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Directed Abstracts

After my Thanksgiving Day abstract session I went out for another walk for abstracts. This time I tried to learn from my many mistakes (which you will never see!) and decided to do some more directed abstracts. What do I mean by directed? Images that are more recognizable, but still very impressionistic and abstract. My favorites are of many of the birch trees along my walk, like this one:

Birch Branch Impression

The branch point was high enough that I got a god amount of blue light from the sky in the shot. The branches are quite blurred, but still identifiable. The blur from the camera views like wide brush strokes.

I did others in the birch series at a lower angle, so they have a greener character, like this:

Birch Branches, Green Grass, Blue Sky

And this one:

Tall Birch, Green Grass

I still looked for bigger subjects to get abstracts from, but, again, tried to be more directed. This was a lot harder and I threw away a lot of shots. The results are worth the effort, though. Here is an example:

Yellow Trees Painting Blue Sky

As in my last post, all of these effects were done in camera by controlling the exposure so that I had enough time to move the camera. I shot at a longer focal length with a polarizer and a tight aperture. Pay attention to your histogram to check your exposure.

Let me know what you think, unless you do not like them. OK, OK, even if you do not like them.

Abstract Photography

I tend to look for full landscapes with my photographic eye. I like a nice foreground if I can get it, but the middle and especially distant view is what I really look for. I have shot some abstract images in the past, but they have been abstract only in the sense of not really being able to identify the subject, like this:

Sand at Canon Beach

If I did not title it as being sand, you may not know what it is without some study. Here is another:

Aquarium Reflection #3

That one is more obviously water, but still abstract.

One element in common between these images is that they are in focus, straight shots of something. Today I tried something different, inspired by the likes of Dewitt Jones and William Neill. As I was walking my dog through my neighborhood on this bright, sunny, cold Thanksgiving day, I carried my camera along and took some Impressions of Light (I like your title, William).

To get impressionistic abstracts I needed a longer shutter speed, so I first used my circular polarizer filter. I set the aperture down tight to get less light. I also tried to use a longer focal length to limit the light. With my camera set, off I walked, shooting away. I paid careful attention to my review screen to learn as I went. I found that moving the camera in a motion opposite of natural lines created a more flat, uniform image. Moving with natural lines created, well, natural lines. Moving slightly off the natural lines is quite interesting. Enough talk, though. Here are a few I liked:

Blanket of Fall Trees

Fall Trees and Blue Sky

Red Branch Textured

To see all of my abstracts, visit my Abstract Gallery. To see all of my images from today's walk, do a search on my site.

Now you have no excuse to not go out and capture images. Or, perhaps, yet another excuse to go out and capture images!

Black and White Conversion

In digital SLR photography full color images can be converted to black and white fairly easily and with pleasing results, especially if shot in RAW. At times the exposure would be different for black and white than color, but this is yet another reason to shoot in RAW. Most if not all of the conversion can take place in the RAW converter. I use the Adobe RAW converter right in Bridge or Photoshop.

Here is an image I took in Hawaii that has vibrant color and a wide tonal range.

Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, Waves Breaking

The RAW settings for this shot are fairly straightforward:

Color RAW Settings

I could simply convert this image to grayscale, but that usually produces flat and uninteresting results. Here is the above image simply converted:

Simple Grayscale Conversion

Look at the difference, though, when the RAW converter is used to convert to black and white in a controlled manner:

Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, Waves Breaking, Black and White

Here are the RAW settings:

Black and White RAW Settings

Black and White RAW Grayscale Settings

Now I know that somebody out there is going to say, "I like the simple conversion better." Well, that is wonderful, but with the simple conversion you had better like it because that is all you can get. With a controlled conversion in the RAW converter you have complete control.

So the next time you are out shooting, try to look for tones instead of color and shoot for black and white. The results are rewarding.

Double Processing RAW - Another Example

For this shot, the foreground is well exposed, but when correctly processed the mountains are brightened and lose some detail, and the clouds, especially in the upper left region of the image, are blown out completely. The RAW file contains detail in both the foreground and the clouds, so this is a perfect candidate for double RAW processing. First, here is the image processed for the foreground:

Processed for Foreground

Going back to Adobe Bridge, I open the RAW file as an object in Photoshop, then add it as a layer on top of the foreground layer, as shown here:

Photoshop Layers

I rename the layer by appending "Background" to the object name so that I can keep track of which layer is which. As you can see, I added a layer mask to the background layer, but did so white, meaning that all of the background layer shows, but none of the foreground layer. I make a selection in the image around the areas I want in the foreground, feather the selection, and use Fill to fill that area of the layer mask with black, meaning that the foreground area will be shown and not the background. From here I clean up the layer mask with a brush, especially making sure that the interface is not noticeable. Ground or trees next to sky are particularly troublesome. It is better to have the ground edge a bit dark, with a feathered edge, than the sky edge bright. Look at the layer mask edge. It is definitely not straight. This exposure compression would be hard to accomplish with a neutral density gradient filter.

Below is the result. Note the increased detail in the background, especially the clouds.

Big Four Mountain from Mount Dickerman Trail

And that is it. Of course, RAW has a broader range than this, and one could conceivably triple process, but I have yet to try that. If the exposure range is that wide, perhaps you should think of using High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging or at least taking two different exposures using a tripod to capture an even wider exposure range.

Double Processing RAW

Many times in landscape photography the exposure range of a scene is beyond the capabilities of the film or sensor to capture. One common technique, put to tremendously successful use by photographer such as the late Galen Rowell, is split neutral density filters. These darken one part of the image, thus allowing the camera to record detail throughout the scene. The filters have some issues for me, though. Primarily, the split is a straight line, and the scenes I shoot rarely have an exposure difference that can be fixed with a straight line. This means that the image will have to be touched up in Photoshop after the fact to account for a meandering region of exposure difference. With digital capture using RAW, however, the RAW file can be double processed, once for the dark areas and once for the light areas, and the two overlayed. This works great as long as the RAW file contains detail across all of the exposure ranges you wish to capture. If the highlights are white or the shadows black, no detail can be recovered.

Double processing is very easy. First process the RAW file for either region. Here is a shot processed for the foreground:

Processed for Foreground

Next I processed the file for the background, darkening it slightly, and layered it on top of the foreground in Photoshop. I selected the foreground region, feathered the selection, and used the selection to add a layer mask to the background layer so that only the background parts of the background processed image show through.

Photoshop Layers

Putting the double processed images together like this results in an image with a better rendition of the exposure as how a human would see it.

Mount Dickerman Summit, Two Hikers

I admit that this is a mild case, but the technique is the same. Do not keep throwing away images because either the highlights are too bright or the shadows too dark. Shoot RAW and double process. If the exposure range is still to large, double shoot on a tripod.

Lugging Gear, Hiking Mountains

I went on a hike. This is nothing new nor is it out of the ordinary. I go on plenty of hikes (though never enough). Yesterday I went on a great hike. Mount Dickerman. I hiked this trail last year and got some great shots, but it is so beautiful that I had to go back.

Mount Dickerman with Distant Three Fingers View

The problem I have is that I have too much gear (well, not really - that is not possible) and do not want to carry it all up such a hike. So, my first decision was what to leave behind. As this was a hike with stunning views, I could leave my large, heavy macro lens behind. I might find some great macro subjects, but they would have to remain unphotographed. I also decided to leave my Tamron 28-300 behind. While it is possible to sight a large animal, like a bear, that would be sweet to shoot at 300mm (and definitely NOT at 28mm), I did not think this likely. Actually, another hiker that day saw and photographed two bears in the berry patches. I left the 28-300 behind. This left me with my Tamron 11-18, My Nikon 18-70, and assorted filters and cleaning supplies and extras. Then I packed my new Bogen 190XPROB tripod with its Acratech V2 Ballhead, water, and food into my fairly new Tamrac 5549 Adventure 9 backpack.

It was still quite heavy, but I would just have to buck up and carry it. While it would be nice to carry less and hike lighter, a photographer has to be prepared! It was worth it. I only have a couple of shots posted so far, but several more will follow. Here is one for the blog:

Mount Dickerman Cliff

Sure, today I am sore, but I would rather be sore with some photos than comfy and without. If you see me on the trails, be sure to say hello.