Low-fi camera shots

While on vacation at Myrtle Beach I decided to explore the possibilities of a low-fi camera using my iPhone. The camera is not great, but it's interesting to shoot with. There isn't much you can do with the photos except use them the way you take them - like the old film cameras. I normally take a shot with an eye to post-processing later. But the low fidelity of a mobile phone camera pretty much excludes this possibility. So you have to think about what you are shooting. The cool thing about the camera is that it somehow seems to have a large depth of field, again like the old cameras, or maybe a pinhole camera. Makes it interesting. See the shots on the flickr page.

Wedding shots

Have been doing some wedding photography lately. It's a lot of fun but definitely some work. I really like the post processing. One image is a bride-window shot that I worked up for a client to match a photo taken of her mother when she was married. The flower girl-ring bearer shot was pretty popular and should be published soon. The other bride-window shot was meant to be more of a modeling pose, but the location and timing did not allow me to find a better setting.

Kilchurn Castle watercolor

Another in the series of castle photos that are being turned into digital watercolor paintings. This is Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe, near Inverary, as seen from the south across the lake. Like Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, this castle lies in ruins, having been abandoned in 1760. It was a Campbell stronghold from the 1500s until about 1690 when Fort William was established by the government as the main barracks for troops in the area.

I used basically the same technique to convert the photo to the digital painting, although due to the different colors in each shot, some adjustment in the process is required to obtain a pleasing effect.

Loch Castle

Another image to art conversion. This photo was taken out of the car window while driving by at about 60 mph. It's just a snapshot, and not a very good one at that. But after some rotation and cropping and special treatment, it turns into something nicer. Check out the larger version on the flickr page.

Duart Castle Digital Watercolor

The lower image is a digital watercolor of a photograph of Duart Castle, on the island of Mull in Scotland. It was cropped from the larger image (top) that was pretty washed out due to my having to shoot into the sun from the deck of the ferry to Craignure. I played around with it a lot trying to save the colors, but I just couldn't get enough contrast without ruining the photo, so I decided to convert it into a painting instead. I was trying to achieve that look of an old painting that you sometimes see in an art book or something. Don't know if I succeeded or not, but I like the final result.

Barak Obama wearing a kilt

Is something you will probably never see, but look here for another story featuring men in dresses.

Grandfather mountain games

See the blog on New River Journal and some pics on Flickr for info about the Highland Games this past weekend.