the largest actually, which makes it certainly worthwhile for me. I fully intend to do another exhibit next year and hope that they get better.

Damian

Fog, Light and B&W

First of all, I like to thank Ivan for inviting a frenchy to this blog. I will try to bring my thoughts on photography :)

to go straight to the point, here is a picture I posted yesterday on flickr :


I got a comment on the light at the top left corner of the picture. I then try a square crop on the original one, but I then faced another problem: does the BW suit to the picture, or would a colour work do it? here are the options:

Let me know what are your point of view!

Seb

Bridge

With late afternoon autumn sun behind me and threatening clouds rolling in from the east, I think this week's post looks like a painting.

Click this Google Maps link to see where this bridge is located.

18mm f/13

Any better...?

Colin made the good point that the wide angle effect made the foreground look a bit odd. I agree, and have cropped it again to try to reduce this effect.

Colin - what do you think?

Ivan

Now, this is my kind of recession...

Geddit?? Eh??

Ahem.

With all the doom and gloom about global recession, at least this is one kind we can all enjoy. Taken on the same morning as the lone tree below, but a little earlier, using the telephoto at it's long (450mm) end, IS. Lovely light and mist, creating fading layers like theatre scenery (flats). Took loads of these, so may post more, as the light was changing all the time and creating new effects. The jpeg compression used for this web post doesn't do justice to the fine gradation in tones in the original RAW.

Ivan

Lone Tree on Hopesay Hill

An image taken recently on a visit to my in-laws. They live in Shropshire. Shropshire has hills, with great views. Cambridge does not have hills. I miss hills.

Ivan

Breaking News - Visual artist strikes out and wins!

Damian Lidgard, Kyle MacDonald, Chris Lockerbie

Art on the Bus

The Halifax Regional Municipality’s Department of Cultural Affairs, in conjunction with the Nocturne: Art at Night Committee and Metro Transit commissioned black & white artwork for the interior bus boards on various Metro Transit Buses. Artists were charged with the design of artwork that considered the properties of light and illumination. Three local artists were selected, each with their own interpretation of the theme. HRM Cultural Affairs, Metro Transit and Nocturne: Art at Night are delighted to display the work of local artists, Damian Lidgard, Kyle MacDonald and Chris Lockerbie.

Occupied

Seeing Damian's previous post reminded me of this image I took a few months back for our attempted neighbourhood theme. It's similarly overly busy, perhaps. This house was in fact occupied in this state, including some kids who would wait for the school bus in the morning. The house has since burned down.

Technical info: taken from inside a slow-moving vehicle. No way I was going to go stand in their garden with a camera, especially with a 'no trespassing' sign in the front door.

Abandoned

Last weekend Sue and I visited Digby Neck/Long Island/Brier Island, Nova Scotia. On the way home we stopped at an abandoned house and I took a few shots while Sue waited patiently. Initially I shot from the outside but then climbed in through a window and took a few inside with a tripod. This shot was actually taken from the outside through a window. For me, the stairs added to the sense of abandonment and lonliness of this house.

The inspiration for stopping at the house came from a local photographer, Angela Carlsen, who  focuses her efforts on shooting abandoned houses and has created some great images. 

1/40th, f5.6, image stablised, ISO 1000,  53.0mm

Damian

Fen Sunset

My effort for the week (must post,must post). Taken this summer near Little Downham. Nothing special but kinda like it all the same. ISO100, 55mm, f16, 1/6 sec. Touched up in LR2.

Sunrise on Sable Island

This is my entry for the week. The photo was taken on Sable Island in late Dec 2005 at sunrise at the east end of the island. I find the warm colours in the sky very appealing and the 'glow' of the morning sun on the grass in the foreground is bloody lovely.

ISO 1oo

1/60th sec at f4.5

26.0 mm

Damian

Seasonal Affective Disorder

OK so it's a bit cliché... bite me! Fall colours have arrived here in NS, and last week this leaf was the first to go. The bastard! Now all the others on that tree have decided they wanted "the look" as well. Before long they'll be dropping like Jonestown cultists. Oh well.

Three pictures to choose from this week. Which do you like/dislike and why? I think I like #3 the best, the off-to-the-side look should appeal to Damien.

Using a polarizer here really helped to bring out the colour.

LR2 trial

It was a very wet, miserable day in August, but I really wanted to shoot a few frames, so I plumed for some 'still life' in the kitchen. I shot this globe artichoke with available light using a 100mm macro lens and 25mm extn tube at f2.8. Not too much available light though as can be seen by the decidedly dodgy manual focusing (lesson learned - turn on the light while focussing in the gloom!). Anyway, this turned out to be my first attempt with a demo version of lightroom 2 that I downloaded. Have any of you guys used it? I was really impressed - really quick and easy to use, you can download some helpful tutorial videos as well. I'm tempted to buy (particularly as I lost Rawshooter when I bought a new computer, and i don't like the Canon bundled software at all). Any thoughts? all the best, Adam.

My first exhibit - The Fullness of Empty

On October 2nd, I have my first gallery exhibit. Rather daunting to say the least, but I thought I would add this post to say something about it. 

The exhibit is part of a city-wide photography festival called Photopolis 2008 where several galleries across Halifax host the work of photographers. My work is being displayed with another local photographer, Nick Rudnicki, whos work depicts lonesome scenes of Halifax at night. My images are of frozen sand landscapes taken on Sable Island off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Frozen sand I

These landscapes form after wet and cold weather followed by strong winds that blow loose sand away and sculpture the frozen sand. The images are therefore a form of natural art.

Frozen sand II

Frozen sand III

The sense of emptiness in these photos mirrors the emptiness that flows from the work of Nick, thus the two pieces of work, although very different in scale, location and subject, offer a similar sense.

Frozen sand IV

Frozen sand V

When I photographed these images I was not looking for something in particular but rather I kept an open and free mind to allow images to ’stop me’.

Frozen sand VI

Frozen sand VII

When the photograph is taken, the image that is captured holds all of the elements that created the perception.

The images are printed on a fine art paper which gives a textural feel to the image. Most of them will be 15" by 22" in size; Frozen sand III will be larger at 20" by 30".  All will be framed with wood and a white double mat. The sizing of the images was decided upon by simply printing off images at different sizes. At some point, the image does not look right, its too big. Other images, like Frozen sand III, do well at being large.

Damian

First Projected Image Competition of 2008/9

Above, my two entries for the first of the (3 part) serial projected image competitions.

You may have seen them both before. Currently, Reculver is lying in about 15th on my flickr stream, and the white peacock around 4th. Therefore, I'll predict a grading for white peacock, and nothing for Reculver sunset.

We'll see..

Ivan

Canon 5D MkII

mmmmm....

Holkam Beach, Norfolk

A picture from North Norfolk, between Wells and Holkam beaches. I was drawn to the shape of the snaking water inlet left by the retreating sea, so cropped it in this direction to make that a feature. I also included just the hint of interesting clouds, and also a scattering of people to indicate their smallness and how large the beach and sea are. I think it's a good mono image.

Comments?

Ivan

A good use for Flickr

I've just up-graded my free Flickr account to a "pro" account for about £13.

One of my reservations about Flickr is the fact that the comments are 99.99% favourable, no matter the nature of the picture. Thus, it's a bit of a back-slapping exercise, rather than a true forum for critical discussions. Unlike this venerable blog.

However, there is an upside. Well, several, I think.

Firstly, there is a lot of great stuff on there. But you have to look. If you do find great stuff, make it a favourite, and learn from seeing that work, that approach, that style. I like this aspect.

Secondly, and the main meat of this post, with the pro account comes the rather natty "Statistics" package. This breaks down all the traffic on your photostream, tells you which images have the most views, the most comments, the most favourite tags, and can do all kind of funky stuff with the data. So, while the comments on individual images are not all that useful, if you look at the total picture, it can reveal things about the images that the comments do not.

In addition, I have entered some of my photostream images to club competitions, so I know how well they have done. I can compare this to the results from my stats, and see how well it's borne out. Like in any clinical trial, individual results don't give the complete picture, but the larger the sample group is, the greater the statistical power, and the more relevant any trends become.

To test this, I have had a look at some images that I know I have submitted to club competitions and that I also have had on my photostream for some time now. Here are how they break down for a selected few, from a photostream of 44 images:

Window and Chair - 1st in a print competition; most popular in Flickr
Sunset Beach Walkers - digital pictorial image of the year; 3rd most popular in Flickr
Shadowman - creative image of the year 07/08; 6th most popular on Flickr
New York Ferry Moment - bombed in CCC; 16th on Flickr
Help - bombed in CCC; 18th on Flickr
Lady - bombed in CCC; 19th on Flickr

The others I have not submitted before, so can't compare, but I have submitted two images to the competition next week that are on Flickr, and are currently residing at 4th and 13th, which would imply that one will get something, and the other will bomb, which was my EXACT pattern last year in competitions with two entries! So, we'll see...

To complete the picture, I'm going to upload all my entries from last year, and see how they do. Clearly this is not scientifically controlled, but I'll try not to bias the descriptions or tags to favour one over the other. Also, I have submitted some images to other groups, and some not, so there's clearly a difference in the exposure of the images to the wider Flickr community. I'll try to be even with this too, but if an image gets and invite and another doesn't, that too is a measure of it's popularity, so I can't ensure exposure is even totally and neither should I.

Ivan

Cambridge Panoramic

This is about 6 images stitched together. A little "bendy" in places, but it was hand held and not done properly with a tripod.

A bit of fun, if nothing else...

Ivan

And now for something a bit different

As Ivan knows, I'm a bit stressed at the moment. This is what happens when you're playing in Lightroom and you're feeling a bit stressed...

Two different watery images

Last two from me for today (note: I worked on about 8 images quickly last night and wrote the descriptions on a Word file in about 40 mins total, which makes uploading the work of minutes. It's been a quiet day today...)



The first image is from or near Crystal Crescent Beach, outside Halifax. I was drawn to the snaking water inlet, and the make-shift bridge. Much better in mono than colour. I applied a wee blur to the sky and adjusted levels etc to get the finished effect.



The second image was taken while Damian, Sue, Kate and I were canoeing and camping in Keji National Park, Nova Scotia. Quite misty/foggy, giving a minimalistic feel to the whole scene. Included the near reeds (or whatever they are) and the distant lone rock coming out of the mists.

Ivan

Car Lights in Mono

I took the image I liked the best from the three, and made it quickly into a mono image. I think it may work better, loses the distractions and focusses my eye on the shapes and lines etc.

Ivan

Nova Scotian view - the re-crop

Never one to ignore an interesting comment, I have cropped this image to respond to D's comment to "make it more of a feature". So, have tried to do this. Does this work better? Is this what you had in mind, D?

Ivan