Project 52 by Kris Harmon

[KHarmon]

Well, this is my first post....week #1. I could have probably picked a better day to shoot. No clouds,sunny, absolutely no character to the sky.

Photo 1, week 1

My thoughts in this first week of my Project 52 was to share a little about the area I live in. The Keystone Hotel, built in 1870, was a bustling place to stay in the days of the railroad era. The Santa Fe train depot is right across the street.

In all honesty, I couldn't find what I thought was an interesting angle to shoot this building. C&C is welcome.


002 -1 by KHarmon1971, on Flickr



The Court House bell tower. I figured that since this was memorial day weekend, fitting the nations flag into a picture of this historic tower was in order.


Courthouse by KHarmon1971, on Flickr



This one, photo 3, week 1 is one that I will just simply call "Forgotten". From the oldest cemetery in Lampasas, it has sadly fallen into a state of disrepair.


Headstone by KHarmon1971, on Flickr

[Donald]

Kris -- Good on you for jumping into Project 52. I hope you've maybe seen soem of the stuff that people have been doing in their threads so far. It's been great to follow.

I think it's good to do a project like this in your local community. It makes you look at things more closely than perhaps you've done in the past.

I like the first one, but that aluminium post at the front left and then that horizontal structure exiting left out the frame, are a bit of a distraction. You should have a look at what Frank's (FrankMi) has been doing with cloning in his Project 52 thread.

On the second one - although some compositions get away with it, I wonder if this one does need a perspective correction to straighten up the flagpole and the building?

And, then, the third one. I don't know if you've read the tutorial on CiC about Local Contrast Enhancement and whether you are able to apply that. Again, I wonder if that would help here by making the lettering 'pop' a bit more.

[KHarmon]

Thanks Donald. I just down loaded my Corel Paitshop to the computer that I have here and the crops and edits above were quick fixes. I will work more on them tonight.

Don't know what experience you have with Corel, but I tried to figure out how to straighten the horizon on the court house and flag pole and I'm not sure how to accomplish it. Any help you or anyone else could provide on how to do it in Paintshop is greatly appreciated.

KHarmon

[Geoff F]

My first thoughts were the same as Donald. I do like to see flagposts, and similar items, absolutely vertical. The exposure and focus are excellent.

With the last one, I wonder if cropping very slightly closer at the top and left side would help. Not excessively tight though.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Kris,

I quite like the angle you shot the building in the first one - although I wouldn't have included the white car port/awning structure (crop off) and I'd clone out the silver pole on left too.

#2 I want to see more, it feels like a portrait with the chin cropped off - incomplete.

#3 I might have tried a lower angle - if I could get away without a horridly busy background (i.e. might not have been possible) - as it stands (well, just ), I'd lose the bright bit in the lower right corner by re framing (when shooting) or cloning out (in PP).

Hope that helps,

[KHarmon]

I believe I got the straightening tool figured out. Let me know if this is a little better.

Courthouse by KHarmon1971, on Flickr

as opposed to the original.....

Courthouse by KHarmon1971, on Flickr

KHarmon

[FrankMi]

I believe I got the straightening tool figured out.

I believe you do Kris!

This brings up a good point. Sometimes it is better to leave a bit of room around what you see as the composition, particularly when the camera needs to be tilted up or down to get the subject (as this will introduce some Keystone perspective to the image).

The extra space will give you some room to play with straightening out the image in post processing and still not clip the edges of your composition.

[KHarmon]

I believe you do Kris!

This brings up a good point. Sometimes it is better to leave a bit of room around what you see as the composition, particularly when the camera needs to be tilted up or down to get the subject (as this will introduce some Keystone perspective to the image).

The extra space will give you some room to play with straightening out the image in post processing and still not clip the edges of your composition.

Thank you. I still have the original RAW file that I am going to work with some more as time allows. Post processing, among my many other weak points, is by far my weakest. I am committed to getting better at all phases of digital photography and post processing but it will be a time consuming task.

KHarmon

[KHarmon]

Week #2 brought me back to the Keystone Hotel. It was an incredibly busy end of May for us at the car dealership I work for and I was unable to get to the place that I intended to do for week 2.

This is an HDR attempt. Let me know if this works for you or if I'm going entirely in the wrong direction. I bought a book on digital photography this week and will start practicing and employing what I learn from there and from here in the coming weeks.

KHarmon


053_2_4_Localtone by KHarmon1971, on Flickr

[Donald]

Kris - When you say 'HDR' what is it you're meaning. HDR is the bringing together of two or more images exposed at different settings in order to cope with a high dynamic range that cannot be captured in one frame. Is that what you did here?

I ask, because it seems to me that this may in fact maybe one shot to which is applied extreme tone-mapping. Apologies if I have this wrong, but some people conflate the terms and use one when they actually mean the other. The use of 'HDR' has got very badly mis-used.

Now I don't mind what people call things, but it does make for confusion when one word that has a particular meaning is used to describe something that is quite different.

I have to confess to not being a fan of this heavily tone-mapped look. I just don't get the appeal of it. But that is just me. many folk do like it.

On this particular image, my question would be whether those trees at the right hand side are adding anything to the image or are, in fact, detracting from it by pulling attention over there?

[Donald]

Kris - When you say 'HDR' what is it you're meaning. HDR is the bringing together of two or more images exposed at different settings in order to cope with a high dynamic range that cannot be captured in one frame. Is that what you did here?

I ask, because it seems to me that this may in fact maybe one shot to which is applied extreme tone-mapping. Apologies if I have this wrong, but some people conflate and/or confuse the terms and use one when they actually mean the other. The use of 'HDR' has got very badly mis-used.

Now I don't mind what people call things, but it does make for confusion when one word that has a particular meaning is used to describe something that is quite different.

I have to confess to not being a fan of this heavily tone-mapped look. I just don't get the appeal of it. But that is just me. many folk do like it.

On this particular image, my question would be whether those trees at the right hand side are adding anything to the image or are, in fact, detracting from it by pulling attention over there?

[KHarmon]

It is 3 images stacked and then I did some processing. Tone mapped and a high pass sharpen. The software gave me an option of 6 different configurations for the photo and this is the one I picked. I wanted an effect that showed "age" I guess you might say.

KHarmon

[FrankMi]

Hi Kris! Tonemapping tends to create overly intense, almost electric looking, foliage. Everything else in the image looks reasonably well muted but as Donald points out, the trees are pulling the eye as they are the most vibrant object in the scene.

If you simply crop them out you may find that the image looks off balance. What you might want to try is to use a Layer Mask to blend back in some of the original tree from the normal exposure. That should tone down the intensity and allow the tree to fit in with the tone of the rest of the image.

It looks like you did a fine job controlling the other common issues that tonemapping can create such as a black sky and halos between the sky and the horizon.

If your goal with tonemapping is to be able to give the image a particular look, you may want to take this image into the free trial version of Topaz Adjust. You might just be amazed at what is possible without having to deal with the issues of tonemapping for cases where you don't necessarily have an extremely high contrast scene. Hope this helps!

[KHarmon]

I just did a quick edit of this one. It is a mural on the wall of a boot shop that is less than a block from the hotel. Ran into issues trying to take a picture of this wall facing it head on. There is a privacy fence next to the alley you see at the base of the wall that wouldn't allow me to get a full view of the wall even at 17mm.


Boots wall by KHarmon1971, on Flickr

[KHarmon]

Week #3 of Project 52. Was out in the yard with the kids and had my camera and nifty 50. Got my daughter to slow down long enough to catch this one. Converted to B&W just for something a little different.


Maci Black and white by KHarmon1971, on Flickr

KHarmon

[Geoff F]

A good expression there, Kris, and sharp without being overly crisp which gives a natural look.

Possibly the background highlights could be toned down a bit with an adjustment layer and mask to selectively apply the effect. But they aren't far out and this monitor isn't good for highlights.

[KHarmon]

Week Four found me at the Round Rock Express vs. Oklahoma City Red Hawks game in Round Rock. I'm not sure about this picture. I was being forced to shoot at ISO 800 because I couldn't use flash photography behind the plate and I'm not sure I have enough flash to make a difference.

The treat of the evening was getting to watch Roy Oswalt pitch 6.0 innings, giving up two runs with only one walk.


059 -1 by KHarmon1971, on Flickr
KHarmon

[KHarmon]

I have missed a couple of weeks. Just have not had the time to get out and shoot, so I'm going to post weeks five and six here.

First, a black and white conversion that I attempted from the baseball game that I shot for week 4. Tell me if this conversion works.


056 -1 by KHarmon1971, on Flickr

And this is from the fire works we shot off tonight. My 12 year old son ran the fireworks and I ran the camera;

fireworks8 by KHarmon1971, on Flickr

KHarmon

[KHarmon]

Still wondering about the B&W conversion. Anybody????

[Geoff F]

It's not really working for me. Not really your fault though.

After conversion there are some areas which end up with almost the same shade of grey. Particularly the clothing and strip of ground so everything merges together there.

You may be able to get around this by changing the hue before conversion so these areas finish up with more contrast between them. The hue change may need to be applied selectively using layers and masks if too much of the original colours get affected.

How are you converting? I find that sometimes when using the Channel Mixer method I can insert a Hue/Sat layer below the Channel Mixer layer and adjust that until I get a suitable result.

Using the multiple colour sliders which are available in a few more modern programmes will give greater control; but can be a little more difficult to use.

However, in this particular image, there is such a large area of blurred foreground (a head?) which is totally in the wrong position, so I don't think I would bother with it anyway.

It is a pity, and not your fault; but it does ruin the shot for me.