It's that fractal time of year

It's that time of year when out-door photography sometimes has to take a back seat. With all the rain, snow and bitterly cold temperatures, staying indoors close to the fire seems like the sensible thing to do. Creating fractal images is, to my way of thinking, a nice compliment to photography; the technical skills for creating the pictures are totally different, but the compositional components are very similar - use of light and dark tones, framing, leading lines and so forth. Creating a fractal image also shares some of the same software tools as used in photography - Lightroom, Photoshop,Topaz; so there are lots of synergies.

I've called this one, "In the beginning" and it's designed to be a 600mm x 300mm printed image with lots of fine detail (which, unfortunately, won't show up at web size).

Lady with whip

Not sure how this will work out but I'm experimenting with this photo by uploading at HD (1080px high). "Lady with whip" was captured at the Oxford A&P show in March. I posted a B&W version on G+ but this is the original colour. Usually I tend to think that a particular photo should be either colour or black and white as dictated by the subject matter and the capture but, in this case, I really can't decide between the two:

D600 1/320 sec @ f5.6 and ISO 200. 210mm on a Nikkor 28-300. Processed in Lightroom and PhotoLine using Topaz filters.

More pictures here!

Shovels and clarity

This weekend I've been testing a new Topaz filter, "Clarity". It's not yet released (perhaps 2-4 weeks away) but it looks very promising and a worthy addition to the Topaz toolbox. I used it on this picture (in addition to other filters) to restore what was a rather flat 6,400 ISO RAW file, to what I remembered seeing:

Nikon D600, 1/5 sec (hand-held) @ f11 and ISO 6,400 28-300 Nikkor lens @ 62mm. Processed in Lightroom and Photoline using a variety of Topaz filters.

Autumn leaves

Annette brought home these beautiful autumn leaves from the hospital where her Mother is recuperating after a heart operation. So, under the camera they went.

Nikon D600, 6 seconds, f22. ISO 100. 300mm on a Nikkor 28-300 - natural light.

Primary colours

I usually go for more muted colours, or even black and white, but this one was crying out for its colours to remain intact:

It was a bright day and as I was insisting on a slow-ish shutter speed, the camera chose f32! - oh the dust spots!

Nikon D600, 1/15sec @ f32 and ISO 100. 70mm on a Nikkor 28-300 lens.

Show the show jumper

A couple of posts ago I included the 'straight out of Lightroom' version of this picture (as I usually do on this blog). However, after blogging, the better pictures then go into my 'to be processed' folder from where they are given a fresh and more careful development in Lightroom and a fairly intensive going over with other software tools (in this case Photoline, Topaz and OnOne). The best of these pictures then go on (hopefully) to be sold. This is one of those pictures.

A superficial glance at the before and after versions may possibly show only minor changes, but print them big and the improvements in clarity, detail and depth are quite amazing. I just wish I could show that at web sizes but you'll just have to take my word for it :-)

D600, 1/1250 sec, f5.6, 116mm on a Nikon 28-300 lens.

Shear skill

Watching the shearers at work is fascinating; a real display of speed, strength and skill. The D600 did a fantastic job under challenging lighting conditions, Lightroom brought out the shadow detail and Topaz dealt with the introduced noise (I keep trying other tools but these are the ones I come back to).  1/2500 sec @ f5.6 and 300mm on a Nikon 28-300 lens. Good job everyone; you too sheep.

Oxford A&P Show

It was good to get out with the camera again after an enforced break for a few weeks. The Oxford A&P show was blessed with a long weekend and fine weather and was 'buzzin' this year. Here are a few of the highlights:

Buskers Festival

The Buskers Festival came around again and I finally managed to get along on a sunny, if somewhat windy, day. The organisation this year, centred in North Hagley park, was excellent though I have to say that for a sunny Saturday too many of the venues were lying idle. Nevertheless, the acts that were on display were entertaining large crowds.

"Bazza" the bronze rugby player was statuesque, until the girls came along, when he would suddenly become very vocal.

Juggling atop a pole in a high wind was not the easiest act in town:

Bus stop:

Some could hardly watch; while others did ...

Rockin it (that's a badminton racquet around his waist!) :

Spinning contortionist:

L&P famous in New Zealand:

Boy in a ball:

Events like these are good place to do a bit of 'street photography' without feeling intrusive; everyone is in a good mood and there are plenty of cameras about, so people don't tend to view photographers with suspicion. Go, for it; find a crowd-filled event and have fun with your camera :-)

The making of engine 428

Google+ seemed to like engine 428 so much that I even got a request to write a 'how-to' explaining how the picture was produced. The 'how-to' (actually a 'what-to-do'!) can be found here: http://www.fords.co.nz/downloads/428HowTo.pdf in PDF format.

Thank you to those who +1'd the original picture and I hope that you find the 'what-to-do' useful.