New York - Brooklyn Bridge

new york - brooklyn bridge, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Brooklyn Bridge. Spur-of-the-moment shot on Brooklyn Bridge. I loved the lamp post, so I placed it one third in from the right using the rule of thirds. This enable me to capture the backdrop of the skyscrapers. The white line on the bridge leads our eye into the picture and the pedestrians. It may be that this shot could be improved by turning it into a portrait shot by cropping the image just to the left of the two big skyscrapers in the far background just to the left of the lamp post, and deleting this left half of the picture - this would serve to focus attention on the walkway and pedestrians.

New York - Skyline and Brooklyn Bridge

new york - skyline and brooklyn bridge, originally uploaded by foto-art.

New York Skyline. A classic shot taken from the Queen Mary II as it sets sail. the use of Auto Contrast in Image/Adjust in Photoshop was the only modification to this image. notice again the rule of thirds: the horizon is one third up from the bottom, giving two-thirds sky and a resulting sense of space. The yellow boat is a crucial element, helping to break up the expanse of water, again, about one third in from the left.

Queen Mary 2

Queen Mary 2, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Pool on Queen Mary II. More my usual sort of style: fairly minimalist with lots of geometric lines creating a slight sense of the abstract. The two pillars with the circle of lights on top is the main element, placed one third from the left with the lights about one third to a quarter down. the solitary anonymous figure between the pillars, and the wet footprints add a sense of mystery. The lines on the deck stops the eye from moving out of the picture, and guides it to the wake of the ship. This shot was not modified in any way.

Dove Dale and the river Dove

Dove Dale, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Dovedale, near Ashbourne in Derbyshire. This area is very popular with walkers though it is quieter during the week when this shot was taken. This is a conventional shot using an 18mm wide angle lens on a 35mm camera. In Photoshop, the image was rotated slightly to level the horizon and water. Here the river Dove leads the eye into the picture from the bottom left hand corner, but as the river turns, it stops the eye from moving out of the picture to the right and leads it back to the main element, the tree, placed about one third in from the left. Although a pleasant enough shot, it is a bit too bland and conventional for me.

Global warming

Photomontage of four elements: The sky, the lighthouse, the walker and the naked body. I like the use of a naked body to create a landscape...to create something a little abstract from the human form. A tanned body colour can certainly begin to look like sand. It can be enhanced using an 85b Orange filter, and of course, further enhanced in Photoshop using Image/Adjust/Hue-Saturation and increasing the saturation slider control. using the camera flash for this kind of image is not much use...it is frontal lighting that gives no texture, but rather produces a flat looking image. This means either taking these shots outside or using a studio light or flash to the side. When doing a montage like this it is important to maintain the direction of light. The original lighthouse image has been flipped horizontally in Image/Adjust/Rotate Image, so that the shadow falls on the left, as it does on the body/landscape. If there was a sun in the sky, it would have to be on the right of the picture.

Avenue of trees

Avenue of trees, originally uploaded by foto-art.

An avenue of trees in September on the Rode Hall Estate in South Cheshire. The road of course just leads the eye into the picture. Although in terms of left and right, the road cuts the picture in two by being in the centre, the focal point, the end of the road, is placed one third up from the bottom. This helps to give a sense of space and formality. Standing to the side so that the road came into the picture more from one side or the other did not look as effective...the formality of the composition was lost.

Southport couple

Southport couple, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Opportunistic shot of this couple on the sea wall at Southport. Another minimalistic shot that just caught my eye. All the elements are important: the wall, the fence, the curve of the road, the yellow road beacon, and of course the couple. Because the man is leaning towards his wife, there is a slight sense of urgency, of action in this picture, which helps to make it for me. The main element, the couple, are placed one third in from the right and the horizon is one third up from the bottom. The yellow beacon acts as a counterpoint to the couple and stops the curve of the road from leading the eye out of the picture to the left.

malta boat sunrise

malta boat sunset, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Early morning boat ride. A contre-jour or into the light image. The automatic exposure based on the camera light meter reading was used for this shot. Care has to be taken that points of interest, in this case the boat, do not go too far into the shadow or dark areas of the picture. This sort of image depends upon strong shapes.

Malta hotel sunbeds

Malta hotel sunbeds, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Early morning shot of hotel sunbeds. It was the symmetry and colour that caught my eye here on an early morning walk around the hotel grounds. Notice again that the focal point, the point where the sunbeds disappear into the distance, makes use of the principle and proportion of thirds. It is also important when taking this sort of shot to get it as 'square' as possible, that is, to make sure that verticals are truly vertical and that the horizon does not 'slope' at an angle.

Malta hotel sunbeds 2

malta hotel sunbeds 2, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Contre-Jour shot of hotel sunbeds. I love into-the-light or contre-jour images. I guess they have a similarity to the minimalist images eleswhere on this blog. Contre-jour images tend, like minimalist shots, to be simple and uncluttered, but whereas in minimalist shots, use might be made of bold colour, in contre-jour shots, use is made of bold shapes, which are usually silhouettes. It can be quite useful to obscure the sun in these kinds of images, as I have here by hiding it behind a flagpole. Nothing else was done with this image, it was taken using the camera meter reading as it was.

Southport beach - minimalist shot

Southport beach, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Minimalist shot of Southport beach, Lancashire, England. Once again, I just love the emptiness and simplicity of these sorts of images. Notice again the principle of thirds: the horizon in one third up the frame, and the flagpole and person are each one third in from the sides. Convention is broken slightly by having the person walking out of the frame instead of into the centre of the picture. Knowing rules of composition and then breaking them slightly adds interest to the picture. Which do you think is more interesting, or looks more correct: the person walking out of the frame as they are now, or walking the other way, into the centre of the picture? Why do you have one preference over another?

Malta

malta, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Hotel balcony in Malta. Another of my favourite style of minimalist pictures. Here again I am using the principle of thirds to divide up the shot. What I like about this picture is it's near abstract geometric quality and the balance of colour with the blue sky being balanced out by the blue in the wall and the colour of the clouds being also balanced by the ivory colour of the wall. I also like the way the straight lines of the wall are counterpointed by the curves of the globe light (the main focal point) and the bowl. The only after-treatment to this shot was a little cleaning up in Photoshop using pixel cloning to remove the odd blemish on the wall and floor, and an increase of colour saturation in Image/Adjust/Hue-Saturation.

LIGHTHOUSE 1

LIGHTHOUSE 1, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Lighthouse at Talacre beach, North Wales, U.K. A minimalist shot making use of the rule of thirds. The column of the lighthouse is about one third from the right of the frame. The other point of focus is the red top to the lighthouse, which is about one third down from the top frame. The shape is simple and bold and the colour saturation has been increased also.

LIGHTHOUSE 4

LIGHTHOUSE 4, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Lighthouse at Talacre beach, North Wales, U.K. When using a wide angle lens, the depth of field is usually quite deep: items are in focus from about one or two feet to infinity. This can be capitialised on by having smaller items of interest placed prominently in the foreground to counterpoint a more distant item. In this case, the remains of a small concrete structure partly buried on the beach counterpoints the distant lighthouse. Notice that the horizon is not in the middle of the frame: this is a common mistake and serves only to divide the picture in two. Using the rule of thirds, the horizon has be placed on the lower third to maintain a feeling of space.

LIGHTHOUSE 2 - tutorial

LIGHTHOUSE 2, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Lighthouse at Talacre beach, North Wales. Another minimalist shot using the rule of thirds. The horizon is placed on the bottom third to maintain a feeling of spaciousness...there is twice as much sky as land. The wide angle lens enables the use of the foreground rocks to lead the eye into the picture from the bottom right of the frame to the line of the vertical third from the left. The lighthouse is slightly more than a third in from the left: it is not in the middle - this would split the picture in two. But it is not on the third because it competes with the figures on the beach. Thus the end of the rocks at one third from the left, lead the eye into the picture to both the people and the lighthouse, the average point of interest between them being at about one third from the left. Auto contrast and colour saturation in Photoshop were used to further enhance this picture.

The pleasure of martyrs - Photoshop Tutorial

The pleasure of martyrs, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Photoshop tutorial: The pleasure of martyrs – photomontage: how was it done?

The aim was to create an incongruent mix of themes of death and eroticism. Three basic images were used: The mausoleum, the girl and the angels. The mausoleum is the basic element, a slightly creepy building in a cemetery, but any psuedo gothic building would have a similar effect. The original was taken in colour. This file was opened and the Rectangular Marquee Tool was used to surround the whole image (using click and drag from the top left hand corner) which was then copied using Edit/Copy. Then I went to File/New and set it to transparent background and then created a new file. (This will appear with a checkboard pattern.) It will have the same size and resolution as the copied file. I then went to Edit and clicked on Paste and the image will now appear on your new file. To increase the austere theme of death, I wanted this image in black and white, but I wanted the doorway (symbolizing the doorway to the erotic virgins promised to martyrs) to be in colour, to help retain a warm, erotic feel. Using the rectangular marquee tool, a rectangle was drawn around the doorway to the mausoleum from the top left hand corner. Then using Edit/Cut, the doorway was removed revealing the checkboard pattern underneath. Then I clicked on Image/Mode/Greyscale to turn this colour image of the mausoleum to black and white. I then saved this image as a photoshop file under a new name. I closed this file and then opened it again, and clicked on Image/Mode/RGBColor. This returned the image to a colour image, though in appearance it remained black and white. Then I clicked on Edit/Paste and the coloured doorway of the mausoleum was pasted back into the black and white image of the mausoleum. If it did not paste into the right position, then I used the Move Tool to position it correctly. The original mausoleum image had two closed doors, so using the Rectangular Marquee Tool I drew a rectangle around the left hand door and went into Edit/Cut to remove it, again showing the transparent checkboard pattern. I saved this file as a photoshop file.

Next I got the image of the girl. I drew around the whole image using the Rectangular Marquee tool and went to Edit/Copy. I clicked on the Mausoleum image and went into Edit/Paste, to copy the girl onto this image. The size was not correct. I went into Edit/Undo to remove the image of the girl. I clicked on the original file of the girl again and went into Image/Size. I made sure that the constrain proportions box was ticked, and entered a new size in the width box. (The height changes automatically). I repeated the copy and paste procedure above to see if the size was correct. If not I went to Edit/Undo and repeated the sizing and pasting procedure until I was happy with the result.

I clicked on the Mausoleum image, surrounded it using the Rectangular/Marquee tool and clicked on Edit/Copy. Then I went to File/New and set to white background and then created a new file. It will have the same size and resolution as the copied file. I then clicked on the file of the girl, surrounded the image using the Rectangular Marquee tool, and clicked on Edit/Copy. I then clicked on the new blank file and clicked on Edit/Paste. The image of the girl now appeared in the centre of this file. Then I clicked on the Mausoleum file, (which should still have the rectangular marquee dotted line around it) and clicked on Edit/Copy. I then clicked on the New File of the girl and clicked on Edit/Paste. The Mausoleum image then sits on top of the girl on a new layer. I then went to the Layers box on the right hand side and clicked on the layer with the girl. I then used the Move Tool to position the girl in the transparent doorway. When I was happy with the image and its positioning, I saved the file as a photoshop file under a new name.

I then went to the image of the angel. I wanted to make this more erotic, so I got a picture of a topless woman who was posing in roughly the same position and angle as the shot of the angel. Using a similar procedure to that described above, I got the two images to match in size. I then went to the image of the topless woman, and using the erase tool, removed all the image but the breasts. I created a soft edge by altering the opacity of the erase tool in a series of brush strokes down to 5%. The shape of the breasts were retained but the image vignetted out to the neck and lower chest. The image was changed to black and white using the procedure described above. The image of the angel was clicked on and this too was turned to black and white. I surrounded this image by clicking and dragging a Rectangular box using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I clicked on File/New and opened a new file with a transparent background. The image of the angel was pasted in using Edit/Paste. Using the Magic Wand, all background image from the angel was removed, leaving just the Angel on a transparent background.

I clicked on the image of the breasts and increased the contrast slightly using Image/Adjust/BrightnessContrast. I surrounded this image by clicking and dragging a Rectangular box using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I clicked on File/New and opened a new file with a transparent background. I clicked on Edit/Copy and the breasts appeared on this new file. Using the Magic wand, the white background was removed leaving the breasts surrounded by a transparent background. I surrounded this image by clicking and dragging a Rectangular box using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I clicked on Edit/Copy and then clicked on the New Angel image and clicked on Edit/Paste. The breasts appeared in a new layer on top of the angel. Using the Move Tool, I positioned the breasts into the correct place. Then in the Layers Box, with the breasts layer active, I reduced the opacity of the breasts layer to about 45%. Then I clicked on the Angel layer and pixel cloned the dress of the angel to the shape of the breasts. When I was happy with the image, I saved it as a photoshop file.

I clicked and dragged a rectangle around the new angel file using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I clicked on Edit/Copy. Then I clicked on the new Mausoleum/girl file and clicked on Edit/Paste. The angel appears on top, or in the foreground of the Mausoleum. Any size differences were corrected as described earlier. Once the size of the angel image was correct, it was saved. The image was then pasted and positioned on one side of the mausoleum/girl image, then the angel was flipped horizontally in Image/RotateCanvas/Flip Horizontally, and copied and pasted again on the other side of the mausoleum/girl image.

When I was happy with the whole image and the position of all the elements, then the mausoleum/girl/angel file was saved as a JPEG file. (All layers are now lost by merging and individual elements can no longer be moved). Finally, this JPEG file was opened for fine detail retouching of edges and so on before being saved as a final file.