The Old Swimming Hole

[FootLoose]

Inspired by Daisy Mae

[ShaneS]

Very nice! I think that you captured the perfect amount of movement in this shot. In theory this type of shot seems easy but I know well how difficult it can be so well done

Not sure if you used a texture of some sort on this Greg but if you did I wonder if you could lessen the watermark effect that is to the left and just below the uppermost figure and above the lower figure.

For some reason I can't shake thoughts on the bible on this one...and that's coming from someone who is not particularly religious.

[AB26]

[bnnrcn]

This is wonderful Greg Did you shoot this or did you do it with PP ?

[thegman]

Hi Greg, I'm at the start of my photography journey and this title and shot have left me lost. What is the story?

[Brownbear]

Hi Greg,

Lovely image especially for the story. It also reminds me of Biblical stories/scenes from old epic movies. The colours/tones are beautiful and I love that I am able to discern what is happening in the image, and the way the light falls on the climbers white robes.

For some reason I think I would like it with a just a very wee bit cropped off of the bottom and the right hand side just below the light on the first rock. I'm not sure why and it may just be because personal preference for the lighter portion of the image.

Anyhow I think it is a beautiful image.

[John 2]

I like that Greg. I also agree with Christina's crop. There is just a little too much space on the RHS for me but it is an imaginative idea.

[FootLoose]

Thank you everyone for commenting.

The three young people had apparently been swimming at an old rock pool located about 50m below where you see them. There are two means of access, neither of them easy but young people seem to prefer to climb this tortuous goat track up the cliff face.

I only noticed them off in the distance when they emerged from the shadows and the sun reflected off them. They immediately brought to mind the kind of biblical connotations that Shane and Christina mention. I had been watching the fisherman in the other photo I posted but quickly zoomed in and tried to frame them while panning their ascent. This resulted in some motion blur in the figures but not quite as much as I would have liked so I enhanced it slightly in pp. (Sorry Shane.) The upper two figures have towels draped over them but the lower one only has a bikini.

Apart from the figures there was nothing of much interest in the rest of the scene at that stage, so I converted it to mono and then decided to add a texture to see if that made any difference. To my surprise, the texture brought out just enough structure for me to start seeing faces in the background rocks and scrub. The texture is in colour so that is why you can see that brownish stain across it. I quite liked that at first, as it reminded me of fog. But looking it now, it does seem a bit messy.

On a personal level, those faces took me back to a couple of the bush swimming holes of my early childhood. Great places in broad daylight but at the end of the day when we were going home, the late afternoon shadows would populate the bush with ghosts and monsters.

As well, this crop also summons recollections of Picnic at Hanging Rock, perhaps because of the way the upper figure starts to vanish into the background here. That affect came about as I played with the opacity slider to blend the texture in. But also their poses recall the young women in that movie wandering up the bush track and disappearing.

Gerry: Shane is referring to a technique that she and I and a few others here are interested in called Intentional Camera Movement or ICM. Shane has a thread here with some remarkable images but I have lost my link to it. (Perhaps you could post it here Shane?) You could also look at the contribution of another member here, Daisy Mae's (Sharon) whose work I greatly admire to see what has inspired me.

This is the first time I have posted my attempt at this kind of processing, and I am very pleased that you like it.


PS Andre, you are too verbose, mate.

[Stagecoach]

I admire the artistic interpretation of this image Greg, I did not fully understand the title when I first saw it but then again it does not really need a title to make you use your imagination.

Grahame

[ShaneS]

Greg;

No need to be sorry...it's an art not a science with images like these I can't wait to see what you decide about the texture and crop.

Here is the link to the ICM thread that you requested: Intentional Camera Movement Technique (Open Thread)

[FootLoose]

Thanks Grahame. This kind of treatment is really pushing my photoshop skills to the limit.

I tried several different ways to lighten the water stain but none were satisfactory, so I removed the texture image and lightened that, then re-applied it. The overall result is a bit different in colour.

I have also applied the suggest crop. It may be a little too much off the rhs now but I like the tighter frame at the bottom. Although I think I preferred that lower rhs corner to be darker.

Shane, thanks for that link again.

[ShaneS]

Greg,

I liked the tones that you had in the first image and feel like they gave the image depth. I think that you are right about the crop so maybe something in between?

You said that you removed the texture image and lightened it then added it back. In my limited work with textures I have found that you can use the clone and heal tools on the texture layer to remove/edit troublesome areas while still retaining the overall look and feel. This would allow you the freedom to remove the 'water' stain and leave the rest intact. You can also vary the opacity of the layer to suit.

[FootLoose]

Aahhh... Thanks for the tip, Shane. I hadn't thought of cloning on the original texture image. I tried the opacity slider but that affected all of the colours and transparency. Then tried hue but again that affected all colours.... Anyway, this looks a bit better, although not quite the same as the first version. I must have made a few other tweaks along the way that I can't recall now. Still, a valuable learning experience.

[ShaneS]

Greg...you got me thinking that since the texture was, well, a texture, and the image was intended to show that why not just use the heal tool on the original image that you posted. While I was at it I tried a different crop.



Let me know if you want me to remove the edit.

PS - Looks like I could have worked on the dark spots in the upper right a bit more but you get the idea.

[FootLoose]

That is an elegant solution, Shane. But I see from your edit that we were talking about two different things I have been trying to remove the brownish tinge (which looks like a water stain to me) but you were looking at the exposed rock slab on the left. No worries.

I'm sure I would clone that out entirely but I agree with the idea of making it less prominent. I will have to leave this for now though, my eyes have had enough, but I will return to it tomorrow.

[FootLoose]

Bare spot to the left and dark spots to the right removed using a combination of dodging and cloning tools.

I want to leave the 'crack' on the right below the path because it signals something about the riskiness of the track they are on.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the way this has turned out. The more I look at it, the more figures and 'symbols' I see in it (probably just my imagination). This could become a wall-hanger for me.

[Brownbear]

The more I look at this image the more I love it! It's dark, moody and mysterious but intriguingly beautiful.

Bare spot to the left and dark spots to the right removed using a combination of dodging and cloning tools.

I want to leave the 'crack' on the right below the path because it signals something about the riskiness of the track they are on.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the way this has turned out. The more I look at it, the more figures and 'symbols' I see in it (probably just my imagination). This could become a wall-hanger for me.

[ShaneS]

Nice work Greg. Why not print it and see how it looks on paper? That is always a revelation for me and I don't do it often enough.

[FootLoose]

As a matter of fact, I attempted to print it yesterday afternoon, Shane. Printing any picture is a challenge for me but it didn't turn out too bad. First was extremely dark so I had to play with brightness and contrast etc. Printing is the next major area of this hobby that I need to tackle now that I have plunged into Photoshop. Probably need to buy a decent printer too.

[ShaneS]

Greg;

I'm not sure if you have Costco down under but my local one does a decent job of printing and at a very reasonable cost. They will also reprint for free under certain circumstances and offer color profiles so the colors appear right. I have not ventures into 'fine art printing' yet as I'm not confident enough to shell out that kind of money. My next investment in Spyder or something similar so that I can be more confident with color images.