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Photo of the day: August 2012

Eurasian_Oystercatcher

madurodam-0028.jpg
 
dllavaneras said:
Fantastic shot! How early was this taken?
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Thanks, dllavaneras. It wasn't early at all: 8:45pm (sunset). :)

dllavaneras said:
Oh, the things we do for science and photography...

04Mosquito.jpg
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Whoa…am I correct in assuming that you subjected yourself to a mosquito bite for this photo? And if so…how did you manage to play victim and photographer at the same time?!

macnerd93 said:
Prior my trip I had spent quite a bit of time in Adobe Photoshop, coming up with my own technique to create the perfect cinematic effect. I call it my signature style and is one of my favourite photography types, even though its not yet recognised as a genre on its own.

Hopefully some day it will be

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I've seen a few threads on POTN regarding these "cinematic" photos, but I am at a loss to understand how they differ from the genre of street photography or from cityscapes. As far as I can tell, what these "cinematic" photos have in common is that they are all panoramic urban scenes presented with a border of black bars at top and bottom. A crop ratio and a border hardly constitute a genre, so what are the characteristics of a "cinematic" photo that should distinguish it as belonging to a distinct genre? Surely I must be missing something.


Doylem said:
Today at Easedale Tarn...

easedale.jpg
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I really like the simplicity of this one. That large rock catching light serves well as an anchor for the frame--a good example of how to promote an element of a landscape to the role of 'subject.'
 
Mine for today...



The focus is a little soft because I never bothered to double check my camera settings and so I shot this at 3200 ISO which resulted in quite a bit of noise which had to be removed with Lightroom.
 
St Paul's Cathedral

I love photographing London, suppose you've guessed by now LOL

Shot this on the day prior the Olympic Woman's Marathon on 04/08/12. St Paul's was apart of the route. Added a bit of colour enhancement using colour Efex Pro and this is the result.

Thanks for Looking


The Rear of St. Paul's by Ryan J. Nicholson, on Flickr
 
Phrasikleia said:
I've seen a few threads on POTN regarding these "cinematic" photos, but I am at a loss to understand how they differ from the genre of street photography or from cityscapes. As far as I can tell, what these "cinematic" photos have in common is that they are all panoramic urban scenes presented with a border of black bars at top and bottom. A crop ratio and a border hardly constitute a genre, so what are the characteristics of a "cinematic" photo that should distinguish it as belonging to a distinct genre? Surely I must be missing something.'
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Yeah you are missing something LOL.

Firstly I shoot at the widest angle possible with my lens to get an awesome wide angle scene. I then load the image into photoshop and totally transform the colour a standard image just wont do.

I first alter the aspect ratio to 16:9 to make it more like a widescreen movie. Then I desaturate it by about -60. After this I play about with the levels & curves I like darkish tones as it looks more cinematic. Then I alter the exposure and up it maybe by 1 or 2. From this I lower the offset by about 1 to get nice dark black areas. Next I change the colour Balance I tend to go for coldish blue or green colours, again I think it looks more like a screen grab from a motion picture. After this I duplicate the primary layer and add lens blur of about 14-19 depending on the sort of image. I then create a clipping mask and use the brush tool of about 2500-3500 size to erase out the sections I want in focus, leaving parts of the image slightly blurred.

The last things I do is create another layer and make it black, then overlay that and change the opacity down to about 25%. I create another clipping mask and give sections of the image slight lighter areas generally the parts what are in focus aka the primary subject in the photo.

Last stage is to add the black letter boxing along the top and bottom of the image. Its not simply just a case of a quick edit, it can take quite a bit of work to get one image to look convincing enough i've spent several months perfecting it, by combining different techniques and overall pretty pleased with my technique.

I think with the work and edit technique it should have credibility as its own genre especially in this digital age. You have to take into account stuff like crop factor in terms of whats gonna be left visible in the image when you add boarders and what not etc and whats going to be the key subject of the image etc. in the example below its the Shard Tower.

This was one of my first cinematic attempts, as you can see I got the aspect ratio slightly wrong, but I really love the tones and grain I added
City Hall: Cinematic Effect by Ryan J. Nicholson, on Flickr

You can have a look here at my growing Cinematic set on flickr if you're interested http://www.flickr.com/photos/macmad/sets/72157629512142706/
 
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macnerd93 said:
Its not simply just a case of a quick edit, it can take quite a bit of work to get one image to look convincing enough i've spent several months perfecting it, by combining different techniques and overall pretty pleased with my technique.
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I didn't know you'd perfected the technique... but I do now... ;)
 
macnerd93 said:
Yeah you are missing something LOL.

This was one of my first cinematic attempts, as you can see I got the aspect ratio slightly wrong, but I really love the tones and grain I added

You can have a look here at my growing Cinematic set on flickr if you're interested http://www.flickr.com/photos/macmad/sets/72157629512142706/
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I think I'm missing something, too. That's an awful lot of work to end up with a grainy, washed-out, desaturated, blurry image. Also, a 16:9 frame would not have black bars on a 16:9 HDTV.

Your shot of St. Paul's, not subjected to this technique, is beautiful.
 
FlailingAround said:
I think I'm missing something, too. That's an awful lot of work to end up with a grainy, washed-out, desaturated, blurry image. Also, a 16:9 frame would not have black bars on a 16:9 HDTV.

Your shot of St. Paul's, not subjected to this technique, is beautiful.
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I just meant the aspect ratio in terms of the widescreen. I have a 50" tv in my lounge and 95% of films I watch on it have black bars at the top and bottom. HD footage is of course fine though

Thanks for the comments on St Paul's :)
 
Phrasikleia said:
Thanks, dllavaneras. It wasn't early at all: 8:45pm (sunset). :)
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Sunset? Haha, by 8:45pm everything is dark around here, and has been for quite a while. It's great that you have such spectacular views for so many hours!

Phrasikleia said:
Whoa…am I correct in assuming that you subjected yourself to a mosquito bite for this photo? And if so…how did you manage to play victim and photographer at the same time?!
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You'd be correct, yes. I was shooting a broad-nosed weevil when I saw the mosquito land on my inner forearm. I already had everything set to shoot it, so I quickly took the shot before she got away. Since it was fairly close to my wrist, I had no problem placing the camera in front of it to photograph it (working distance at that magnification is about 10 cm).
---
This is a crested stick insect (Creoxylus sp.) found during a midnight hike while surveying insect diversity in a cloudy rainforest.

15Phasmatodea.jpg
 


This was shot at a wildlife park/zoo near the city of Puebla, in Mexico. I'm debating wether I should print it or not...
 
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