HDR and Friends



I have been playing around with HDR and other artistic effects.  Here are some of the results.  This is a lily as I shot it.

 

 

Here it is with HDR painterly and posterizing edges.

 

Here it is with HDR painterly and Ink Outlines.

 

And here it is with HDR and creative monochrome.

Silhouettes

       It was a beautiful afternoon for a bike ride.  We went to Illinois Beach State Park as we often do.  We took a short break and I went down a little hill to the Lake.  When I turned around and looked up I saw our bikes against the ski.  I asked my husband to move next to the bikes with the dog.  I took a few shots to get Sebastian looking in the right direction. 

        I liked how it turned out and I wanted to use it for a new cover shot on Facebook, but the shot was too narrow.  In Photoshot Elements 9 I used the recompose tool, highlighted the center in green to keep it as is and hightlighted the sides in red saying I didn't care if that changed.  I was then able to stretch the photo to become a panoramic.  It worked great and I was able to put this shot as my new cover photo.  (I also had to put it on my husband's page because he liked it too.)

Painting with Light

I have seen pictures where photographers used flashlights to paint with light.  I had an idea of using the light of fireworks to paint with light.  I focused manually at infinity.  I used manual exposure,  ISO 100, f8 and 10-15 second exposures to capture several bursts.    I put my camera on a tripod and moved my camera from one side to the other and up and down and around on my ball head in smooth movements to create the effect.  Here are some of the results I got.

Daylilies

Daylilies are really rather elegant flowers the way the stamens curl out and up against their curvy petals.  I have been taking closeups of various daylilies this summer.  This is one of my favorities.

Centurian Olympian

On this eve of the start of the Summer Olympics.  I wonder how many of you have ever dreamed of participating in the Olympics.  I know I have.  I have thought, what if....  But do these dreams ever have to die?  How old is too old?  Maybe we can't qualify for the regular Olympics, but what about something like the Big Sky State Games.  10,000 atheletes come to Billings, Montana to compete in the various sports of these games.  And how old is too old?  Well, Wayne's uncle Barney just competed this past weekend in the 4 x 100 relay in the 85+ group.  He is 101.  This picture was taken from a newscast that featured him.  He not only competed, but was able to meet Olgar Korbut who opened the games and lit the flame.  Well, maybe your dream isn't to compete in sports, but to accomplish something else in some other field.  The message here is, never give up on your dreams.  It is never too late.

The Dog Days of Summer

If these are the dog days of summer, it looks like a lot of fun!  With the hot weather of July we have been taking our dog Sebastian to our local dog park which happens to be on the shore of Lake Michigan.  The dogs have fun running in and out of the water chasing each other around.  It was a good opportunity to practice taking videos too.

 

Flowers Under Glass

A friend told me about a cool way to create an artsy photo.  When taking a flower picture, put a piece of art glass between the camera lens and the flower.

Here is a columbine naturally.

Here it is behind the artglass.

Here are a group of daylilies.

You have more distortion when the glass is farther from the flowers. And it is a little more realistic when the glass is closer to the flowers.