Sarah's 52 for 2010 - Now continued in part 2

This isn't quite what I'd planned for poetry.
I really wanted to go out this weekend and get a lovely desolate landscape for one of my favourite poems - Edgar Allan Poe's Dreamland. I want to challenge myself to do more outdoorsy stuff this year - I even had a location in mind and was planning on giving my new IR filter a test run.

:shrug: But they've forecast rain all weekend and TBH this week has been a bit of a disaster for me, so it's looking unlikely that I'll get out and about.
This is a back-up shot that I took just in case and as this weekend is looking like a washout I'd may as well post it now.

Shot on Wednesday when we had all the snow.
It was intended as an exercise in exposure. White snow, stainless steel globe and I had some white candles dotted around for a bit of glow.
Anyway the original shot looked just a little flat with not enough contrast between the different elements . . . although I did learn a lot about shooting in those conditions.

Since improving my PP skills was one of my other objectives this year, I've had a bit of a play with it.
The globe, snow and orangey highlights are all from the original photograph - Flames cropped from the candles in the original, crackly ice texture, sky and flares added in CS4.


Week 2 - Poem / Poetry

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Hello Sarah :wave:,

Very imaginative and nicely put together, the poem Ive not heard before, but interesting.
"I like that crackly ice". You are certainly testing yourself and IMHO the standard of your photography I would say its working - very nice Sarah. :clap:


Graham
______
 
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Oh wow !!
Very clever.
You seem to have thought of everything, right down to the singed(sp?) ice.
I like this very much (thanks for using a short poem too, it helped hold my attention)

Rob
 
you must have got the PP ok as I didn't think it had been processed at all
so well done you

also an interesting take on the theme
 
excellent 10/10.
very imaginative and well put together.
 
Very interesting shot, Sarah. Looks more like graphic art than photography. No bad thing though. :)
 
Wow Sarah! You're raising the bar every week! :thumbs:

I don't know the poem, but your illustration is terrific - and very creative. I'd love to know what CS4 techniques you've used to get this effect (if you're up for sharing them!)

I'm sorry Plan A was defeated by the weather - but not too sorry, or this absolute cracker might never have seen light of day!

Your personal project? Why not start with taking a photo of something you enjoy (doing, eating, reading, seeing - anything) and see where it takes you. Just a thought.

Congratulations on a brilliant Week 2. :clap::clap::clap:

Jean
 
Wow! Thank you all.
I wasn't expecting such a quick and positive response to this one. It really was great fun playing around in PP, but I wasn't sure that I'd got it quite right.


clud17 said:
I like the image Sarah, there is a lot of interesting elements going on, well executed. I like the poem too, i favour a short poem that says a lot.
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Thanks Chris.
That's one of the reasons I picked that poem. It said what it needed to without rambling and opened up some nice possibilities for a shot.

uniquegardens said:
Hello Sarah :wave:,

Very imaginative and nicely put together, the poem Ive not heard before, but interesting.
"I like that crackly ice". You are certainly testing yourself and IMHO the standard of your photography I would say its working - very nice Sarah. :clap:
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Graham, Thank you.
I'm here to learn so I'm trying to push myself and the camera every week - although I'm sure that I'll end up with a couple of fillers as the year goes on.
All the fantastic shots from everyone else and the encouragement are giving me the push I need though.

RobC said:
Oh wow !!
Very clever.
You seem to have thought of everything, right down to the singed(sp?) ice.
I like this very much (thanks for using a short poem too, it helped hold my attention)
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Thank you Rob.
The scorching was handdrawn with a soft black brush on a new layer. I played with the opacity to get it the way I wanted.

mmcp42 said:
you must have got the PP ok as I didn't think it had been processed at all
so well done you

also an interesting take on the theme
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Thanks Mike.
I think that poem opened up a lot of possibilities for the theme. I'm glad that the PP worked for you.

namllihs said:
excellent 10/10.
very imaginative and well put together.
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Thank you Steve.

dade_f said:
Very creative nice photo and poem ;)

(tiniest of things the highlight bottom left maybe burn a little as it grabs the eyes attention away)
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Thanks Dade.
I think you're right about the highlights.
I'll put up an edit with them toned down a bit.

The23rdman said:
Very interesting shot, Sarah. Looks more like graphic art than photography. No bad thing though. :)
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Thank you Dean.
I was actually expecting a bit of contoversy over whether it was still a photograph or a piece of graphic art TBH.
IMO there's a fine line in between, and quite a lot of overlap between the two. And I don't think that's a bad thing either - as long as the end result is a pleasing image.

jeangenie said:
Wow Sarah! You're raising the bar every week! :thumbs:

I don't know the poem, but your illustration is terrific - and very creative. I'd love to know what CS4 techniques you've used to get this effect (if you're up for sharing them!)

I'm sorry Plan A was defeated by the weather - but not too sorry, or this absolute cracker might never have seen light of day!

Your personal project? Why not start with taking a photo of something you enjoy (doing, eating, reading, seeing - anything) and see where it takes you. Just a thought.

Congratulations on a brilliant Week 2.
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Thanks Jean. Maybe I'll manage to fit my planned shot into another week and this one was fun to do, so I'm not really sorry about it either.
Some good thoughts there on the personal project. I MUST get started soon - I just hope that I have the discipline to stick with it.

I'll put some notes on the PP techniques up and the original shot so that you can see what I've done.
 
ohh.. great result.. would love to see how you did it.. my PP skills are very limited!..
 
Edited for Highlights

After seeing Dade's response I think he's right about the highlighted areas being a bit too intense on the left, so here's a subtley toned down version. Had a play with the top right too - I think it works better, so thank you for that Dade :thumbs:

Link to original post here for comparison (since we've dropped onto another page)


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PP

I said that I'd share the PP technique (if I can remember it all). So here you are:
Lots of different layers and playing with blending modes, but these are some of the basic steps that I took.

Starting shot

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- Cropped and masked out the background area.
- Used a duplicate of this layer to apply a Fractalius filter for the crackly ice. Masked out areas where I didn't want it and played with opacity. I could probably have imported a texture from another shot, but I took the lazy option.
- Added black layer underneath for the base of the sky.
- Used filter > Render > Clouds on a new layer to add some interest in the sky and tinted it red.
- Used filter > Render > Lens Flare on a new layer to add the flare behind the globe and peak of ice.
- Cut the middle flame from the original image, duplicated, rearranged and added to the globe. A bit of playing with saturation on this layer and changing the blend mode to colour burn.
- Another new layer to hand draw the scorching around the flames. Soft black brush and another play with opacity.
- Tweaked saturation to bring up the orangey reflections on the globe and snow.
- A bit of selective dodging and burning

:thinking: I think that's about it!


Now I'm off to have a look at all the other poetry shots that I've been trying to avoid until mine was in!!!!! :woot:
 
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lovely shot, great editing, so much more creativity than i could come up with - well done
 
WOW, and when I thought your shots couldn't amaze me anymore. Speechless. That's damn, wow!
:clap: :clap:
Looks almost cartoon like/drawn!!
 
That's a very nice image Sarah, I like the fact that you've taken the photo to suit the poem rather than look for a poem to fit an image.

I think I prefer the strength of the left hand in the first edit but that's really personal taste.

Very imaginative juxtaposition (get me!) of fire and ice.:)
 
what a WOW start to your 52.

Curved - Not only did I immediately think that this would grace the pages of any classy magazine but was most impressed by your thought, vision and the work you put into the composition.

And so, having read that you wouldn't be doing your poetry interpretation until today, I have been waiting with anticipation to see what you would come up with and...

Poetry - Brilliant! Can't think of any other way of putting it.
 
Interesting image and I like the poem. Just wondered how much time you spend on the computer to create the picture?
 
:clap: Bravo Sarah, really that image is fantastic. Well thought out and obviously a lot of care and time put into the process and excellent outcome.
 
Absolutely fantastic! :clap: :clap: :clap: I've been looking forward to seeing what you would come up with.

I have absolutely no problem with using extensive PP - as far as I am concerned photography is a creative art, with no limits beyond that of taste.

This would make a lovely poster or card, complete with poem (though probably copyright issues here)

Again, well done! :clap::clap:
 
That is really well done, and shows off very different skills than the 1st image.
 
Thank you all for commenting!
I keep losing track of my own thread in among all the others, so sorry if I've been a bit slow replying.
I really am a bit overwhelmed with the positive comments on this one. I'm still very new to Photoshop, so it's good to know that I seem to be moving in the right direction.

MagicMynx said:
absolutely stunning image! It's fantastic! Well done.
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Thanks Nattelie. Glad that you like it.

mich66 said:
ohh.. great result.. would love to see how you did it.. my PP skills are very limited!..
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Thank you. I've put some details on what I did in post #93.

Ste L said:
lovely shot, great editing, so much more creativity than i could come up with - well done
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Steven thank you.
I've got no problem with creativity - sometimes my execution lets me down, so I'm glad that I seem to have got it right this time.

Shorty said:
WOW, and when I thought your shots couldn't amaze me anymore. Speechless. That's damn, wow!
:clap: :clap:
Looks almost cartoon like/drawn!!
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Thank you sooooo much Leanne . . . you're making me blush now :lol:

Rudders said:
That's a very nice image Sarah, I like the fact that you've taken the photo to suit the poem rather than look for a poem to fit an image.

I think I prefer the strength of the left hand in the first edit but that's really personal taste.

Very imaginative juxtaposition (get me!) of fire and ice.:)
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:lol: You've gone all arty on me Dave ;)
Glad you like it.

robp said:
what a WOW start to your 52.

Curved - Not only did I immediately think that this would grace the pages of any classy magazine but was most impressed by your thought, vision and the work you put into the composition.

And so, having read that you wouldn't be doing your poetry interpretation until today, I have been waiting with anticipation to see what you would come up with and...

Poetry - Brilliant! Can't think of any other way of putting it.
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Thanks Rob.
I'm hugely flattered that somebody was actually looking forward to my next shot.
Just hope I can keep it going for week 3 !

jollyjack said:
That is excellent image for week 2, very well done, looking forward to seeing your week 3
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Thanks Jon.

ccsnet said:
That globe is fascinating..... do you have a picture of it as is with out been photoshopped ????

Terran
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Terran, have a look at post #93 above.

justlooking said:
Interesting image and I like the poem. Just wondered how much time you spend on the computer to create the picture?
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I don't really know how long it took.
A few hours on the PC Thursday night and the same on Friday, but I was doing quite a bit of other stuff in between editing so it's quite hard to say.

One of my other hobbies is painting - so even if I'd spent the whole 6 hours on it, that would actually be a very short production period compared to what it would take to create something like that with oil on canvas.
 
chriseve1979 said:
WOW :eek::eek: Sarah that is a fantastic shot, and the composition is something else. Well done.
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Vic said:
:clap: Bravo Sarah, really that image is fantastic. Well thought out and obviously a lot of care and time put into the process and excellent outcome.
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foolycooly said:
Very interesting composition Sarah, really like it, and it fits the Poem well :)
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Thank you all!
Now stop with all the compliments because you're giving me a lot to live up to for week 3 ;)

Tracer said:
Absolutely fantastic! :clap: :clap: :clap: I've been looking forward to seeing what you would come up with.

I have absolutely no problem with using extensive PP - as far as I am concerned photography is a creative art, with no limits beyond that of taste.

This would make a lovely poster or card, complete with poem (though probably copyright issues here)

Again, well done! :clap::clap:
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Thanks!
Glad that nobody seems to object to the extreme PP on this one.
I really did want to try something different and learn some new techniques. Just wasn't sure if I'd pushed it too far.

Shorty said:
That 'starting' shot on it's own woulda been fab, let alone the edit. :thumbs:
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Thanks (again!)
I did quite like the original, but I just felt that there were too many whites and silvers to really give it that bit of punch.

Ian_Wilson said:
That is really well done, and shows off very different skills than the 1st image.
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Thanks Ian.
I am trying to improve my PP as well as photography, so there will hopefully be a mix of both through this 52.
 
Interesting image for the second week, great interpretation of the theme and very different from what i expected to see from you....which is a great thing!!

Keep up the good snapping...looking forward to your 'chopped' image...how far out of the box can you be this time i wonder...
 
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This is wonderful Sarah. I actually like the original image as well - nice and simple, but the finished image just goes to another level.
 
a brilliant shot, great creativity I genuinely am looking forward to your forthcoming photos
 
at first glance I missed the candles in the globe, I like a photo when you can find different aspects when you take a deeper look, well composed and look forward to picking your brains for photoshop ideas in future I think I may need them lol.
 
Really like that, the PP work is awesome.
Totally different look to the original image.
You have done really well with that :thumbs:
 
That's a bit good that is. Love it and the PP work is spot on.
 
Some interesting effects there! Very creative and goes well with the poem :)
 
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