original photo

This is the original photo

punching up photos

Did you ever wonder why some photos just don't seem to have the same crispness and balance of color saturation and contrast that you remember in the original scene? Digital photos often suffer from a sort of built-in compression in comparison to the old color slide films. But it is possible to restore the photos so the remembered scene through some judicious post-processing. The photo here, which is also featured on the flickr page, has been restored to reality through a multiple layer process that increases contrast and bumps up the dynamic range. I don't have the original on hand, but I will post it as soon as I can.

Local Event Photography

Local festivals are great spots to capture some interesting candid photos. These shots were taken at a local pumpkin festival in Riner, Virginia. The fall colors are great for photography.

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.